title: ELO rating and experience

text:
# Question
Title: ELO rating and experience
I was looking at many players' ELO over time graphs and noticed something interesting. Usually players stay in the same 200-300 bracket through very long periods of time (I'm talking decades here) despite staying active and playing. My intuition would be that experience would have some positive correlation with ELO but it looks like it's not the case. I know many research has been done on this topic but I have never seen this question explored.
To recap: Is there a known positive correlation between experience (games played) and ELO improvement? If there is no such correlation (as I found to be the case through my limited observation), what are the possible explanations?

# Answer
If you are asking why players don't improve despite decades of playing the simple answer is that the more time you spend practicing and reinforcing your mistakes the more ingrained they become and the more likely it becomes that your level will hardly change..

The principle teaching of the Soviet School of chess as described by Dvoretsky and others is that the key to improvement lies in annotating your own games.

Only by critically examining the (bad) moves you make can you identify the kind of mistakes you typically make and only then can you take positive steps to correct them.

This is a very active thing to do. It involves putting your brain into gear. Just putting your game into an engine and seeing where the evaluation changes by a big margin and noting the engine suggestion doesn't count. That is just passive.

EDIT: Analyzing and annotating your own games to identify mistakes with the idea of avoiding those mistakes in the future, something the Soviets practiced in the Botvinnik era, is also one of the centerpieces of Axel Smith's award-winning 2013 book, "Pump up your Rating".

Here is his summary of this technique -

1) Analyse your games with a friend; avoid using an analysis engine
2) Annotate the game in ChessBase, and highlight your mistakes
3) Check the analysis with an engine, and update the annotations
4) Write down the mistakes in a text file
5) Collect all the mistakes in a List of Mistakes, where they are sorted into various categories
6) Make conclusions about typical mistakes, and how they should be avoided in the future

Axel Smith also gives examples of some of his own mistakes and how he used this technique to identify them and correct them in his play.
> 6 votes

# Answer
Not a scientific answer, but several points that seem obvious to me:

* Just as with many activities, in order to maintain your level in chess you need a bit of practice. Or said differently, if you stopped playing you would end up playing at lower level.
* If we define "experience" as the knowledge how to deal with certain situations on the chess board, gaining *new experiences* through playing will get more and more difficult, because you might end up playing most of your games based on your *known experiences*. Also if you end up gaining a new experience it might be so specialized knowledge that you will never encounter the same situation again in a game (so cannot use it to increase ELo). So eventually playing more games will not teach you anything new, but will only help you to refresh your knowledge.
* The Elo system gives the relative strength of players only. So in fact it might be possible that all players are constantly improving their absolute strength while staying at the same Elo rating.
* A bracket of 200-300 Elo point is a pretty big difference in playing strength.
* Playing strength depends on lots of factors such as age/fitness, opening/endgame knowledge, tactics, time invested in chess, .... Experience gained through playing might easily by canceled by any of the others.
> 2 votes

# Answer
It all depends on the quality of the experience. And also the frequency although quality is more important.

Playing vs the strongest engine will not help you learn and improve as much as more focused training will. You need to play someone/thing slightly better than you to improve. Playing GMs won't help you learn unless they are also giving you lessons AT THE LEVEL you can understand and use.

Perfect practice makes perfect. Making the same mistakes over and over will not help you improve. Most players get to their level and stay there until they get old.

One old chess publication had an article saying that to improve you should give up playing for a year. Focus on learning that actually helps you.

Playing is a minor part of improving. You need to focus on learning basic tactics, end games, and slightly more advanced ideas such as pawn structure, positional play, as well as openings.
> 0 votes

# Answer
Everybody hits their maximum. That may depend on talent, study, playing, amount of time available, as well as interest in getting better. So while most players improve at first, they all hit their limit. And then when they get really old they start to come back down.

200-300 is a fairly narrow range of results that accounts for the randomness of that player as well as his opponents. Some people have off days. Others get a bluebird fumblefinger and an easy win.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: learning, elo
---


# Question
Title: Does my online chess rating reflect my ELO rating?
I play a fair amount of chess online, on a chess site that updates my chess rating based on my performance using, I believe, the ELO system.

I do not play in rated, "real" tournaments that often, and so I do not have an official ELO rating.

Is my online chess rating a good estimate of my "real" rating? I've heard that one's online rating is systematically biased upwards compared with one's "real" rating, is there any truth to this?

# Answer
That depends a lot on the platform.

My different online ratings differ by more than 500 points. And there is the additional factor that online chess is **not** tournament chess. The time control is either faster or looser and you don't have to play at set times. Also your opponents tend to be less serious about it.

Chess24 has high ratings, ICC has low ratings, your Elo is probably somewhere in between, but to speak of a good estimate would be an exaggeration.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Like others said, it is definitely dependent on the pool of players. My online Elo is around 1800+, but in OTB tournaments (FIDE), my estimated Elo is around 1300. It looks like most players in my OTB pool, have chess progress similar to each other. So when we end up playing each other, we just end up stealing rating points from one another. Typically these tournaments also have rating cut-offs - for example Under 1500 only. This causes kind of a problem. Lower rated players never get to play rated players above 1500 ever (unless they go to open tournaments). It has a domino effect- Players rated 1500 and below think, if we don't even stand a chance against players in our own pool, what is the point of attending open tournaments?

So, a player rated Elo 1300 in one FIDE pool (country / federation), maybe of Elo 1600 when compared with players of another federation!
> 1 votes

# Answer
No. Ratings depend on the time control, as well as the pool of players being rated. And that latter depends a lot on how many games against other players occur to mix the results so they are meaningful.

Too many players play too many games against the same players or sub pool which prevents ratings from being more accurate.

Next would be the rating method used. Many online ratings use their over version that is different from FIDE or USCF.

And whatever online rating you have it will be way higher than your OTB rating would be at that same time control. And for weaker players it will be even yet a lot more lower than if you played OTB at slow tournament controls.

If you want an ELO rating then play in ELO-rated tournaments.
> 1 votes

# Answer
A rating only has value in the 'group' where you get it. If you play in a local chess club in which you are the strongest then your rating will be higher then when you are the weakest of the group.

Online my ELO is a bit over 1000 whereas over-the-board I am valued around 1600. Which is correct?
> 0 votes

---
Tags: rating, online-chess, elo
---


# Question
Title: When a game is cut short and the winner is determined by material, do points still count if they're from promoted pawns?
At my school, we play with a time limit, and the winner is decided based on points (for example, a pawn is 1, a rook 5, a knight 3).

Let's say my queen is taken by my opponent, scoring 9 points. If I get my pawn to the other end and exchange it for a queen, do they lose those points?

# Answer
> 24 votes
Points in chess mean nothing with respect to the actual play of the game with regards to the rules. They are only a reference to give players a general sense of what value each piece has relative to the next piece.

In essence, if you lose your queen, 9 points, but promote a pawn, you gain 9 points minus one for the pawn, so you would still be down one in material, but again, that is just a relative reference to give you an idea where you stand.

These relative point values are estimates, and depending on who you talk to, they may vary. Here is a list of various values that strong players have assigned over the years here. Bobby Fischer said that the bishop was worth 3.25 because he loved bishops.

# Answer
> 15 votes
As has been said, in ordinary chess the points do not count, and the only person who can definitively tell you your school's rules is your chess coach.

But that said, the purpose of looking at the points is to be a quick way to answer the question, "who is winning this game?" So if you promote, it makes sense to take away those points (and give him a point for a pawn instead, since that pawn is now off the board.)

Let's say you have a pawn and your opponent has a rook. Your opponent is winning the game, because a rook is stronger than a pawn. But if you promote the pawn to a queen, now you are winning the game, not your opponent; you have a queen and they have a rook, and a queen is stronger than a rook. It wouldn't make sense to declare them the winner just because your queen is a promoted one. You shouldn't have to think back the whole game to remember what was taken at the time; you should be able to just look at what's on the board at the end.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Material, aka “points,” is just one factor in deciding who is ahead. There is time, space, material, position, tactics, zugzwang and other things that will determine who is doing better.

Your school needs to stop counting points as it is, by itself, meaningless.

If you have a time limit, then limit the game time so that it finishes before the limit. Otherwise, some player will gain a pawn and then just sit to win by one point. So get clocks and use them to limit the time each player can take so the game ends by the time of your period that you have to play.

# Answer
> 2 votes
As others have pointed out, the points values themselves are merely an initial value to get you started. Over many many years, people have found that *generally* trading three pawns for a bishop is a fair trade.

The point values are just a tool to get you started. They're a way for you to not make mistakes by trading valuable pieces for less valuable pieces. But really, its the entire position that matters.

Consider this hypothetical. Your opponent has a pawn on the 7th rank. On the next turn, they can promote it to a queen. You have the potential to trade a rook for that pawn. Is it a good trade? The "5 points for a rook" versus "1 point for a pawn" fails to account for the position. In this intentionally extreme example, trading a rook for a pawn may be a great trade, because it puts you in a better position.

Indeed, it can be even more extreme. You can construct some clever back-rank mate problems where a pawn promoting to a queen or a rook is checkmate. If you can't get out of it otherwise, it would be worth sacrificing three, four, or even five whole pieces just to prevent that pawn from promoting. Checkmate trumps any and all point calculations, always.

---
Tags: rules, point-value
---


# Question
Title: How would the evaluation of the engine suggested endgame in the Anand vs Carlsen game be determined?
In round 7 of the Tata Steel Masters 2020, there was a game between Anand and Carlsen. Anand had the upper hand out of the opening but they drew on move 54. Instead, Anand missed 54.Rb4! Nxc7 55. Rc4 leading to this forced position. Stockfish 10 at depth 37 evaluates at +1.47. If this were the case what would be the technique to win such an ending?

```
 [Event "Tata Steel Masters"]
 [Site "Wijk aan Zee"]
 [Date "2020.01.18"]
 [Round "7"]
 [White "Anand, Viswanathan"]
 [Black "Carlsen, Magnus"]
 [Result "1/2-1/2"]
 [ECO "B31"]
 [WhiteElo "2758"]
 [BlackElo "2872"]
 [Annotator "DF"]
 [PlyCount "114"]
 [EventDate "2020.??.??"]
 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. O-O Bg7 5. c3 Nf6 6. Re1 O-O 7. d4 a6 8. Bd3 d5 9. e5 Ne8 10. dxc5 Bg4 11. Be2 Nc7 12. Nbd2 a5 13. h3 Bc8 14. Bd3 Ne6 15. Nb3 a4 16. Nbd4 Nxc5 17. Bc2 Qa5 18. Bd2 Rd8 19. Qc1 Ne6 20. b4 Qc7 21. Nxc6 bxc6 22. Be3 c5 23. bxc5 Nxc5 24. Qa3 Ne6 25. Rab1 d4 26. Nxd4 Bxe5 27. Nb5 Qc6 28. Rb4 Bb7 29. Be4 Qd7 30. Bxb7 Qxb7 31. Rxa4 Bf4 32. Rxa8 Rxa8 33. Qb3 Bxe3 34. Rxe3 Nf4 35. Rf3 Qe4 36. Kh2 Nd5 37. c4 Qe5+ 38. g3 Nf6 39. a3 Ne4 40. Qc2 Ng5 41. Re3 Qc5 42. h4 Ne6 43. Qe2 Rc8 44. Rc3 h5 45. Kg2 Kf8 46. Qe4 Kg8 47.  d5 Qb6 48. a4 Qa6 49. c5 Qxa4 50. c6 Rd8 51. Qc4 Qxc4 52. Rxc4 Rb8 53. c7 Rc8 54. Rb4 (54. Rc1 {Was played and draw agreed.}) 54... Nxc7 55. Rc4 Nxb5 56. Rxc8+ Kg7 57. Kf3 Nd6 $16

```

# Answer
> 2 votes
First, despite the big eval, it is still probably equal in the long run with best play. In the games below, the weaker side often weakened the position, making easier for the stronger side to win. When in doubt, it is probably not a good idea to move pawns while defending.

