# Question
Title: What are some good openings with a trap to play against beginners?
For instance, I consider the Queen's Gambit to be such an opening. Most beginners playing Black would accept the gambit, and try to defend their pawn too, leading to inferior lines for Black. Are there any others?

# Answer
> 6 votes
There are none. You should play the openings where you are stronger, and you should play normally as if you were facing a strong opponent, because if you let your opponent get some kind of messy position you are risking losing yourself.

All I can say is to play good moves, sooner or later your opponent will blunder something.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Depending on the level of the beginner, 60 years ago (age 10) I had great success with the scholar's mate. It seemed very common to get them to copy the bishop move, then they wouldn't see the mate. If they did see the mate the most common response was 3. ... g6 which gives you a rook. I never got Qe7 or Qf6. If they play 2. ... Nf6 I would just play Nc3 and go into standard development with Nf3, d3, Bg5 and so on.

```
[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Bc5 3.Qh5 Nc6 4.Qxf7#

```

# Answer
> 3 votes
I would warmly suggest you to consider the **Vienna Game** (and especially the gambit if Black responds with Nf6). The Vienna Gambit cannot be accepted for reasons that are not obvious at first sight, especially not for beginners (who might know, that against the King's Gambit, you can accept the pawn).

The best move, the d5 counter-thrust instead of accepting the pawn is extremely hard to find for a beginner who has never seen that move. Blacks knight will be forced to un-develop after exf4, while White builds an ideal center, will most likely take back the pawn while simultaneously developing his dark-squared bishop and gets the ideal attacking position (in a much improved version of the King's Gambit). Black is significantly worse, in a very difficult-to-play situation and every move is essentially an only-move (trap), where Black loses immediately if he does not play like an engine.

If Black knows the actual main line, you'll get a game of chess (Black has equalized and may be slightly better). This is why it's not played on high levels of chess, but is perfect for games up to 1500.

```
   [FEN ""]
           1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 {don't take the "free" pawn - it's a trap!!} exf4 4. e5 Ng8 5. Nf3 d6 6. Qe2 Be7 7. d4 dxe5 8. Qxe5 {Black had to find some only moves to even get to here. White is threatening to take back the pawn on f4 with interest and Black is heavily underdeveloped. Expect to crush lower-rated opponents from here on easily}

```

If Blacks responds with Nc6, there is a well known variation where the Black queen is prone to getting trapped (c3 to follow):

```
   [FEN ""]
           1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. Qg4 Qf6 5. Nd5 Qxf2+ 6. Kd1 Kf8! 7. Nh3! {The queen finds herself short of moves} Qd4 8. d3+- {White is winning here. Explore this with the lichess opening explorer and see how amateurs go wrong in this line as Black.}

```

Another opening I would recommend for your purposes is the **Schlechter variation** of the French Defense, which is very tricky. If Black knows the main line, he equalizes, so it's not a good way to press for an advantage. Therefore it's not well known, as it's not played on high levels. But it's very venomous for lower-rated players.

Schlechter variation explained

If Black plays his "typical French moves", he'll often be much worse. There is even a trap where Black thinks he may win a pawn on g2, only to realize that the queen is short on squares and the queen gets trapped and lost.

It is very unlikely your opponent knows the theory even if he studies openings, because these are neglected side-lines (especially the Schlechter. I played it against a 1600 in a rapid OTB tournament and he got in trouble quickly after not playing theory moves, so even them do not know it. He said he has never seen Bd3.).

# Answer
> 2 votes
For many gambits, accepting the material and then trying to hold on to without realising the danger it is a typical beginner mistake. Some (e.g. hypermodern-themed) openings invite the opponent to overextend in the center and then punish it; this is arguably a form of traps to beginners; the bad news is that, it is not easy to play them well.

A list of openings where beginners very often fell into traps are given below (in every opening, beginners can make mistakes; they are not traps unless it is hard to see \[e.g., if even professional players fail to notice it occassionally, then it makes more sense to call them traps\]). Too dubious openings are avoided as a rule of thumb. Also, I have not included openings where the player initiating the opening is mainly the one who falls into traps (e.g. Damiano Defence, Busch-Gass Gambit). I am not mentining unusual openings since a beginner (or even in intermediate player) is very unlikely to play them.