It is of note that Anand, and I am sure this is not accidental here, has the optimal kingside pawn setup with f7-g6-h5. Remember that setup as it makes it hard for white to get a passed pawn, or otherwise attack the black pawns. That black also has an e-pawn makes it better here. I will give a couple of games below without the e-pawn that white managed to win just to show some possible ideas.

Again, it is still likely drawn, but if white were to be able to do anything, it is clear that e7 and f7 are the black soft spots, so any successful plan would involve the rook attacking them, most likely with a king walk to the eight rank somehow. This type of king walk ins not uncommon in some endgames with all the pawns on one side. That said, it is definitely worth playing on here.

I could not find any games with the pawn on e7 (I did find some with the pawn on e3, and colors reversed after, and added the wins below), but I did find a three games with the pawn on e6 that were all drawn, with one by famous players (the other two are not worth showing as one was between lower-rated players, and the other between low 2400s, but in blitz). In the first, you can see Najdorf successfully defend by tying down white to f2 and then advancing his central pawns. Despite the draw, I am a bit skeptical of how black played based on some of the games below.

```
 [Event "Venice"]
 [Site "Venice"]
 [Date "1948.??.??"]
 [Round "?"]
 [White "Euwe, Max"]
 [Black "Najdorf, Miguel"]
 [Result "1/2-1/2"]
 [ECO "D72"]
 [PlyCount "102"]
 [EventDate "1948.??.??"]
 [EventType "tourn"]
 [EventRounds "13"]
 [EventCountry "ITA"]
 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. e4 Nb6 7. Ne2 Nc6 8. d5 Nb8 9. Nbc3 c6 10. O-O cxd5 11. exd5 O-O 12. Qb3 N8d7 13. a4 Ne5 14. a5 Nbd7 15. Be3 Ng4 16. Bd4 Bxd4 17. Nxd4 Ngf6 18. a6 Nc5 19. axb7 Bxb7 20. Qb5 Qb6 21. Rfe1 Rfe8 22. b4 Na6 23. Nc6 Kf8 24. Qc4 Nc7 25. Na4 Qb5 26. Qxb5 Nxb5 27. Nc5 Bxc6 28. dxc6 e6 29. Nd7+ Ke7 30. Nxf6 Kxf6 31. c7 Nxc7 32. Bxa8 Rxa8 33. Ra5 Nd5 34. Rb1 Rb8 35. Rxa7 Rxb4 36. Rxb4 Nxb4 37. h4 h5 38. Kg2 Nc6 39. Rd7 Ne5 40. Rc7 Ng4 41. Kf3 Nh6 42. Kf4 Nf5 43. Ke4 Nh6 44. Rc3 Ng4 45. Rf3+ Ke7 46. Kd4 f5 47. Kc3 e5 48. Kd2 e4 49. Ra3 Nxf2 50. Ra6 Kf7 51. Ke3 Nd3 1/2-1/2

```

Here are a couple of games without the extra e-pawn just to show some similar games that white won. The first is close to how I imagined trying to win, and the second shows black not defending too well.

```
 [Event "Warsaw AIG Life rapid 9th"]
 [Site "Warsaw"]
 [Date "2009.12.20"]
 [Round "11"]
 [White "Sergeev, Vladimir"]
 [Black "Lind, Jan Olov"]
 [Result "1-0"]
 [ECO "A48"]
 [WhiteElo "2428"]
 [BlackElo "2209"]
 [PlyCount "129"]
 [EventDate "2009.12.19"]
 [EventType "swiss (rapid)"]
 [EventRounds "13"]
 [EventCountry "POL"]
 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Bg5 Bg7 4. Nbd2 c5 5. e3 b6 6. c3 O-O 7. h3 Bb7 8. Bd3 d6 9. O-O Nbd7 10. a4 a6 11. Qe2 Qc7 12. e4 e5 13. dxe5 dxe5 14. Rfd1 Rfe8 15. Bc2 Nf8 16. Nc4 Re6 17. Bxf6 Bxf6 18. Bb3 Rd8 19. Rxd8 Qxd8 20. Rd1 Qc7 21. Ne3 Rd6 22. Bd5 Ne6 23. Qc4 h5 24. h4 Kg7 25. g3 Qd7 26. Ra1 Bxd5 27. Nxd5 b5 28. axb5 axb5 29. Qe2 c4 30. Qe3 Rxd5 31. exd5 Qxd5 32. Re1 Nc5 33. Nxe5 Na4 34. Re2 Bxe5 35. Qxe5+ Qxe5 36. Rxe5 Nxb2 37. Rxb5 Nd1 38. Rc5 Nxc3 39. Rxc4 Nd5 40. Rc6 Nf6 41. Kg2 Ng4 42. Ra6 Ne5 43. Kf1 Ng4 44. Ke2 Ne5 45. f3 Nd7 46. Ke3 Nf6 47. Kd4 Ng8 48. Ke5 Nh6 49. Kf4 Ng8 50. Ra7 Nf6 51. Ra5 Ng8 52. g4 hxg4 53. fxg4 Nf6 54. g5 Nd7 55. Ke4 Nf8 56. Ra6 Nd7 57. Kd5 Nf8 58. Rd6 Nh7 59. Kc6 Nf8 60. Kc7 Nh7 61. Kd8 Kf8 62. Rb6 f6 63. Rb7 Kg8 64. Rxh7 fxg5 65. Rh6 1-0

```

And the second:

```
 [Event "Belgrade Trako"]
 [Site "Belgrade"]
 [Date "1995.??.??"]
 [Round "5"]
 [White "Ostojic, Nikola"]
 [Black "Nestorovic, Dejan"]
 [Result "1-0"]
 [ECO "D85"]
 [WhiteElo "2465"]
 [BlackElo "2415"]
 [PlyCount "105"]
 [EventDate "1995.03.??"]
 [EventType "tourn"]
 [EventRounds "13"]
 [EventCountry "YUG"]
 [EventCategory "9"]
 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bb5+ c6 8. Ba4 O-O 9. Ne2 c5 10. O-O Nc6 11. Be3 Qc7 12. Qc2 Na5 13. Qc1 Bd7 14. Bxd7 Qxd7 15. Bh6 cxd4 16. Bxg7 Kxg7 17. cxd4 Rac8 18. Qe3 b6 19. Rad1 Rc2 20. d5 Rxa2 21. Nd4 Kg8 22. Rd3 Nc4 23. Qc1 Rc8 24. Nc6 Rxc6 25. Qb1 Rd2 26. Rxd2 Nxd2 27. dxc6 Qxc6 28. Rc1 Qb7 29. Qd3 Nxe4 30. Qd8+ Kg7 31. Rc7 Qa6 32. Qd4+ Nf6 33. Rxe7 h5 34. h3 Qa5 35. Qc4 Qd5 36. Qxd5 Nxd5 37. Rxa7 Kf6 38. Kf1 Ke6 39. h4 Kf6 40. g3 Ke6 41. Ke2 Nf6 42. Kd3 Ng4 43. Ra2 Kf5 44. Rb2 Ne5+ 45. Kd4 Nd7 46. Kd5 Nf6+ 47. Kd6 Ne4+ 48. Ke7 g5 49. Kxf7 gxh4 50. gxh4 Nc5 51. Rxb6 Nd3 52. Rb3 Ne5+ 53. Kg7 1-0

```

I found two more wins but with colors reversed and with the e-pawn. The first win is by the venerable Yermo, who is a great endgame expert. In this game, you see Yermo try to get a passer with f6, and g5, but when white does not trade, he grabs space instead. Then you see the king walk again hitting the soft spots. This is probably the game you should imitate. If there were a "textbook example", I would probably use this one.

```
 [Event "Western Pacific op 3rd"]
 [Site "Burbank"]
 [Date "2005.03.26"]
 [Round "3"]
 [White "Kretchetov, Alexandre"]
 [Black "Yermolinsky, Alex"]
 [Result "0-1"]
 [ECO "E11"]
 [WhiteElo "2326"]
 [BlackElo "2570"]
 [PlyCount "146"]
 [EventDate "2005.03.25"]
 [EventType "swiss"]
 [EventRounds "5"]
 [EventCountry "USA"]
 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 c5 5. Bxb4 cxb4 6. g3 O-O 7. Bg2 d6 8. O-O Re8 9. a3 bxa3 10. Rxa3 Nc6 11. Nc3 a5 12. Nb5 Na7 13. Nxa7 Rxa7 14. b4  b6 15. Qc2 Qc7 16. Rfa1 Bb7 17. Nd2 Bxg2 18. Kxg2 e5 19. dxe5 Rxe5 20. Nf3 Re4 21. bxa5 Rxa5 22. Rxa5 bxa5 23. Qd2 Qxc4 24. e3 a4 25. Qxd6 Re8 26. Nd4 h5 27. h3 Ra8 28. Ra3 Ne4 29. Qe5 Nd2 30. Qb5 Qxb5 31. Nxb5 Nc4 32. Rc3 a3 33. Rxc4 a2 34. Rc1 a1=Q 35. Rxa1 Rxa1 36. h4 g6 37. Nd4 Kg7 38. Nf3 Ra2 39. Nd4 Kf6 40. Kf3 Rb2 41. Ne2 Ke5 42. Nf4 Rd2 43. Ne2 Rd6 44. Nf4 Rf6 45. Kg2 Ke4 46. Nh3 Kd3 47. Ng1 Ra6 48. Nf3 f6 49. Kf1 Ra5 50. Kg2 g5 51. Kf1 g4 52. Nd4 Ra6 53. Nb5 Rb6 54. Nd4 Kd2 55. Kg1 Rb1+ 56. Kg2 Rd1 57. Ne6 Ke1 58. Nf4 Rd2 59. Kg1 f5 60. Nxh5 Rxf2 61. Nf4 Ra2 62. h5 Kd2 63. Kf2 Kc3+ 64. Kg1 Kc4 65. Ng6 Kd5 66. Nf4+ Ke4 67. h6 Ra6 68. h7 Rh6 69. Ne6 Kxe3 70. Ng5 f4 71. gxf4 Kxf4 72. Ne6+ Kg3 73. Ng5 Kh4 0-1