* Queen's Gambit
* Ruy Lopez
* Budapest Gambit
* Sicilian Defence
* Evan's Gambit
* Italian Game
* Caro-Kann Defence
* King's Indian Defence
* In French Defence,
    + Greek gift sacrifice
    + Milner-Barry Gambit
    + Alekhine-Chatard Attack
    + Alekhine-Maroczy Gambit
* Pirc Defence: Kholmov System
* Trompowsky Attack: Adams Trap
* English Opening
* Veresov Opening
* King's Gambit
* In Dutch Defense,
    + Kortchnoi Attack
    + 2... Bg5
* Latvian Gambit
* Lisitsin Gambit
* Scotch Gambit
* Vienna Game
* Morphy Gambit
* King’s Gambit: Nimzowitsch-Marshall Countergambit
* Ponziani Opening – Fraser Attack
* Two Knight Tango
* Alekhine' s Defence
* Albin Countergambit
* Bishop's Opening
* Reti Opening
* Bird’s Opening: From Gambit
* Danish Gambit
* Lazard Gambit
* MacLeod Attack

Honorable Mentions: King’s Gambit: Miles Defense, Nimzowitsch Defense: Panov Gambit

Some of the traps work in multiple openings. e.g. Greek gift, Fishing pole, Siberian trap, Legal's mate.

I also recommend to check out openings Hikaru and Levy classified as 'tricks-only' in the opening tier-list videos (except tier list for GM level).

Some links: English Opening: https://chess-teacher.com/7-best-chess-opening-traps-english-opening/ (For many popular openings, similar lists are available online specific to that opening)

There are so many other variations or lines where landmines are common. e.g.: French Defence: Two Knights Defence (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUWQABiygVM)

The following are some of the most commonly used traps (grouped based on opening).

* Queen's Gambit
    + Elephant Trap
    + Cambridge Springs
    + Lasker Trap
    + Rubinstein Trap
* Ruy Lopez
    + Mortimer Trap
    + Noah’s Ark Trap
    + Tarrasch Trap
    + Dresden Trap
    + Fishing Pole Trap
    + Rombaua Trap
* Sicilian Defence
    + Magnus Smith Trap
    + Siberian Trap
    + Bobby Fischer Trap
    + Accelerated Dragon Trap
* Italian Game
    + Legal Trap
    + Blackburne Shilling Gambit *
    + Italian Belloni Trap
* Queen’s Indian Defense
    + Queen Amidala Trap
* Nimzo-Indian Defence
    + Rubinstein Fianchetto Variation
* Bogo-Indian Defence
    + Monticelli Trap
* French Defence
    + Milner-Barry Trap
* Benoni Defince
    + Old Benoni Trap
* Vienna Game
    + Wurzburger Trap
* Petrovs defense
    + Marshall Trap
* Budapest gambit
    + Budapest Trap
    + Kieninger Trap
    + Fajarowicz Variation
* Two Knights Defense
    + Fried Liver Attack
    + Lolli Attack
* Caro-Kann
    + Fantasy Variation
    + Keres's Trick (& Bg5 trick)
    + 4... Nd7
* Trompowsky Attack
    + Adams Trap
* Danish Gambit
    + Danish Bird Trap
* Blackmar-Diemer Gambit
    + Halosar Trap
* Ponziani Opening
    + Flagship Trap
* Bird’s Opening
    + From Gambit
    + Birds Eye View Trap
* King’s Gambit
    + Nordwalde Trap
* Lazard Gambit
* MacLeod Attack
* Englund Gambit *
    + Englund Gambit Trap

`* - I'm sure this is not a recommended move`

Sources:
Gary Lane, The Greatest Ever Chess Tricks and Traps
John Watson & Eric Schiller, Taming Wild Chess Openings
https://www.thechesswebsite.com/chess-traps/
https://www.chessjournal.com/chess-traps/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_chess\_traps
https://chessquestions.com/chess-traps/

# Answer
> 2 votes
Starting with the very natural-looking Two Knights Defense of the Italian Game and aggressively attacking with Knight Attack, 4. Ng5 can setup to some famous traps like the Fried Liver. The most solid move for Black is 4... d5 (Bc5 can lead into the sharp Traxler counterattack), where after 5. exd5 the traditional defense is the funny-looking Polerio Defense putting the knight on the side of the board with 5...Na5.

Black and White are about equal here, but Black must know the correct defenses. A beginner natural move such as moving the queen out of the way with Qe7 is already losing after giving check, forcing Black to lose castling rights, and taking a free pawn.