```

And IM Tania Sachdev, who was not an IM at the time, being beaten by a fellow IM.

```
 [Event "Olomouc Proclient Cup"]
 [Site "Olomouc"]
 [Date "2004.07.08"]
 [Round "6"]
 [White "Sachdev, Tania"]
 [Black "Gavrilov, Alexei V"]
 [Result "0-1"]
 [ECO "E18"]
 [WhiteElo "2240"]
 [BlackElo "2441"]
 [PlyCount "118"]
 [EventDate "2004.07.04"]
 [EventType "tourn"]
 [EventRounds "11"]
 [EventCountry "CZE"]
 [EventCategory "2"]
 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Na6 8. Bf4 d6 9. Rc1 Re8 10. a3 c5 11. dxc5 bxc5 12. Qc2 Qb6 13. Rfd1 d5 14. cxd5 exd5 15. Nh4 d4 16. Na4 Qb5 17. Bxb7 Qxb7 18. Nf5 Nd5 19. Bd6 Bg5 20. Bxc5 Bxc1 21. Rxc1 Nxc5 22. Nxc5 Qb6 23. Nxd4 a5 24. Qb3 Qxb3 25. Ncxb3 Nb6 26. Rc5 Na4 27. Rxa5 Nxb2 28. Rxa8 Rxa8 29. Nb5 Nc4 30. Kg2 Nxa3 31. Nxa3 Rxa3 32. Nd4 g6 33. e3 Kg7 34. h4 Kf6 35. Nf3 h5 36. Ng5 Ra7 37. Kf3 Ke5 38. Nh3 Ra2 39. Nf4 Kf5 40. Nd3 Ra3 41. e4+ Ke6 42. Ke3 f6 43. f4 f5 44. exf5+ gxf5 45. Kd4 Kd6 46. Kc4 Ra1 47. Ne5 Rg1 48. Nf3 Rxg3 49. Nd4 Rg4 50. Nxf5+ Ke6 51. Nd4+ Kf6 52. Kd3 Rxf4 53. Ke3 Rxh4 54. Nf3 Ra4 55. Kf2 Kf5 56. Kg3 Ra3 57. Kg2 Kf4 58. Ng1 Kg4 59. Ne2 Ra2 0-1

```

# Answer
> 2 votes
Averbakh provides the following plan in an example with three pawns per side, i.e., no e-pawn.

1. Use King and Rook to restrict the knights mobility
2. Begin a pawn storm to cramp Black to the maximum extent
3. Advance the King to the f7 pawn decides the game

I doubt whether step 3 works with the e-pawn, but trying to win would look similar with the e-pawn.

Here is Averbakh's example game for this technique

```
[Event "Saltsjöbaden Interzonal"]
[Site "Stockholm SWE"]
[Date "1948.07.29"]
[EventDate "1948.07.16"]
[Round "9"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Laszlo Szabo"]
[Black "Petar Trifunovic"]
[ECO "D19"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "119"]
[FEN ""]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.e3 e6 7.Bxc4 Bb4 8.O-O O-O 9.Qe2 Bg4 10.h3 Bxf3 11.Qxf3 Nbd7 12.Rd1 e5 13.d5 Bxc3 14.dxc6 e4 15.Qf5 bxc6 16.bxc3 Qc7 17.Ba3 c5 18.Bd5 Rab8 19.Bxe4 g6 20.Qf3 Qe5 21.Bc6 Qxc3 22.Bb5 Qe5 23.Rab1 Qe6 24.Qe2 Rfc8 25.Rbc1 Rc7 26.Rc2 a6 27.Bc4 Qc6 28.Bb2 Qxa4 29.e4 Rxb2 30.Rxb2 Ne5 31.Rc1 Nxc4 32.Rxc4 Qc6 33.Rb8+ Kg7 34.Qb2 Qe6 35.Rb6 Rc6 36.Rxc6 Qxc6 37.e5 Nd5 38.Qc1 Qe6 39.Rxc5 Qxe5 40.Qd1 Nc3 41.Rxe5 Nxd1 42.Ra5 Nc3 43.Kf1 Nb5 44.Rxa6 Nc3 45.Rc6 Nd5 46.Ke2 h6 47.Kf3 Nf6 48.Kf4 Nd7 49.Rc7 Nf6 50.Ke5 Nh7 51.Rc6 Kf8 52.f4 Kg7 53.Rd6 Nf8 54.g4 Nh7 55.h4 Nf8 56.f5 gxf5 57.gxf5 h5 58.Rd1 Nh7 59.Rg1+ Kh8 60.Kd6 1-0

```

---
Tags: endgame, carlsen, anand
---


# Question
Title: Why did Bobby Fischer play the 1992 rematch with Spassky?
As title above, why did Bobby Fischer play the 1992 rematch with Spassky after some 20 years of inactivity? Was it because he was in need of money? Or was it, as Fischer explained in the press conference, because it was the first offer to play at his conditions? Or are there other actual reasons for his unexpected comeback?

# Answer
> 4 votes
After beating Spassky in 1972, Fischer laid out terms that were deemed unreasonable for his title defense in the next world championship against Karpov. With no resolution, Fischer's title was forfeited and Karpov became the new WC by default. Fischer subsequently fades into obscurity.

Nevertheless, Fischer never accepted his title loss, and still considered himself to be the WC, having never actually lost a WC match. Thus, for what he considered to be his title defense, he plays a rematch against Spassky in 1992, with a prize fund of US$5 million.

Fischer wins the rematch, declares himself the undisputed world chess champion (a claim that isn't widely acknowledged, with Kasparov as the official reigning champion at the time), never plays competitively again, and the rest is history.

To explicitly answer your question: Fischer was trying to assert that he was the world champion, contrary to the official result that he had already lost his title in 1975. He also needed the money, which may or may not have been the more significant factor.

> Source: Kasparov, Garry K. *The New York Review of Books, Volume 58, Number 4 - The Bobby Fischer Defense*. 10 Mar. 2011
>
> > It was therefore quite a shock to see the real live Bobby Fischer reappear in 1992, followed by the first Fischer chess game in twenty years, followed by twenty-nine more. Lured out of self-imposed isolation by a chance to face his old rival Spassky on the twentieth anniversary of their world championship match—and by a $5 million prize fund—a heavy and bearded Fischer appeared before the world in a resort in Yugoslavia, a nation in the process of being bloodily torn apart.
> >
> > \[...\] Fischer, who still called himself the world champion \[...\]

# Answer
> 2 votes
Yes.

Fischer was in dire straits for money.

And he was a little less an arrogant kiddie brat at that age.

---
Tags: fischer, spassky, 1972-world-championship
---


# Question
Title: Why did Bobby Fischer quit chess after the match with Spassky?
I am not asking about the 1975 "resignation" to Karpov, but for which reasons did Bobby Fischer gradually lose interest in competitive chess after becoming World Champion? Jews or not Jews, he did not play a single tournament or match game until the 1992 so-called "re-match".

# Answer
There is no real definite answer for this question. Many people have floated different theories, most of which borrow bits and pieces from each other. It is quite possible that his mental struggles just got the best of him or that he lost interest after attaining the summit of the game. Psychologically, it must have been hard to cope when you get the thing you've been working for most of your life. In *My Great Predecessors, Volume IV*, Garry Kasparov offers a few reasons, arguing that Fischer probably would have lost to Karpov and probably knew it (that point is debatable).

Regardless, Fischer forfeiting the title was not without precedent in his career. He dropped out or quit major competitions or chess itself on more than one occasion. In fact, despite his spell of dominance in the candidate's and title match, his career had almost always been erratic. The reasons for this are debatable as well--I've seen people argue that it was mental illness, strategy, or just intimidation--but the answer is probably a mix of reasons.
> 14 votes

# Answer
He had mental problems. But he is still one of the greatest chess players of all time.

Joseph Ponterotto has even written a book about Fischer's mental problems - A Psychobiography of Bobby Fischer

> Ponterotto believes the evidence is strongest for paranoid personality disorder, a psychiatric condition characterized by unrelenting paranoia and suspicion of others, but is not schizophrenia.
> 8 votes

# Answer
Fischer declared in several media channels that his goal, all of his life, had been to become World Chess Champion. Once he had accomplished that, he concluded that playing chess competitively was no longer a challenge, and that if he did not have something significant to gain, there was no longer any reason for him to play.
> 6 votes

# Answer
I think he also may have just lost interest in chess. He did invent fisherRandom chess later after his resignation to karpov, saying that normal chess had become really bland for him. This and his mental issues combined led to him quitting. I think it's a shame.
> 3 votes

# Answer
You have to understand the time. There was a cold war going on and chess was very important to the Soviets who saw chess as proof that their far-left system of government was better. The Soviets would spare no expense to win at chess and used innumerable armies of analysts to analyze every single move Fischer made from the time he was 15.

Fischer was smart enough to realize this and realized he was facing a Kobayashi Maru of sorts. (ie an unwinnable game). There is no way one man can out-analyze an entire country full of thousands of players analyzing his games.

So, Fischer realized the only solution was to take a break so he could analyze his own lines without other's doing the same. That's what he did and he came back the strongest player in history.

So, after beating Spassky Fischer was faced with a choice. He could play Karpov, who he was undoubtedly better than, and eventually lose the title when the soviet analysts caught up with him.

Or, he could retain the title and ensure that that the Soviets never won the "real" title by beating the proven best player in the world.

The part B of that was that Soviet champions would often dictate unfavorable conditions to challengers. By Fischer standing firm to his conditions, he created an environment where he demonstrated their hypocrisy which paved the way for future non-soviets.

Bottom line, Fischer was playing two chess games. One at the board and the other metaphorical geopolitical chess game. By not playing, he won both. Few people may realize the subtlety of his genius and that is what makes him the GOAT.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Fischer was immature and had mental problems as well as difficulty relating to people in normal ways.

He was extremely arrogant and thought he could dictate what he thought was proper for WC prizes and terms of match conditions. When they refused to meet his terms and conditions he just quit.

In some ways he was brilliant but in others his EQ was very very low.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: world-championship, fischer, spassky
---


title: Knight's opening move

text:
# Question
Title: Knight's opening move
I generally play 1.Nf3 as white . I actually wonder whether there would be any major difference if I play 1.Na3 instead of 1.Nf3 . I am a novice player . An illustration will definitely help me in understanding the reason behind this.

# Answer
> 5 votes
To answer your question:

Experience has shown that it is a good idea in the opening phase of the game to:

* develop minor pieces (bishop/knight) quickly
* and to occupy the centre (squares e4, d4, e5, d5 and thereabout) with pawns and/or to attack the centre with minor pieces

In this sense Nf3 is the better (and by far more popular) move. It attacks central squares (d4 and e5) and thereby prevents black from occupying the center with e5 immediately and potentially could also support a white pawn push to d4.

Na3 on the other hand does little to get hold of the center and in addition (as with any knight on the rim), it has fewer squares to go to: 4 instead of 8.

---

Occupying the center is important among others because it can:

* limit the space of your opponent
* allow pieces stationed around there to quickly reach other parts of the board as needed

---

For a novice player the first move(s) don't matter. It is highly unlikely that you win/lose a game because of the difference between 1. Nf3 and 1. Na3, rather because of some tactics later on. That's why it is recommend for beginners to focus on tactics first.

# Answer
> 4 votes
`1. Nf3` is used to instantly get a grip on the center. It for example answers `1. ... e5` with `2. Nxe5`. `1. Na3` on the other hand, does not develop the piece towards the center, giving Black an easy opportunity to attempt to control the center. A better move would be `1. Nc3`, still having control on the center.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Possibly with `1.Nf3` , player has the chance to transpose the game into a large number of other openings which usually start with `1.e4` , `1.d4` or `1.c4` . If Black is not careful, there is the risk of running unprepared, according to me, into a highly tactical opening, e.g. after `1.Nf3 c5` White can play `2.e4` leading to the Sicilian Defense (Mainline) . Other common transpositions are to various lines of the Queen's Gambit Declined (`1.Nf3 d5` `2.d4 Nf6` `3.c4`) or the Catalan Opening (`1.Nf3 Nf6` `2.g3 d5` `3.Bg2 e6` `4.0-0` `Be7 5.c4`).

# Answer
> 0 votes
Statistics show that with 2200+ players Nf3 wins about 55.5% of the time with draws = 1/2 and win = 1 , loss = 0

And Na3 wins 68% of the time

But with 2400+ it goes to 55% 75% respectively

at 2600+ nobody plays Na3 and Nf3 drops to 54% winning

YMMV

---
Tags: opening
---


# Question
Title: How important is the opening first move?
I have played against various chess engines at extreme difficulty levels. From what i have learned, any moves other than d4, e4 results in quick defeat (fewer than 25 moves).

How important are the first few moves in a game at expert levels? Does the first 3 moves determine the outcome of the game?

# Answer
> 7 votes
Statistically speaking, there's little difference between the most popular opening moves, i.e. 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.Nf3, 1.c4. For instance, in the Game Database of ChessTempo on sees the average rating of the players and their average performance:

* 1.e4: average 2417, performance 2455
* 1.d4: average 2436, performance 2474
* 1.Nf3: average 2431, performance 2465
* 1.c4: average 2435, performance 2467

Although these four opening moves are approximately equally good, they can lead to different kind of positions (tactical vs. positional, lots of theory vs. little theory, etc...). Therefore, the opening move (and the opening in general) does have a big influence on the outcome of the game, depending on the players and their playing styles.

When playing against engines, it is probably a good idea to go for closed positions. In these type of positions, the tactical power of engines is less dominant, while strategical insight becomes more important.

# Answer
> 2 votes
If you consider that when you were 1 year old, a month was 1/12th of your life...

And when you're 12 years old, a month is just 1/144th of your life..

Maybe you can see that early moves carry more weight/significance in deciding the route and course the game will take.

At the master level, openings are second-nature. For beginners like me, it is still easy to make a simple mistake in the first few moves, but if keep a sharp eye and look at all the commonly defined move motifs, it can be very helpful in your path to victory.

I think all the possible openings have a shorthand notation as well. Something like C44 means "king's pawn game" http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=C44

You can just change the last part of that url to be a letter and two numbers, and you can see many different openings (even not-so-skillful ones) that way.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=A11

# Answer
> 1 votes
Some people say that the opening move is the most important move because it can allow a player to gain control of the center and strengthen his/her position. However, games can still be won with "bad" first moves. I would say that the second and third moves are quite important because it allows players to respond to the first moves and really compete for control of center. I do not think that d4 and e4 are the only valid moves... I have won many games bringing out my knights first. Each player has their own style. Players often use d4 and e4 because, like I have been saying, control of center generally means an advantageous game.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Classical chess that tries to control the center directly normally starts with e4 or d4 moves. Hypermodern chess tries a less direct approach, to control the center from the wings, utilizing B fianchettos and off-center pawn moves like 1.c4, 1.g3 or 1.b3, with 1.Nf3 being another common hypermodern opening move. Hypermodernism doesn't deny the importance of the center but just goes about taking it over with a different approach, after breaking down the opponent's control if possible. In other words, the particular opening system that is being used is what is important, not just individual moves. Hypermodernism has not proven as strong as classical chess though, as means of counteracting it have been found. It is after all more difficult to take something away from someone after he has obtained it than to contest it from the start. As a novice player I would concentrate on classical openings with a few center pawn moves (e4 to be followed by d4 when safe to do so, or vice versa) to contest the center as well as for quick development of the minor pieces and then castling, which should let you pursue the balance of the game satisfactorily.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Nobody knows HOW important it is.

Statistically White seems to do better indicating that it gives white some advantage.

OTOH it is possible that when the game is solved it will show that moving first is not good as you committed yourself first allowing black to achieve a win.

That does not seem likely based on results so far, but it is still theoretically possible.

---
Tags: opening
---


# Question
Title: Why doesn't white take after 8..c5 in the Grünfeld, Spassky variation?
I was looking through the titular variation and am confused why there are no master games with 9.dxc5. Is it simply because white doesn't want to give up the central pawn, even if they can gain a material advantage? Is that pawn that valuable in this type of game? I'd also guess that maybe the material advantage is pretty temporary since it will be hard to defend the c pawn afterward.

Opening as follows:

```
[fen ""]
1. d4 Nf6
2. c4 g6
3. Nc3 d5
4. cxd5 Nxd5
5. e4 Nxc3
6. bxc3 Bg7
7. Bc4 O-O
8. Ne2 c5

```

Thanks.

# Answer
> 18 votes
9.dxc5? is a horrible positional blunder.

The Grunfeld for black allows white a big center, and his idea is to chip away at it, or force it to advance, and then chip away at it. That center controls a lot of nice squares, and is very desirable. 9.dxc5? by white voluntarily does what black is trying to achieve in a very bad way, and worse, it turns the Bg7 into a monster. In exchange for that, you cannot even keep the pawn as black can win it two ways. It is so bad that in 5099 games in the Mega 2020 database, no one has ever played it. In addition, the eval on Stockfish goes from about +.70 to -.67 instantly.

Black can win back the pawn with Qa5, but even stronger is 9...Nd7, and the N will have an incredible c5 square as its base. I have added notes to the following line regarding other positional advantages, so be sure to read them.

```
 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Ne2 c5 9. dxc5? Nd7 10. O-O (10. c6 Ne5 $1 11. Qxd8 (11. cxb7 Qxd1+ 12. Kxd1 Bxb7 13. Bb3 Nd3 14. Be3 Rac8 15. Kc2 Rfd8 {There are a million ways white can play from here, but they are all losing and black is all over him.}) 11... Rxd8 {And the N gets to d3 with great effect positionally or this...} 12. c7 Rd7 13. Bb5 Rxc7 {With a huge advantage.}) 10... Nxc5 11. Qc2 Bd7 12. Rd1 Qc7 {And white has big problems down the c-file, the Bc4 is in danger (if black trades for it, the two bishops are a winning advantage in this open position), and the Ne2 is not even well-placed.}

```

# Answer
> 8 votes
it's actually impossible to keep the material advantage since after 9.dxc5 black has the move 9...Qa5 which puts a second attacker to the c3 pawn and also prepares to recapture the c5 pawn. All that white would be doing is giving up the strong center which is a huge deal in this line of the Grunfeld. Black, on the other hand, would be left with a more active queen and a 2 to 1 advantage on the Queenside. Hope this helps!

# Answer
> 3 votes
With 9. dxc5, you are giving up your central pawn duo, taking on doubled pawns, fracturing your queenside pawn structure, etc. Obviously this is not ideal, and you would only do this if you get some kind of material compensation.

But you don't get any material compensation. After 9...Qa5, you can't simultaneously defend the c3- and c5-pawns. You'd be stuck with all the positional concessions without material to compensate. Even if Black didn't have 9...Qa5, after ...Nd7 and ...Rac8 (or ...Rfc8), you won't be able to keep the c5-pawn (the c3-pawn, for that matter, would also be vulnerable).

In short, 9. dxc5 would be a massive positional blunder, weakening the position for no gain.

# Answer
> 1 votes
When you get more experience and appreciate positional play instead of just slash and burn tactics and material advantage then you would see that the move is terrible bad and has no advantages for white.

When the dust settles black will have the initiative and material will be even and white has a weak isolated pawn.

---
Tags: opening, 1.d4, grunfeld-defense, spassky
---


# Question
Title: Why Black should play Max Lange attack, when its favorable for white only.?
In Max Lange attack..when white is giving gambit of d and e pawns and can grab a piece or good attacking favorable position. Then why black should accept it? Is there any solid defense against it?

# Answer
> 3 votes
I hope you are talking about the below line . " 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.0-0 Bc5 6.e5 "

The Best response to the above line from Black is 6) ..d5! .

7.exf6 dxc4 8.Re1+ Be6 9.Ng5 Qd5 (9...Qxf6?? 10.Nxe6 fxe6 11.Qh5+ followed by 12.Qxc5 is a notorious trap) 10.Nc3 Qf5 (10...dxc3?? 11.Qxd5 wins, since 11...Bxd5 is illegal) 11.Nce4 0-0-0 with complicated play.

True the Theory of max lange extends long but it is refutable from Black side . Black needs to be extra cautious to avert White's Activity . Black should try castling Q-side . One line goes as follows

"1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Nf6 6. e5 d5 7. exf6 dxc4 8. Re1+ Be6 9. Ng5 Qd5 10. Nc3 Qf5 11. Nce4 O-O-O "

If on move no 9)White captures the g7 pawn then advantage goes to Black's side .

" 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Nf6 6. e5 d5 7. exf6 dxc4 8. Re1+ Be6 9. fxg7 Rg8 "

The White Player is the Man with the Plan and he needs to remember each move precisely else one incorrect move and the Tables will turn towards Black side .

The most aggressive line is " 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Nf6 6. e5 d5 7. exf6 dxc4 8. Re1+ Be6 9. Ng5 Qd5 10. Nc3 Qf5 11. Nce4 O-O-O 12. Nxe6 fxe6 13. g4 Qe5 " . Here the Game depends on who is a better player .

If you are still unsure & afraid to play Max Lange then I would suggest that you try Philidor Defense as Black which is safe and does not involve too many gambits line .

In top level Tournaments you can rarely see Max Lange nowdays .

# Answer
> 0 votes
Your assumption about it being favorable for white is flawed.

I end up in such positions because I do not like what would happen when I might deviate to avoid it. Nothing wrong with the Lange if black just plays 6...pd5

See comments by Seth Projnabrata above that pretty well summarizes the true situation.

---
Tags: opening, opening-traps
---


# Question
Title: Move orders in the 6.Qc2 Anti-Meran Semi-Slav
After 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 White can play the so-called Shabalov-Shirov Gambit with 7.g4!? on the grounds that 7...Nxg4 allows 8.Rg1 and the important g7 Pawn is going to fall. Of course this is not a forced win by White, but this Gambit puts certainly some pressure on Black.

My main question is: why is Black always playing 5...Nbd7 and 6...Bd6 (or in reverse order) and not 5...Bd6 and 6...0-0, after which 7.g4 could be more safely accepted with 7...Nxg4 (the g7 Pawn is no longer *en prise* after 8.Rg1)? Is there any particular reason for playing 5...Nbd7 or 6...Nbd7 before castling?

# Answer
> 4 votes
A lot of opening play is about what you are trying to avoid. While sharp, black does quite well against 7.g4. In reality, the quieter lines seem to have much more venom if the figures in Mega 2020 are to believed.