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

```

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


# Question
Title: Will writing a chess engine help my chess?
At first the premise seems absurd - the computer engine relies much more on brute-force search (Shannon's Type A Strategy) over selecting a few strong lines with heuristics (Type B Strategy). But can the process of creating and testing the evaluation function actually help my human chess playing at all? For example, I learned from Chess Programming Wiki that a bishop pair gives a small bonus roughly half a pawn, knights do better than bishops when there are many pawns on the board, and that certain pieces are stronger in general on certain squares. By testing out what the computer values, perhaps these ideas (such as checks, captures, threats) can transfer a little to real-world play.

I am interested if anyone here has written an engine and feels that the process has helped them OTB as a side-effect.

Related discussion on chess.com

# Answer
I wrote an engine a while back. I would call myself a "competent inactive chess player," defining that as in the uncomfortable divide where playing people who aren't active chess players is so easy that it isn't even sportsmanlike, but playing against active players is humbling. For a class, I had to write a chess engine. From my experience, I do not believe you can learn much about chess this way.

When building up an engine, you spend much of your time teaching it not to do monumentally stupid moves. In my class, I was the only person who wrote an engine that didn't fall victim to the 4-move checkmate. My classmates were amazed at my ability to not hang pieces. Getting my chess program to out-perform an elementary student with 1 month of Chess under their belt was quite the challenge, and it certainly didn't teach me anything about the game. It taught me a great deal about game theory (which was, after all, the purpose of my course). It taught me about bitboards and perfect hashes, neither of which are used by humans during play.

So, in the effort to make a "good" engine, you may go out and borrow evaluation tricks from others. You yourself mentioned a few, such as a bishop pair being worth about 500 centipawns. However, behind this evaluation lies a subtle detail: do you know how to use said bishops to get your half-pawn advantage? Very rarely in engine development do we really consider how you are "supposed" to use these advantages. Instead, we make general algorithms which figure it out on the fly. They can't play for you, so its unlikely that knowing your bishop pair is worth half a pawn is enough to help you actually leverage it.

And let us never forget 36. axb5. This is the famous move from Kasparov v. Deep Blue that was so astonishing that Kasparov accused IBM of cheating. When you play, you don't play to some abstract generalized idea of what a good board is. You play to your strenghts. If you're good in tight lockded down positions, you play moves that lead to that. If you're good in open endgames, you play moves that get to open endgames. Computers play to computer's strengths. The value of particular positions is evaluated based on how well those computers can leverage those positions. In the case of axb5, the computer played a very "human" move. It put itself into a position that humans tended to be better at, and computers tended to be worse at. Well, as it turns out, it was a position that Deep Blue was good at too, and it proved it.

So all of the "rules of thumb" are no where near as important as finding out what *you* are good at, and following those rules of thumb. And you cannot get that from a chess engine.
> 8 votes

# Answer
If you are a beginner, then yeah it would help. As you wrote, "bishop pair gives a small bonus roughly half a pawn, knights do better than bishops when there are many pawns on the board, and that certain pieces are stronger in general on certain squares" - these are nontrivial pieces of chess knowledge that you can learn from writing an engine.

Past the beginner level though, it's not likely to be helpful - especially if you use NNs or NNUEs like the best modern engines do, in which case all the chess knowledge in the first paragraph don't matter anyway.
> 4 votes

# Answer
No. Humans and engines play chess in completely different ways. Being able to conclude that the evaluation function bonus for the bishop pair should be 0.3 rather than 0.2 will have pretty much no impact on your actual chess skill. People just don't think like that.

Even if there was a benefit to your chess by writing the code for an engine, there are definitely more effective training methods, like tactics, analysis, practice games and so on. You can learn the ideas you mention from a strategy book in a more complete way by watching illustrative examples and analyzing those games.
> 3 votes

# Answer
**It is the other way around**. Being a strong chess player allows you to write a good evaluation function. The evaluation functions of strong chess engines are known, and the principles they encapsulate are already taught to chess players in books and other means.

For example, there are countless videos, book chapters, etc. on the power of the bishop pair, similarly, it is well known to even weak players that bishops generally strive in open and knights in closed positions (this is why knights are better when there are more pawns). You would learn all that while reading chess books, without needing all the overhead of engine programming.

Moreover, you would learn **why** this is the case and only logical by reading books. If you understand such chess principles, you can try to build them into your evaluation function.

Yes, engine programming can make you aware of certain important concepts, but it won't necessarily help you to **apply and understand** them. On the other hand, the best way to improve in chess is to devote time to studying chess (not to fix annoying C++ bugs, so you would even have an opportunity cost if your goal was solely to improve in chess).

All that being said, I would like to encourage you to build your own engine. It is **far more impressive** to anyone if you can build a chess engine than if you have gained some Elo instead. Knowing how to program is also far more valuable in today's world and will bestow much more transfer use upon your life.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: engines, learning, beginner, evaluation