In addition, with the move order you mention, white can get e4 in very early, or can play the Karpov line among other choices. The main line I am giving scores at 73.4% compared to only 56.2% for Shirov's g4. I think that g4 was a great surprise weapon, but now, it has been analyzed sufficiently with computers, and it no longer the great threat it once was. Black can respond with the best move, h6 instead of taking on g4.

```
 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Bd6 (5... Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 {The Shirov Gambit.} h6!) 6. Bd3 (6. Qc2 O-O 7. Be2 Nbd7 8. O-O {Karpov's favorite line.}) 6... O-O 7. e4 dxe4 8. Nxe4 Nxe4 9. Bxe4 Nd7 10. O-O Nf6 11. Bc2

```

---
Tags: opening, 1.d4, queens-gambit, semi-slav, shabalov-shirov-gambit
---


# Question
Title: Why aren't there any women super Grandmasters (GMs)?
In chess you don't need to be physically strong. Well, you need some kind of endurance, but is it the real reason why there aren't any super strong women GMs?

Yes, I know about Hou Yifan and Judit Polgar, but they aren't even close to being world champion.

I understand that there are a lot more men chess players than women, but how many women are in top 100? Even the disproportionate number of players can't explain this.

What is the reason then? Can we deduce that men are smarter than women or shall we conclude that there are more geniuses among men than geniuses among women?

# Answer
> 46 votes
I don't know a lot about chess or even gender differences in cognition, but I do know enough that chess involves certain aspects of cognition and that there are gender differences in cognitive ability. For your question, about the number of super GMs, the average abilities of men and women is more or less irrelevant. You need to look at the tails of abilities. Again, there are differences in the tails. Men are better (both on average and at the extremes) for some abilities and worse at others. Women tend to excel at verbal and social cognition while men excel at spatial aspects of cognition.

In addition to cognitive differences, men and women react differently to competition and my guess is you cannot be a super GM without a strong competitive side. There are also social and cultural differences between men and women. Even if there were equal numbers of recreational players, that doesn't mean there would be equal numbers of competitive players (or similar rates of individuals willing to dedicate their lives to chess).

The popularity of competitive chess may well stem from its emphasis on male dominated traits (i.e., spatial cognition) and its lack of emphasis on verbal and social cognition.

The source of these gender differences (i.e., nature/nurture or intrinsic/learned) does not really matter, as the end result is that there are differences. As to whether these differences can explain the lack of women super GMs, it is not clear. That said, given there are measurable differences in cognitive abilities, reaction to competition, and social and cultural influences, it seems wrong to conclude that the lack of women super GMS means that men are smarter than women or that there are more male geniuses.

# Answer
> 37 votes
Women played chess as much as men did for a while until the beginning of the 17th century. At this time, chess rules changed in that the queen and bishop gained much more significance and power in the game. Chess became a more competitive sport, not just a casual game among the wealthy.

> Chess went from a leisurely game played between lords and ladies to a cut-throat competitive sport played in public houses and cafés, and therefore considered an unseemly activity for women.

For the next 300 years, society continually sent the message of "chess is not for women."

The reason there are no women super grandmasters (players at the top) is because there are hardly any girls signing up to start playing chess anymore.

However, there are some seemingly contrary examples

> In the Netherlands at youth level (\< 10) there are almost as many girls as there are boys, and sometimes a girl wins the national championship for her age. But most of them quit during early teens, I think mostly because they prefer other hobbies. By 18, there is the typical huge difference.

-Remco

For further reading, read this article about why only two of the world's top 100 chess players are women

# Answer
> 14 votes
The stating of the question implies an agenda but I'll do some answering anyway.

For one, I was disappointed to see no mention of Vera Menchik here. First women's world champion, she defeated many of the best males of her time, including World Champion Max Euwe (twice!) as well as Sammy Reshevsky, Jacques Mieses, and Lajos Steiner. Hastings 1930-1, Euwe lost only one game in the entire event -- to Menchik.

Now, the OP states, without any visible support, that the disparity of cannot be explained by population, but that's something my own experience of over a decade organizing a good portion of the strongest events in my state leads me to believe is absolutely true. The percentage of female chessplayers in the events I organized was well under 1 percent of the total players (in close to half of those events, it was 0). And if, over that same period of time, we decide to use total unique players (every individual counts as 1 player, no matter how many events of mine they played in) that number would be no higher. Hence the disparity in number of players would easily explain the population difference in the top 100. In fact, I'm impressed there are 2%.

Moving on from that, I've yet to see anything prove the popular notion that chessplayers are smarter than the general population. We can all think of top-level chessplayers who have advocated some pretty hare-brained ideas. I've known a number of very smart people who never proceeded past beginner levels in chess, and others who did. Weak correlation at best, it seems to me.

I think we should dismiss the "genius" allegation in the original question the same way. No proof for it at all.

One of the more interesting fields for this study is in the very young players. In the USCF lists the concentration of females in the top 20 or top 100 lists is higher at the earlier ages than later, with numbers at 10% or more being female on the young lists, going down to 2% or so on the older ones. This parallels my experience as a chess coach; there were more female students in my younger classes than my older ones.

I've spoken to some of the more promising ones about why they stopped. Reasons for walking away from chess were varied. Some did it because of what we would term "socialization" -- they felt pressure from the outside world (peers, family members, other authority figures) to stop playing chess because it just wasn't "something girls were supposed to do." Some did it for the same reason males walked away later in life -- they got too busy, or became more interested in other things (from social pursuits to STEM subjects such as Chemistry or Math).

But for some, the reason was the boys. Not more interested in boys than chess, but less interested in chess because of the attitude of the boys playing it. I know several girls who continued to read about chess, just never showed up or sat down to play it at a club because of the tendency of the boys of similar age (pre-teen to teen) to denigrate them. (The denigration, I can attest from observation, came independently of skill, in fact, the better the boy was at chess, the less he tended to sneer at the girls who played well. It seemed more an outside-the-game tactic employed to keep mediocre boys from losing to a better player. Viewed as such, I would have to say it worked; if she didn't play, it was one less threat for him to face.)

# Answer
> 4 votes
Let us just try to see whether it is possible to give a definite answer to these questions or not. The first major issue is of course to evaluate how many chess players there are. Looking at different sources, one quickly concludes that this number is unknown, which consequently means that the percentage of chess players that are female is also unknown.

However, we may conclude that the percentage of female players in competitive chess is very small by looking at official rating lists and tournament records; for instance, through my own experience in tournament chess I would estimate the percentage to be between 1 and 5 percent. With this estimation, there is nothing strange with seeing only one female player in the top 100 chess players, which is the case today. Indeed, even if none of the top 100 players were to be female this would still not be very remarkable given the small proportion of female players.

So right at the get-go we get trouble even addressing the legitimacy of this question since we don't have much data. But let's say we somehow retrieve the exact percentage of female players for argument's sake, and that this percentage is not sufficient to satisfactorily explain the difference in performance between men and women in chess at the very elite level.

Could it be used to argue that this means that men and women have different cognitive abilities in general? The answer is no, and a resounding one at that. Looking at the very elite individuals in a given discipline gives us little to no information about the average Joe, since the elite performers will of course be extreme outliers which have very little to do with the average performers.

Could it be used to argue that there are more male outliers than female outliers when it comes to chess performance? Yes, but it would hold no explanatory power as to why that is. Are there more male super-talents in chess, or is it a matter of environmental factors, such as women being actively discouraged to participate in chess regardless of their talent? How on earth would we get this type of data? It is one of the fundamental issues with psychology to determine how much external and internal factors will affect an individual's cognitive performance (and psyche in general), and due to ethical consideration there is a clear lack of research data on how big of a role these factors play in forming an individual although it has been establised that both types of factors are very important.

The question whether different groups of people have different inherent cognitive abilities on a population level (men vs. women, blacks vs. whites, etc.) has been asked and investigated many times, and every time that I'm aware of the same things tend to happen. Either the investigation produces no significat findings whatsoever, or the investigation fails to take into account potentially important confounding factors.

So to answer your question I would say that 1) it is impossible to answer the question in the title due to lack of information, 2) chess cannot be used to argue that "men are smarter than women", and 3) one could possibly argue that there are relatively more male **chess-geniuses** than female **chess-geniuses** (assuming we have sufficient data to support such a claim), but this would only be a descriptive statement and there would be no way to answer *why* that is using the percentage of female chess players as the only factor considered.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Chess is a zero-sum game: both players can't win. This is more attractive to boys who are naturally more aggressive than girls, especially teenagers. Furthermore, it's a solo sport, so social skills which girls master earlier and better than boys cannot be put to good use.

As a result, girls tend to pick different activities instead of chess. As fewer women go into chess than men, naturally fewer women excel at it.

# Answer
> 0 votes
At the professional level, women often play in women-only events where the competition is much weaker (and easier for them to get prizes or sponsorship), so they grow to become fish that cannot survive in shark tank. Until women willingly opt for stronger events, they can never compete on an equal footing with men.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Saying men are better than women in chess (and therefore perhaps smarter) due to the number of super GMs is baseless conjecture. Considering the set of male players is far larger than the set of female ones, of course it follows that most of the players in the top 100 will be mainly male.

A better metric would be taking the average rating of all male players and comparing it to the average rating of all female players, and if I had to guess I'd say these numbers would be around even. But this isn't a perfect test either, since the sample size of female players will be magnitude(s) smaller.

Also, back when Judit Polgar played, she competed actively with the top players of the era (and managed to beat multiple world champions).

---
Tags: psychology
---


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

# Answer
> 2 votes
First, I think that a lot of it is simply to get away from the heavier theory of other lines. Stockfish does not think highly of this move, and it does not make sense that such a move would be best from a purely theoretical standpoint. From a practical standpoint, that is another ball of wax since some of the positions get very messy. After all, who does not get a little queasy when the opponent starts throwing the h-pawn at you?

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

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

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

```
 [FEN ""]

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

```

Here are some lines and comments on 5.h4.

```
 [FEN ""]

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

```

---
Tags: opening, 1.d4, grunfeld-defense
---


# Question
Title: Stockfish: What is the maximum (minimum) centipawn score that a position might be evaluated at?
With the exception of checkmate and mate-in-x positions, what is the highest centipawn score that a chess position might obtain upon Stockfish evaluation?

This is a practical question because there are situations where one would want to normalize position scores to \[-1, 1\]. As a starting point I wrote a small script that evaluates the positions (depth=10) found in 100 PGNs and found the highest score to be 3396. Is there an upper bound (or lower bound for negative scores)? Does the evaluation depth effect the bound?

EDIT: I've selected the answer provided by Chromatix because it solves the problem that motivated my question. For those who are curious about the actual bounds, it's worth noting that looking at approx. 400k positions from grandmaster games I found that the highest and lowest centipawn scores were 7881 and -7658, again, using Stockfish (depth=10).

# Answer
The best way to normalise a centipawn score to \[-1,+1\] range is using a sigmoid function, as that closely approximates the likelihood of a given centipawn advantage converting to a win, and avoids the need to identify a strict maximum or minimum. This is discussed here.
> 16 votes

# Answer
The maximum possible non-mate Stockfish eval is +153. It indicates a forced line leading to an endgame tablebase win. See Wikipedia article on game 65 of the TCEC Season 14 superfinal, and the game itself.

I don't understand Stockfish's code very well, but if you can read C++ you can try deciphering Stockfish's search algorithm yourself.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Arbitrarily High.

No bound except some position which is unknown.