---


title: Quick rating higher than normal?

text:
# Question
Title: Quick rating higher than normal?
I recently bought a USCF membership and played in my second tournament. The first one I played without a membership. I looked at my ratings, but noticed my quick rating was 1521, which is over 200 points higher than my regular rating. I've only played one tournament while having a membership, and both tournaments I played at were over 30 min time control.

How come this rating was so much higher than the previous one?

# Answer
> 5 votes
The USCF uses an Elo type of rating system. Your initial rating is only a rough estimate based on the strength of the rated players you played and your score against them. This first estimate is very unreliable as it depends completely on the ratings of your opponents.

Let me give an example. Suppose you play at 1500 level and one of your opponents is also 1500 strength and you draw with him. Suppose you have 4 more opponents and they are all rated 1900 and they all beat you. According to my back of envelope calculation your initial rating will be 1500. Now suppose your 4 strong opponents are all 2300. Now the initial calculation of your rating will be much higher, not because you played better but just because it was obtained against much higher rated players.

Understand that this is a basic flaw with this kind of system. The solution is for you to play a lot more rated games. The more games you play the more accurate your rating will be as an estimate of your playing strength.

For future tournament results the calculations will also take into account your latest rating. Your rating will be adjusted up or down according to how well you actually played in relation to how well your rating suggested you should play. In the instance where you played a bunch of 1900's in one tournament and a bunch of 2300's in another the higher ratings in the second tournament would not make a difference because your expected score against both the 1900's and 2300's is as close to zero as makes no difference.

This kind of Elo system uses a factor called a "K" factor to multiply the adjustment amount to your rating. Different federations use different k factors but all use different k factors for different types of players. For instance, FIDE uses 40 for new players (less than 30 games) and juniors under 2400, 10 for over 2400's and 20 for everybody else. So as a new player you rating will jump around by twice as much as would that of a more established player like me. In effect as you have more rated games under your belt your rating becomes a more reliable estimate of your strength.

But in the meantime while you have a high K factor expect your rating to jump around a lot.

---
Tags: rating, tournament, uscf
---


title: Expert vs. Candidate Master?

text:
# Question
Title: Expert vs. Candidate Master?
What is the difference?

I mildly understand that Candidate Master is a 2000-2100 FIDE Title, but I've seen several USCF players with that under their "Norms" section, in conjunction with 1st Category, 2nd Category, etc.

# Answer
The USCF has two independent systems for naming players' levels:

1) Rating-based: Senior Master (2400+), National Master (2200-2399), Expert (2000-2199), Class A (1800-1999), Class B (1600-1799), etc. This describes your current rating; you can be Class A today and Class B next week. The one exception is that once your rating gets to 2200, you are a master forever. These names and rules have been around for decades and are what most players are familiar with.

2) Norm-based: Life Senior Master (2400+), Life Master (2200+), Candidate Master (2000+), 1st Category (1800+), 2nd Category (1600+), etc. You are granted one of these titles by achieving five norms of that level and getting to the minimum required rating (at least once). Generally speaking, a title norm is a tournament performance that would be impressive for someone who had the minimum rating for that tile. These norms are what you see when you look at a USCF player's rating page. The full rules for norm-based titles are available online. One intent of norm-based titles is to provide an incentive for people to play in which they can't "lose ground", like they can with their rating. These have been introduced more recently and many players are not even aware of them.
> 9 votes

# Answer
To obtain the FIDE title of Candidate Master (CM), it is required to have a FIDE rating of 2200 or more. See the FIDE handbook or Wikipedia. The title is for life.

According to Wikipedia, the USCF title of Expert is awarded to players rated from 2000 to 2199 (USCF rating!). The title is not for life.

So, the two titles depend on two different ratings. The question that now arises is: how can we compare the FIDE rating with the USCF rating?

According to the graph of this article, a 2100 USCF rating roughly corresponds to a 2000 FIDE rating. So it seems that, usually, a FIDE-CM is a stronger player than a USCF-Expert.
> 4 votes

# Answer
FIDE CM requires FIDE rating of 2200. However, this title can also be obtained through international chess tournament (as a reward), in which case there is no rating requirements. I have seen people with CM title has FIDE rating as low as 1400. And it is not uncommon to see young CM/WCM (sometimes WFM) to have a FIDE rating less than 2000.

USCF expert is for people of 2000-2199 USCF rating. It is not an official title (nothing on their profile page). norm-based USCF title (CM) will be achieved if the player is over 2000 AND acquired 5 "C" norms in tournaments. USCF titles (CM/NM) cannot be rewarded in a tournament.

So if the FIDE CM is achieved by rating than likely the player is stronger than a USCF CM. May not be the case otherwise.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: rating, fide, uscf, titles
---


# Question
Title: Why is sacrificing an extra pawn good for White in the Goring gambit but bad in the Smith-Morra gambit?
In both the Smith-Morra (accepted) and Goring gambit lines, white offers a pawn on c3. If Black takes the pawn on c3, White can play Bc4, offering a second pawn in exchange for rapid development with highly active bishops.

Although neither line is winning for White, according to Stockfish, the extra pawn sacrifice is significantly more viable in the Goring (-0.4) than the Smith-Morra line (-1.23). Why is this?

Goring:

```
[Title "Goring Gambit with extra pawn sacrifice"]
[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. c3 dxc3 5. Bc4

```

Smith-Morra:

```
[Title "Smith-Morra Gambit with extra pawn sacrifice"]
[FEN ""]

1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4

```

# Answer
In the Goring, White's bishop on c4 attacks f7. In the Smith-Morra, Black can easily play e6 to block that attack.
> 18 votes

---
Tags: opening, strategy, gambits, sacrifice, smith-morra-gambit
---


# Question
Title: What algorithm is used when an engine is branded by a certain player?
I've seen a "play Kasparov" on flights, and during those recent chess tournaments, they had a "Play Magnus at 13 (or some young age)" segment where some players in the tournament and some analysists played some engine.

I'd be interested in knowing what chess programmers do when they brand their engine that way. Is it just a tuning of ELO, so it's just an engine about at his old playing strength? Do they do something like Chessmaster where there are 10+ sliders to control style (stuff like preferring knights or bishops, aggression, defense, etc.)? Do they use a custom opening book using that player's old games?

I'm guessing they can't do much in the way of training generalized playing algorithms based on historical games like how Maia Chess was tuned to play like certain Lichess ELO ranges, because there might not be enough data. However, I could see there being an automated way to tune "sliders" based on only 100s or 1000s of games.

# Answer
> 2 votes
It depends and is likely a combination of factors, decreasing Elo and also making tweaks to try to more closely match a certain players style.

In general, it's difficult to limit an engine's Elo in a natural way, although with some work something decent can often be achieved. Common apporches to nerfing an engine strength involve having is choose a random or maybe the second best move every once in a while, limiting the amount of nodes it's allowed to search, or making the piece values more "rough," where certain pieces are under or overvalued.

As far as "personality" goes, it can often be just as difficult, if not more so, to try to capture precisely, but progress can be made.

For example, if one were trying to create an engine with the playing style of Mikhail Tal, one tweak they might make is to crank up the importance of king safety in their static evaluation. This way, the engine would be more likely to sacrifice material for an attack on the king, even if it's not *necessarily* sound, to moreso mimick Tal's well known attacking style. Of course this needs tuning, like any personality feature added, since their wouldn't be much point in having an engine that stupidly sacrifices material for a completely unsound attack. Or maybe in the case of Carlsen, the engine developer would try to put particular emphasis on making sure the engine has very strong endgame play that tries to induce weakness, mimicking Carlsen's often robotic-seeming endgame play.

As you also mentioned, in recent years neural networks are changing the way engine developers might try to mimick a certain player in the future. But as you also rightly recognized, one big hurdle right now is that a neural network generally needs large amounts of data to be trained well, more data than is often possible from a single player.

As you can probably see, this sort of thing isn't really an exact science and it requires some creativity and careful design to make a "Magnus Carlsen" engine or "Gary Kasparov" engine.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I suspect those engine variants are neural network-based implementations, like Leela lc0 or perhaps NNUE on Stockfish (but I'm not familiar with their approach). A neural net engine requires millions of games and/or self play to train up to a strong ELO, so it's not practical to train one of these instances to a reliable strength based only on a specific player's recorded games.

However, they could ingest the player's recorded games as part of the training dataset and I think you could make the case that this captures a bit of the player's 'style' in the engine. Whether or not this truly represents the player's style is such a subjective thing that I think they could brand the engine without deceit, but in practice it's hard to prove it plays in anyone's particular style given the nature of the game.

This approach also makes it simple to implement something like "Play Magnus at 13" -- it's just a simple date filter on the player's games to ingest into the training set. This is just my guess as someone who works in AI, but that's definitely what my mind immediately jumps to when considering the problem.