Yes depth affects the maximum bound some.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: stockfish, evaluation
---


title: Lc0 weights file

text:
# Question
Title: Lc0 weights file
On Windows 10 I have installed the latest versions of Arena (v3.5.1) and the Lc0 engine (v0.23.1). However I have only found one weights.pb file that it will accept. The one in the link in this Q&A. But this seems rather weak, Stockfish beats it every time and it seems to make silly mistakes, particularly in the end game.

I have downloaded and unpacked several weights files from the Lc0 Networks page but they all give errors, mostly wrong format or wrong version, even those with today's date.

Can anyone suggest

1. What am I doing wrong? Am I downloading from the wrong place? The wrong file?
2. Where I can download a strong set of weights that will work with my version?

To try and give the additional information suggested by Phonon 37 in their comment:-

The version of SF I'm using is that which comes bundled with Arena, Stockfish\_9\_x64. Both engines are configured to run with 12 "common max CPU cores" under the UCI tab - Options for all UCI Engines. (I've got a Ryzen 8+8 core CPU) They are paired together in the default Engines \> Tournament with 10 rounds of 5 minute games.

But the real problem isn't that SF beats Lc0 10-0, it's before they even get to play. Lc0 rejects all but one weights file when I am in (F11) Engine Management \> Details, change the -w configuration on the command line and watch it throw the error in the debug window (F4) when I click on "Start this engine right now!". If I could solve this, I could try some different weights until I find one I like.

# Answer
Since you didn't specify some things, I'm just going to give instructions from scratch. Since you didn't specify which version of lc0 you downloaded, make sure that it's 23.2 (from https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/releases). If you only have a cpu you want https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/releases/download/v0.23.2/lc0-v0.23.2-windows-cpu-dnnl.zip. For cpu only, the best net is no longer LD2, although it's still pretty strong. A current list of best nets of different sizes is at https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/wiki/Best-Nets-for-Lc0. At time of writing, current best 10b net is probably 58599 (https://lczero.org/get\_network?sha=2b482ff696e3a4032be1b7477567661527a9fac4166591167bf0a71183f9a669). Based on what you were reporting, I'm guessing you probably had an old version of lc0 that is incompatible with newer nets. It will likely still be a few hundred elo worse than SF without a gpu, but it should at least put up a fight.

Some other minor things to consider:

1. Lc0 currently has weird time management when playing without an increment. This is a known bug that really should be fixed.
2. Default lc0 settings are for 2 threads iirc. Setting it to the number of cores you have is better with a cpu, but worse with a gpu.
3. You will probably get faster advice in the future by asking in the #help channel of the lc0 discord.

I hope this helps.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Leela chess zero engine aka LC0 is a neural net aka NN based attempt to learn to play chess. Arena is a graphical interface aka GUI to interact with it.

Why doesnt it do better against Stockfish?

Add a 30 move opening book and a similar one for endgames and then train the NNs better longer and you will do better against Stockfish. LC0 is self learning so the more training the better it gets. Using a pretrained network is also possible.

As to weights file used to train it there are many factors in play. Win10 is frequently a problem itself. How big and fast is your PC? Have you killed all the crapware that interferes with running things?

It could be a bug in the version of LC0 you are using. V3.2 is the latest stable version and you should try that one.

It could be in problems with the formatting of the Pb file used for weighting. Maybe you have errors in downloading. There are many reasons why software does not work like you expect.

I have found oodles of pb files. WHERE did you download yours from? Didn't you find many many pb files from the same place you got the LC0 from? Try some from here: http://lczero.org/networks/

The name will be some long hash string, for example: b82f0b34b96c8f38f68ee97703b4149ab976122ca9bed6120f9dea88d733d266

Rename to "weights" (for convenience).

Place in the same directory with the lc0 application. On a Mac this is /Users/\[username\]/lc0/build/release/.

The file will be found automatically after opening lc0 in the command line.

Note that the latest network is not always the strongest. To find a strong network ID, check the "Test30" tab in the Google Doc.
> -1 votes

---
Tags: engines
---


# Question
Title: Computer endgame strength without tablebases
I have seen that engines aren't particularly strong in the openings without access to a book.

How strong are modern engines in the endgame when they are not allowed access to tablebases? E.g., can a computer typically win those difficult endgames such as KQ vs. KR and KBN vs. K in blitz games?

# Answer
> 9 votes
First, I'm not convinced that engines are necessarily weak without their books. Without an opening book, modern engines might not play the most testing lines, or lines that would get them into a position where they thrive, but any top engine will still crush any human GM without an opening book.

As an interesting aside, if you leave your engine on for a while, it usually finds the Spanish Four Knights as the best line from the starting position, but I digress...

In the endgame, it totally depends on the engine and the position. Without tablebases, engines might not know that a rook pawn and wrong bishop is only a draw. If the programmers added that exception, then they'll figure it out, but otherwise, they might trade down thinking that they'll win with an extra bishop and pawn only to draw via the 50 move rule.

In more elementary endgames, like KBNvK, the stronger side will almost always win. The longest mating sequence is 33 moves if my memory serves. Most engines will stumble onto a forced mate in that time because their heuristics will have them make good moves that get closer to mate (and they can probably see 15-20 moves deep).

In terms of KQvKR, the stronger side will almost always win against a human. Humans are pretty bad at defending this position, and the computer will instantly see ways to pick off a loose rook. Against another computer, it's a little bit harder, but as Wes says in his answer, it is still likely that the stronger side would win (the Philidor maneuver is only ~5 moves long, plenty short enough for the engine to see it) given enough time.

# Answer
> 7 votes
Win against who?

I've seen KQ/KR draw between computers before, in 1 or 5 minutes (without egtb). They can drill pretty deep when there aren't many pieces on the board, but if the time control is fast enough, it's not always deep enough. Even GMs draw that one sometimes.

Still, I imagine a normal person might make a non-optimal move in such a time control, also, that could tip the advantage to the computer.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Tablebases add only a little elo to computers. The amount added is small enough that for many years Andscacs was one of the strongest engines around without endgame tablebases (it still doesn't have them implemented). Even for other engines with tablebase support implemented I'm pretty sure you can not provide it with an endgame tablebase, and they'll play almost as well. Sure, you lose some elo by not having tablebases, but not a lot (I don't know exactly how much, but I'd be surprised if it's more than 10 elo).

The brief answer to whether computers can win KQ vs. KR and KBN vs. K is *yes*. Consider, Stockfish on reasonably strong hardware will easily be operating at 10 million positions per second. How many KQ vs KR positions are there? Stockfish will search them all in a couple of seconds. There's no doubt that Stockfish without a tablebase will easily beat a tablebase at this endgame.

---
Tags: engines, endgame, tablebases
---


# Question
Title: What sort of strategies unfold on this elongated board?
I recently found this incredibly elongated chess board on the /r/gaming subreddit, with this image:

There was a comment thread discussing the potential strategies of playing on this board, with some consensus that rooks and queens become much more important due to their ability to attack from across the board, and that the 50-move rule would be triggered due to the size of the board.

Is this the only viable strategy for this sort of board?

# Answer
> 3 votes
As soon as you change the chessboard in chess, you have to re-assess the relative value of the pieces, as a piece's value is directly affected by its mobility and scope. Note that this is already the case in game on the conventional 8-by-8 boards since how much activity our pieces can benefit from depends on how much space we control, which itself depends on the pawn structure, etc. So in any game, the relative values are changing constantly based on the configuration of the pieces. Thus, to answer your question about finding viable strategies, we first have to develop a good feel for how the values of our pieces are being affected when placing them on a longer board.

What we seem to have is an `l-by-8` chessboard where `l` denotes the length of the elongated side (units being a square's side, or simply the count of squares). Since we've only scaled one dimension of the board, here the vertical one, then only pieces that move vertically (or generally laterally) can benefit from the scaling of the board, as they gain mobility (number of legal moves available to them) *proportionally* to `l.` The only pieces that satisfy this kind of movement are the queen and the rooks, so clearly:

* Rooks and queens are the most important pieces here and have a higher relative value to the other pieces (for `l>8`) w.r.t the known relative values on a `8-by-8` chessboard.

So in short, the scope of our queens and rooks become greater on the longer board and whatever strategy we adopt, should emphasise the activity (and protection) of these pieces, specially early on if we are to achieve any small advantage.

## Now let's see how much the other pieces are affected:

* **Bishops:** since we don't scale the board in both dimensions (and thus not changing the long diagonals), bishops's scope remains roughly the same. For example, when centralised they will have at most 14 legal moves on an empty board, while they have 13 on the `8-by-8.` Moreover, they will have to go through a long zigzag across the board until they see the opponent's pieces (so they cost many tempi). Most importantly, we **no** longer have long diagonals that **span the board**, i.e., bishop fiachetti are much less meaningful now since they cannot eye the opponent's kingside or queenside, let alone taking away squares from their camp. So bishops, despite being still fast pieces, seem to be less effective on a longer board.
* **Knights:** Knights as always are rather very slow pieces, and here it's the same. So naturally, for their activation they will cost us even more tempi that the bishops. Moreover, their scope is not affected by the scaling of the board (it would if `l<8`). So everything being the same, just placed on a longer board, will render knights into even slower pieces, thus their relative value suffers as well w.r.t the `8-by-8` case. Lastly, knights are particularly good when they can be estalished centrally and on permanent outposts: i.e. a square that is well covered by our own pawns but impossible to attack by our opponent's respective pawns. However, since the longer board means the pawns take `l` times longer to advance to anywhere near our opponent's camp, we will not be able to create meaningful outposts for our knights anytime soon. So, early on specially, knights seem to be rather useless.
* **Pawns:** as already hinted at in the previous point, pawns will be ever slower the longer the board is. This means for a good chunk of the early game, we cannot secure any valuable space with our pawns. More importantly, there are no pawn moves that take away squares (and thus options) from our opponent's camp at the beginning, which makes a strong case for the fact that on an `l-by-8` board with `l` much larger than `8,` white's extra tempo becomes negligible and the game is already equal from the get-go. For the contrasting case of `8-by-8` see e.g. the discussions here.
* **Kings:** King safety becomes funny to judge now, on the one hand, one can argue the king is even safer on the `l-by-8` since our opponent's pieces are so far away which makes it very difficult for any threats to be made, which gives us lots of tempi to re-arrange our pieces however we want. On the other hand, if we are to start a long journey with our pieces to eventually reach the opponent's side, our king might be left stranded far away from our coverage and thus rather exposed (e.g. as soon as bishops, rooks and queens can sneak through the structure to reach our king). And if all this means that we need to *collectively* move our pieces towards the enemy, so they can constantly eye one another, then our advancement speed is bottlenecked by that of the king's... What is roughly the same, is the fact that the board still has edges, so castling our king so it can be tucked away to a corner and only accessible from one side is still possible, but how much of protection that offers, is hard to judge.
* **Rooks and queens:** We have already covered those in the starting discussions.

## So in a nutshell, our reassessment of the pieces is:

* Rooks and queens are made even stronger relative to the other pieces.
* Knights and pawns are made weaker since their mobility is not affected and they have only become slower (since it takes longer for them to cross the board and reach the opponent's side).
* Bishops are neither here nor there: their scope is roughly the same (e.g. in terms of legal moves) but they are still quite fast pieces, and with a few zigzags they can cross the board and create threats or coordinate eventually with our heavy pieces. So they remain strong, but less than their worth on an `8-by-8` board since there are no long diagonals spanning the board. But clearly among minor pieces, they are definitely much stronger than knights on the elongated board.

---

## Two basic strategies to consider:

Now that we have a better idea for how the relative value of our pieces is being affected by elongating the board, we have a better chance of finding good strategies. The obvious things that come to mind:

* Use your early tempi to quickly activate your queen and rooks in order to already pose threats to your opponent, e.g. by being the first in having an active rook, you will be the first to slow down the advance of your opponent's pawns, and that ought to be your first easy way of gaining a small plus.
* Once your heavy pieces activated, I see two separate options: **(1)** creating a small squad and moving that towards the opponent's side or **(2)** moving collectively all of our pieces across the board, which is safer since our king is less likely to become stranded compared to **(1)**.

Let's delve bit deeper into each:

* **In (1)**: say your two bishops, the two rooks and the queen, that's a 5 piece squad that can coordinate an attack against your opponent rather quickly, either to win material, or to try and bait tension on one side, and sneak through on the other side with a heavy piece. Infiltrating behind your opponent's pieces and winning potentially lots of material, this is more the middle game since we're assuming our opponent's pieces are somewhat close to the center of the board. Admittedly, this strategy resembles more what typically occurs in the strategy game Stratego, where pieces have well-defined ranks which acts as their strength (a lower rank cannot capture a higher one etc), and thus, one typical strategy is to infiltrate our opponent's camp with a small squad of high ranked pieces and mop up their pieces (assuming we know where the bombs are...).
* **In (2)**: ultimately, once the gap in space between our pieces and our opponent's have become smaller, the gameplay will approach that of the conventional chess on an `8-by-8` board, and thus we can adopt our usual mindset and conventional strategies become viable again, which means we'll have a more *normal* game than in **(1)**.

---
Tags: strategy, chess-variants, chessboards
---


# Question
Title: The Sicilian Defense Kalashnikov Variation: Why shouldn’t white play 5.Nxc6 here?
I get a lot of weaker players, who opt out of main lines, and they play 5.Nxc6?! against me. It has seemed to happen a lot lately. Why is that bad, and why shouldn’t white play that?

Note: This is more of a teaching question as I intend to answer my own question.

```
 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nxc6?!

```

# Answer
> 4 votes
First, it is important to know that in many Sicilian positions, not just the Kalashnikov, if black gets in d5, he has equalized, and has a very free game. Thus, taking on c6 helps black reinforce the center, and he will often get in d5 soon. White following up the trade with Bc4, which scores only 20% for white despite white out-rating black 2376 to 2192 per Mega 2020, makes it that much more impactful if black does get in d5 since white will be forced to lose yet another tempo.

In addition, black will soon play Rb8 with a lot of pressure against b2, or if white plays b3, there will be chronic weaknesses on the queenside dark squares, and that could lead to Bb4xc3, and e4 may hang under certain circumstances. Black will also eventually get long-term pressure down both the b- and c-files, combines with a5-a4, should white exchange after an eventual d5 by black. These pawns may look strong, and they would be in the endgame, but in the middlegame, they are just huge targets on open files.

Also, of note is that in most situations, if white plays the natural Bg5, either simply h6 wins the bishop pair, or Qa5 can get out of the pin tactically.

```
 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nxc6 bxc6 6. Bc4 (6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Bg5 $6 Rb8 8. Rb1 h6 9. Bxf6 (9. Bh4 $4 Qa5 10. Bxf6 Rxb2 $1 11. Kd2 Bb4 12. Rxb2 Bxc3+ 13. Kc1 Qa3 $19) (9. Bd2 d5 $17) 9... Qxf6 10. Bc4 Bc5 11. O-O O-O 12. Qe2 Bd4 13. Na4 d5 14. exd5 Bf5 15. dxc6 Qxc6 16. Nc3 Rfc8 {With huge pressure for the pawn.}) 6... Nf6 7. Nc3 Bb4 (7... Bc5 $5 {Is also possible, with the idea Bd4.}) 8. O-O O-O 9. Bg5 h6 10. Bh4 g5 11. Bg3 Qe7 12. Qd3 Rd8 13. Rfe1 d6 {And although white is holding it together, it is still not pleasant. The Bg3 is not doing much, the Qd3 is not comfortable being opposed by the Rd8, and black will continue trying to create weaknesses on the queenside with Rb8.}

```

# Answer
> 4 votes
*This answer does not use modern analysis.*

One can always consult the old masters for advice.

One of the first epic rivalries in chess was between an Irishman and a Frenchman: Alexander McDonnell and Louis Charles Mahé de la Bourdonnais. In the course of their six-match slugfest in 1834, this opening line arose thrice, with de la Bourdonnais taking 2 points out of 3 from the black side. What did he do?

All three games went `1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nxc6?! bxc6`, a surprisingly modern opening.

In this game, de la Bourdonnais' control of d5 and d6 was solid enough that he could forgo castling, play ...Ke7, and barrel down the kingside. Black had some attacking potential while white could not break through in the centre because the c6-pawn guarded d5 and b5; black's attack eventually petered out and he managed to hold a draw against white's slow queenside attack.

```
[Event "London"]
[Date "1834"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Alexander McDonnell"]
[Black "Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais"]
[FEN ""]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Bg5 Bc5 8.O-O h6 9.Bxf6 Qxf6 10.Nc3 a5 11.Kh1 d6 12.Qd2 g5 13.Rad1 Ke7 14.Na4 Bd4 15.Qd3 h5 16.Qb3 h4 17.f3 h3 18.g3 Bd7 19.c3 Rab8 20.Qc2 Ba7 21.Qd2 Rhg8 22.b3 Rbd8 23.Nb2 Rg7 24.Be2 Qg6 25.Nc4 Bc5 26.Nxa5 Rb8 27.b4 Bb6 28.Nc4 Qf6 29.Nxd6 Rgg8 30.Nxf7 Be6 31.Nd6 Rgd8 32.c4 Bxc4 33.Bxc4 Rxd6 34.Qxd6+ Qxd6 35.Rxd6 Kxd6 36.Rb1 Bd4 37.Bf1 Ra8 38.Bxh3 Rxa2 39.Bg2 Rb2 40.Rxb2 Bxb2 41.Bf1 Ke6 42.Kg2 Kf6 43.Kh3 Bc3 44.b5 cxb5 45.Bxb5 Bd4 46.Kg4 Be3 47.h4 gxh4 48.Kxh4 Bc5 49.Kg4 Bf2 50.f4 Bd4 51.Kf3 Bc3 52.Kg4 Bd4 53.Kh5 Bf2 54.Kg4 Bd4 55.Bd3 Be3 56.Kf3 Bd2 1/2-1/2

```

The next example is a little different; early tactics saw mass exchanges down the e-file and yielded an entirely different sort of game, which again ended up drawn. Instead of `9...Nxe4` (which yields equality anyway), black could have tried other options to achieve the usual plan of ...d5 in the Sicilian. (Although in 1834, it was not "usual" in the slightest...)

```
[Event "London"]
[Date "1834"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Alexander McDonnell"]
[Black "Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais"]
[FEN ""]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Qe2 Be7 8.Nc3 O-O 9.Bg5 Nxe4 10.Bxe7 Nxc3 11.Qxe5 Re8 12.O-O Qxe7 13.Qxc3 d5 14.Bd3 Qd6 15.Rad1 Bd7 16.Qd4 c5 17.Qh4 g6 18.c3 Bc6 19.f4 c4 20.Bb1 Re2 21.Rf2 Rae8 22.f5 Qe5 23.Rdf1 Qe3 24.fxg6 fxg6 25.Qf6 Rxf2 26.Qxf2 Kg7 27.Qxe3 Rxe3 28.Kf2 Re5 29.Re1 Rxe1 30.Kxe1 1/2-1/2

```

And for those who know the classics, this game is the one you've been waiting for since starting to read this answer. It is downright famous, and everyone should take a look. It is said that the problem with `5. Nxc6?!` is in allowing black to strengthen the centre with more pawns -- and just look at the final position for the culmination of that strategy.

```
[Event "London"]
[Date "1834"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Alexander McDonnell"]
[Black "Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais"]
[FEN ""]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Bg5 Be7 8.Qe2 d5 9.Bxf6 Bxf6 10.Bb3 O-O 11.O-O a5 12.exd5 cxd5 13.Rd1 d4 14.c4 Qb6 15.Bc2 Bb7 16.Nd2 Rae8 17.Ne4 Bd8 18.c5 Qc6 19.f3 Be7 20.Rac1 f5 21.Qc4+ Kh8 22.Ba4 Qh6 23.Bxe8 fxe4 24.c6 exf3 25.Rc2 Qe3+ 26.Kh1 Bc8 27.Bd7 f2 28.Rf1 d3 29.Rc3 Bxd7 30.cxd7 e4 31.Qc8 Bd8 32.Qc4 Qe1 33.Rc1 d2 34.Qc5 Rg8 35.Rd1 e3 36.Qc3 Qxd1 37.Rxd1 e2 0-1

```

Edit: game 3 had an error in the PGN (2..Nc6 was 2..c6 instead)

# Answer
> 2 votes
While PhishMaster's answer is correct, we shouldn't forget about the importance of the **d5** square. If it wasn't for its weakness, Black would play **...e5** every single time in the Sicilian. By playing **Nxc6**, we are allowing Black to get rid of the main downside of his position, while also reinforcing his presence in the center.

As pointed out by Akawall, **5. Nb5** forces Black to play **5...d6**, in which case the Black-squared bishop cannot join the fight for the **d5** square (via **b4**) The only alternative would be to allow White to put a piece on **d6** which is not pleasant either

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Tags: opening, sicilian-defense, kalashnikov
---


# Question
Title: Is it ethical to refer to opening book for the first few moves of a correspondence game?
I am still learning chess (been playing ~6 months steadily now and am at ~1300) and have recently been enjoying correspondence chess with a 3 day time control. I find it gives me time to really analyze each move without the pressure of time that I get with blitz games.

I have been trying to learn new openings in detail, mostly using opening explorer in lichess or chess.com. As most of you probably know, it breaks down the most popular moves in the opening from games played and gives the % outcome of white wins/black wins/draw for each move. This is an amazing resource for someone like myself who doesn't have lines memorized yet, but is it unethical to refer to these resources during a daily game?

I would never refer to an engine for a current game and the opening explorer is only showing the data for games that have been played, not evaluating positions, but I still wonder if it would be wrong to use.

What is the general consensus of the online chess community on this?

# Answer
> 6 votes
Yes.

ICCF: Says nothing about it, or assistance of any kind, and you can even use computers legally. Here are their rules.

USCF: "3. You may consult chess books and periodicals but not other players." Here are their rules.

With regards to the ICCF rules, my guess is that they just decided it was too hard to police computer used, so they just allow it. Books have always been permitted.

# Answer
> 5 votes
Yes.

All correspondence chess always allowed written materials.

Now they may also allow computers, and AFAIK also do so as it would be impossible to know if someone was using one or not.

Many people now complain that CC is just one computer versus another.

I always suspected that Hans Berliner had used a computer when he worked at FSD in Gaithersburg for IBM as he showed some computer chess programs at the DPD datacenter in DC.