---
Tags: engines
---


# Question
Title: Elo change of engine from pure material to very good evaluation
I am currently rewriting a chess engine with a friend. We decided to first work on the search and only later if the search works really well, we will do some very good evaluation.

The engine itself evaluates the board with pure material evaluation + piece square tables. We hit around 6Mnps and it competes with 2000 CCRL engines right now.

I was wondering how much ELO-Gain could we expect if we replace the evaluation at some point with another evaluation. Or more like: How much ELO can an evaluation function give?

I mean obviously, if you would replace the evaluation of stockfish with nothing but 0, it would do random moves and lose over 3000 ELO points but I am talking about the ELO difference between a very basic evaluation function and an insanely good evaluation function which takes mobility, king safety, pawn structure, game phase, etc. into account.

# Answer
The currently best eval function is a leela net. At a single node, some leela nets are in the 2500 elo range. The drawback of course is that they are about 1000x slower than a SF eval (assuming a somewhat modern gpu, cpu). SF eval is obviously way weaker than this, but it wouldn't surprise me if is 500 elo stronger than a simple eval function.
> 3 votes

# Answer
The difference is huge, worth well over a thousand elo. See SimpleEval, which is Stockfish with a very simplified evaluation function. It's not strong enough to beat top humans, even though Stockfish itself of course is, by a huge margin.

The reason for this is that search doesn't work well without a strong evaluation function. You are less able to tell which branches you should prune.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: engines, evaluation
---


# Question
Title: Is there an equivalent to “a knight on the rim is dim” in other languages?
When explaining chess to beginners, I often use the famous rhyme, **“a knight on the rim is dim”**. Is there any equivalent (rhyming) phrase in other languages?

I will accept any answer which shows at least one equivalent phrase in another language.

---

For those who aren’t familiar with it, “a knight on the rim is dim” means that a knight, which is placed on the edge of the board, is weak.

When a knight is placed on the edge of the board, is has influence over, or attacks, only 4 squares. However, if it is placed more centrally, it controls 8 squares, which is double the amount.

# Answer
**German**

Ein Springer am Rand bringt Kummer und Schand.

= (lit.): A knight on the rim brings sorrow and shame.
> 34 votes

# Answer
### Russian

Конь на краю — позор на голову твою.

Literally, "a knight on the rim is a shame onto your head".

Transliterated: "kon' na krayu — pozor na golovu tvoyu".

The Russian version is just a translation of the phrase by Siegbert Tarrasch. The "на голову твою" part is unnecessary for the meaning (it's just an intensifier), but added for the rhyme.
> 17 votes

# Answer
In French, I have heard "Cavalier au bord, cavalier mort" ("a knight on the rim is a dead knight").
> 16 votes

# Answer
The Spanish version is not the most elegant one, but there it goes:

"Con los caballos por los rincones

vas a ganar por los cojones"

Perfect consonant rhyme, which can be (liberally) translated as "placing your knights int he dims, you won't win at all".

The thing is that "por los cojones" refers in a very colloquial way to human male gonads. Also, "cojones" is used in a lot of Spanish idioms.

Here you have an article (most probably by Leontxo García) using a variant of the sentence in a 2001 game between Shirov and Anand.
> 15 votes

# Answer
**Italian**

Cavallo sul bordo,

Spettacolo balordo

Literally, “a knight on the rim is an awkward spectacle”
> 13 votes

# Answer
### Dutch

It's similar to the German version (not a surprise given the familiarity between both languages) but the Dutch version, which made Wikipedia, is:

> Een paard aan de rand is een schand

which literally translated is

> A knight on the edge is a shame
> 10 votes

# Answer
In Swedish, there is *En springare på randen är en springare på stranden.**A knight on the edge is a knight on the beach.* It seems real but not very common: searching, I find one usage in print, in the *Tidskrift för Shack* (*Journal of Chess*), 1990, issue 9, p. 404.

It’s interesting that the Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish versions all use different nouns at the end (*strand*, *sand*, *spand*), even though they could have used the same — at least *strand* and *sand* are the same in all three languages. From this, together with the rarity of the Swedish and Danish versions, I guess they arose independently as ad hoc translations of the more well-established German version — translating it requires changing the noun, since the direct cognate of *Schand* in all the Scandinavian languages is *skam*, which wouldn’t rhyme.