You need to be careful with what looks like winning percentages in those databases. I have found you can pick the move that seems the best and then the next move by the opponent he has options that are better than what you thought you had picked.

---
Tags: opening, rules, correspondence-chess, ethics
---


# Question
Title: 1700 rated games-On mistakes and how to correct them
What are some typical mistakes in 1700 rated games on Lichess, and what ways are there to correct them? I usually play blitz and bullet games. Occasionally I play. OVB and longer formats.

# Answer
> 5 votes
Even at 1700, the vast majority of your mistakes are going to be tactical errors...especially at the faster controls. The only way around that is to start studying and practicing.

There may be some people, who can benefit from online tactics, but am of the belief that they lend themselves toward the trainee being shallow, and often the answers are the computer answer, not the human answer.

I am a firm believer in books, so get yourself some good tactic books that are well-categorized. It is better to study specific categories at one time, pins, skewers, etc. I still love the Fred Reinfeld 1001 books.

Try to do 50 per day, spending no more than two minutes per problem. Note in pencil on a scale from 1-5 how easy you found the problem because you will do them again in the future. The more time you spend on tactics, the less you will lose online.

One last thing, and that is I have found that even mid-level players think they are pretty good at tactics, but it is my experience that they are not. I am no longer above 2200 USCF, but even when I was, I always felt I could be stronger at that, and general calculating.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I recommend Dan Heisman's "The World's Most Instructive Amateur Game Book" which has 30 amateur heavily annotated games grouped by useful sections like "Too Fast" and "Too Slow" for time management. If you are often mystified by GM commentary like "...and Black is clearly better." then this book may be for you.

Most of these are in the 1400 - 1800 range.

Some quotes from the introduction:

> Many amateur tournament players are superior to the average chess book purchaser
>
> Typical mid-level tournament players often play strategically interesting games

---
Tags: learning, online-chess, lichess
---


title: FIDE ignores my case. How to proceed?

text:
# Question
Title: FIDE ignores my case. How to proceed?
Last year, there was an incident where the arbiter ignored cheating, and I filed a report to register a case to FIDE Ethics Commission. The registration was made by email, in November 2017, and I have the confirmation mail that my request was received.

Although one year passed, no one has contacted me. The case was not even classified as "not admissible" in the website.

I sent them another email asking for the status of my application, and again, no response.

What does this mean? Was my application form somehow invalid and therefore nullified? Should I register another case?

There are several cases where FIDE published a decision, both for national and international tournaments.

How should I proceed?

# Answer
> How should I proceed?

You should get on with your life.

It was a minor incident which you brought to the attention of the arbiter. You disagreed with his decision but did not lodge an appeal with the appeals committee and you did not escalate to the national federation. Instead you went straight to FIDE. They are clearly not wasting time on this and nor should you.
> 7 votes

# Answer
Please don't waste your time anymore. The FIDE committee won't take a random case like yours. They don't have time.

The committee won’t do anything unless there is a powerful national federation supporting you or the media like chess.com put your case to public.

* Ask for help from your national federation
* Submit your story to chess.com or Chessbase

Honestly, you don't have a chance. You have no evidence cheating occurred. Forget about it, it was just a game. Ok?
> 2 votes

# Answer
You should ignore FIDE.
Drop your membership.
Never play in their tournaments again.

Clearly they need you more than you need them. Quitting will show them who is boss. So be the modern day Fischer and refuse to deal with them till they see it your way.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: fide, ethics
---


# Question
Title: Why does Lichess mark this move as "?!"?
I was looking at this game on Lichess, where it says "Checkmate is now unavoidable. Best move was Kc4." As far as I can tell, checkmate was already unavoidable, including after `Kc4`. Namely, Black can move `Ke3,Ke2,Rf3,Kf1,Kg2,g3` and then either `gxh2` or `Rxg3` according to White's next move, leading to a won end-game. Am I missing something?

# Answer
> 7 votes
There is no valid human reason. The difference between Kc4 (mate in 12), and Kc2 (mate in 10) is fairly irrelevant. It simply appended the "?!" based on the algorithm that 10 is slightly worse than 12. Either way, it is, indeed, a simple win from there.

By the way, my plan would be Rd7, then bring the king to h1/g1, and only then, bring the rook over via the f-file to take on h2. The longer you can keep the white king out, the less you have to calculate.

In general though, if the situation were different, and the material were more even, you might not want to box your king into the smaller area.

```
 [FEN "1B6/8/8/8/4k1p1/2Kr3p/7P/8 w - - 0 0"]

 1. Kc2 (1.Kc4)

```

# Answer
> 2 votes
On Lichess, inaccuracies are denoted `?!`, mistakes by `?` and blunders by `??`. You can click on the \`x inaccuracies/x mistakes/ x blunders' to move between these.

The move was inaccurate since it reduced a forced mate from 16 moves (Kc3) to 13 moves. Lichess marks inaccuracies for large checkmate sequences, since humans aren't expected to find these.

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Tags: endgame, checkmate, pawn-promotion
---


title: Chess database software for variants

text:
# Question
Title: Chess database software for variants
For regular chess, I use SCID and it works well. It has database searches, position searches, player stats, and a nice compact file format (i.e. not PGN, which is inefficient and big).

Is there any similar software like the SCID software mentioned above, but for **chess variants**? I've tried Winboard/XBoard (it reads from PGN, so is slow and bulky, plus it has a slightly stunted search).

An example use case: I would like to organise/search/use a database of only antichess or only atomic games. I should be able to do all (or at least some) of the following:

* Save/load the database to and from PGN
* Save/load the database to and from a more compact format than raw text PGN (compare SCID .s\*4 or ChessBase .cb\* formats for regular chess)
* Search for games by date/player/rating (or more generally by tag)
* Play through the games in a GUI (or at least give me a PGN of individual game(s) I view)

Engine support is not a must.

# Answer
I leave a partial answer for interested parties:

Scidb (Scidb is a Chess Information DataBase) is a chess information database. (Great sentence.)

It supports some variants (3-check, King of the Hill, Anti/Suicide/Giveaway/Losers, and Crazyhouse), as well as 960 starting. It is currently still in development, and is available only for Linux systems at the moment, requiring a build from source. (It might work on Windows with an appropriate environment configured.)

Unfortunately, it doesn't support the variant I'm interested the most in (Atomic) and is limited to Linux (I do run Linux, but would prefer not to grapple with it as mine runs from an external HDD).

Further answers would be appreciated.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: software, chess-variants, database
---


# Question
Title: Why doesn't the computer take my knight?
```
 [FEN "3r4/p1p1kp2/1pn1b2p/4P1p1/P3pN2/2P1P1B1/2P2PPP/R5K1 b - - 0 1"]

 1...Nxe5 {This was the original question with black to move.} (1...gxf4) (1...Rd2)

```

NB: Black's knight was on C6 and has just moved to e5 and captured a pawn.

So I'm a beginner, playing the chess.com app on level 5 and periodically turning 'show best moves' on and off. I'm playing white; I got my white knight cornered on h3 so at the computer's suggestion moved it to f4, fully expecting black's pawn on g5 to capture it. It's what I would do. But instead black moves Rd2. Surprised, I try again on level 20; this time black moves Nxe5.

Why are Rd2 and Nxe5 better than gxf4?

# Answer
New answer based on the updated question.

As it turns out, Stockfish finds all of these moves, Nxe5, gxf4, and Rd2 all almost dead equal. Let's look at why.

It still finds gxf4 a hair better than the others, and I would normally prefer the piece myself in most cases, but not here. I like Rd2. I have included notes in the following game, so read them as you click on the moves.

```
 [FEN "3r4/p1p1kp2/1pn1b2p/4P1p1/P3pN2/2P1P1B1/2P2PPP/R5K1 b - - 0 1"]

 1... gxf4 {Is not so simple since you are not just winning a piece.} (1... Nxe5 2. Ne2 Kf6 3. Nd4 Rd5 4. Nb3 Rd7 {And black is dominating the position.} 5. a5 Bxb3 6. cxb3 b5 7. Bxe5+ Kxe5 {Trying to head to a rook ending, which can be notoriously drawish, but white is so passive, black should win.}) (1... Rd2! {This would be my preference. It is strong, and wins a pawn. The Bg3 remains passive, and the N has to go to h5, and be out of play too.}) 2. Bh4+ Kf8 3. Bxd8 Nxd8 4. exf4 {Winning two pieces for the rook.}

```

This was my original answer based on the original position given after Nxe5, but seemingly given as black to move.

There is no reason chess-wise. gxf4 is, indeed, the best move.

The answer is that you have it on Level 5, and I assume there are higher levels. The computer on level 5 is handicapped, and thus, it intentionally throws in less good moves as part of its programming to give the player a chance. For example, that may mean that it selects the second-best, or worse, move based on certain circumstances that are met based on the programming.

Stockfish, the strongest program that is widely available, says that gxf4 is -4.76, compared to -2.02 for Rd2.
> 1 votes

# Answer
If I understood correctly, the knight was on `c6` and you play `Nf4` whilst having a pawn on `e5` still (which is important as it prevents `f6` by black after `gxf4 Bh4+`). In this case, `gxf4` is not necessarily the best as it leads to the exchange of B+N for a rook an a pawn (see below), which gives white some chances, despite it still being better for black.

```
 [title "Game position before Nf4, white to move"]
 [fen "3r4/p1p1kp2/1pn1b2p/4P1p1/P3p3/2P1P1BN/2P2PPP/R5K1 w - - 0 1"]

 1. Nf4 gxf4 2. Bh4+ Ke8 3. Bxd8 Kxd8 4. exf4

```

Instead, considering that white's lacking both coordination and activity, and the fact that black has all pieces centrally established and controls the only open file, it might be simpler (and even best) to not create an imbalance (like the line we saw above) and aim to maintain the assured edge by avoiding an over simplification that might be hard to judge and playing against white's shattered queenside pawn structure. Here's one possible continuation to exemplify:

```
 [title "Game position before Nf4, white to move"]
 [fen "3r4/p1p1kp2/1pn1b2p/4P1p1/P3p3/2P1P1BN/2P2PPP/R5K1 w - - 0 1"]

 1.Nf4 Nxe5 2.Ne2 Kf6 3.Nd4 Rd5 4.Kf1 Rc5 5. Ra3 Bd7

```
> 2 votes

---
Tags: pawn-structure, pieces
---


# Question
Title: How do I find players to play in person?
How do I find events (free/paid) that would allow me to play chess locally with other players?

# Answer
> 11 votes
Almost every city has a local chess club. You can always join your local club and find other events or activities through your club.

# Answer
> 7 votes
The USCF has a registry of all USCF-sanctioned chess clubs.

You can go here.

# Answer
> 6 votes
Searching for "chess" on Meetup.com will return any meetup groups in your area.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Your problem is meeting people who play chess. Google is a good starting place. Look for clubs. Also consider travel to tournaments.

Try meetup. Check with libraries and churches and schools at all levels. It may be informal not an official club that plays.

Look in the park when the weather is good. Put an ad on craigslist. Ads on bulletin boards. Ask people.

Play with a set in public. Coffee shops and malls. People will see you and may want to play.

These days many prefer to play online instead of in person. Try it. Also there are apps and programs that play well.

---
Tags: tournament, clubs
---