> 10 votes

# Answer
## Norwegian

"En springer på randen er en springer i sanden."
A Knight on the edge is a Knight in the sand.

One source claims this is a (bad) translation of the Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch's German version.
> 9 votes

# Answer
# Danish

"En springer på randen er en springer på spanden"

This literally translates to "A knight on the rim is a knight on the bucket". Here, "on the bucket" is an idiom meaning "in trouble" in Danish.
> 7 votes

# Answer
A rhyming version in Chinese is:

马跳边，易被歼 (ma tiao bian, yi bei jian)

Which roughly translates as "A horse that jumps to the edge is easily destroyed", where horse is the Chinese name for the knight in chess.
> 6 votes

# Answer
Japanese?

ナイトの価値は縁の内。(Naito no kachi wa fuchi no uchi.)

The knight's worth is (as a topic, somehow related to) the inside of the border.
> 5 votes

# Answer
I mean "边缘的骑士是暗淡的" -\< this doesn't really rhyme, but it sounds catchy when you say it in Chinese! :)

Basically a translation of "a knight on the rim is dim"

The pinyin is "Biān yuán de qí shì shì àn dàn de"
> 3 votes

# Answer
Portuguese:

"Cavalo no canto só traz desencanto."

Or

"Cavalo na beira é besteira".

They mean respectively,

A knight on a corner brings only bad news, and A Knight on the rim is foolish".
> 3 votes

# Answer
# **Turkish**

"Kenar atlar sakat atlardır".

It means "Knights in the edge are crippled horses".
> 0 votes

---
Tags: terminology, knights, teaching
---


# Question
Title: Have any previous world champions dithered about defending their title?
It is less than a year since Carlsen defending his title against Nepomniatchi by the crushing score of 7½-3½. At the time he publicly doubted if he would defend again. According to The Guardian he said:

> “It’s been clear to me for most of the year that this world championship should be the last, ... It doesn’t mean as much any more as it once did. I haven’t felt that the positive outweighs the negative. ... For those who expect me to play the world championship next time, the chance that they will be disappointed is very great.”

The article continues:

> The 31-year-old said the only thing likely to persuade him to keep defending his title would be if his next opponent was the brilliant 18‑year‑old Alireza Firouzja, who recently broke Carlsen’s record as the youngest 2800-rated player and is now ranked world No 2.

Well, the challenge from Firouzja fizzled out and Nepo has won through again to play the World Championship match. Unless Carlsen has changed his mind, and there is a lot of money to be won even by the loser of such a match, then he will pull out leaving Nepo and Ding to play for the title.

Apart from Fischer, who declined to defend his title against Karpov in 1975, has any other champion expressed public doubts about a defence ahead of such a match?

# Answer
Emanual Lasker attempted to not defend his title to avoid playing Capablanca. Capablanca was clearly superior by 1920. Lasker even tried to declare Capablanca the champion without playing.
> 5 votes

# Answer
According to this tweet from Carlsen's coach, Peter Heine Nielsen, the answer is "Yes".

> When you try to relax by reading a good book on chess history, but it starts like this:

Peter Heine Nielsen gives the source for this as the book Petrosian Year by Year: Volume II (1963-1984) by Tibor Karolyi and Tigran Gyozalyan.

Of course Botvinnik did decide, in the end, to play and lost to Petrosian.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Nathaniel Green has written an excellent article, *World Champions Who Gave Up The Crown*, for Chess.com which comprehensively answers the question. I'll try and summarise.

**Garry Kasparov (1993)**

Kasparov dropped out of FIDE's championship and started his own via the PCA.

**Anatoly Karpov (1999)**

This was completely new to me. I hadn't realised that FIDE had made such a dog's breakfast of the world championship that Karpov at a certain stage just withdrew. Here's the explanation from the article:

> FIDE almost immediately started messing with the world championship format. In 1996, Karpov was seeded into the semifinal of a 13-player match tournament and defeated GMs Boris Gelfand and Gata Kamsky to keep his title. Karpov's 1998 defense was even less traditional. There was a year less to wait and the Candidates process involved a 97-player super knockout tournament, although Karpov was in the final this time.
>
> GM Viswanathan Anand won the knockout and then had to start playing Karpov less than a week later in a six-game match. Karpov won in rapid tiebreaks. One of his easier championship paths, however, was going to have to be succeeded by his most difficult yet.
>
> *The very next year, that super knockout tournament was to be the world championship itself, and Karpov was only to get a first-round bye like several other top players of the time. Karpov didn't agree to being the first champion to have to defend his title this way, so he simply didn't play.*

**Bobby Fischer (1975)**

Of course, we all know Fischer declined to play Karpov in 1975.

**Mikhail Botvinnik (1966)**

Not quite the same thing. Botvinnik lost the title (for the 3rd and final time) and then declined to take his allotted place in the candidates. FIDE changed the rules, depriving the beaten champion of the right to an immediate replay. As Green puts it:

> \[Botvinnik\], like Carlsen, was unhappy with the world championship process and thus simply stopped participating.

**Alexander Alekhine (1946)**

War and then death resulted in Alekhine losing the title. He was due to play Botvinnik but died before he got the chance. As the article notes:

> Alexander Alekhine didn't exactly give up the title; he died while holding it. That makes it pretty hard to compare his situation to anyone else's, let alone Carlsen's.
> ...
> Just as World War I wiped out a match between Lasker and Akiba Rubinstein, World War II prevented Alekhine and Paul Keres from playing for the title. This time Capablanca's role as the postwar challenger was filled by Mikhail Botvinnik. But, while trying to arrange a match with him, Alekhine was gone, less than a year after the war ended.

**Emanuel Lasker (1921)**

According to the article:

> Emanuel Lasker was the first world champion to express disdain for the title and show, in a public way, that not everyone enjoys occupying the position.
> ...
> Negotiations for the first world championship after the war, between Lasker and Jose Capablanca, grew as strained and bitter as store-brand plain Greek yogurt.
>
> It reached the point where Lasker announced he was resigning his title and giving it to Capablanca. He would still play the match, just as the challenger. Nevertheless, he did, like Carlsen, want to give up the title.
> 4 votes

# Answer
No, although there were close cases:

* Kasparov, then world number 1, did not play in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005.
* Leonardo Ljubičić, former world correspondence chess champion, was invited to but did not play in the ICCF World Championship 31 Final. He said it was because the draw rate was so high that it was pointless (personal correspondence).

Neither of them were world champions at the time of the championship, however.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: history, world-championship
---


# Question
Title: What helps you choose the right opening?
What goes through the mind of a chess player in the opening? In particular, what helps you choose the right opening?

After learning how to move the pieces, after understanding how the game is divided into stages, and after finding that openings can provide a wide range of theoretical exercises, I come to ask myself some questions.

This question is part of a series of questions asked by players who have begun their study of chess, and have previously learned chess terms, and now seek knowledge of how great players think and how they make decisions on each move.

next \>\> Part-2

# Answer
> What helps you choose the right opening?

This splits up naturally in various ways. The first way is general versus specific:

1. What is the right opening for a specific opponent?
2. In general, what are the right openings for me?

If I am going to be playing an opponent who has games online then I will try and look at those openings to see what they play and, if I can, prepare for them appropriately.

For instance, 3 years ago I was going to have white against an opponent who didn't have many games online and the black games he did have were mainly against 1. e4, to which he always replied with the Sicilian, whereas I almost always open with 1. d4. As a lazy player, I like whenever possible to limit my opponent's choices to make my life easier. Many years ago when I was an e4 player I played the Grand Prix Attack against the Sicilian. This was very fashionable in the 80's but is unfashionable now. It is possible, even likely, that my opponent had never seen it before. On the morning before the game I spent a couple of hours updating myself with the latest theory and had a comfortable victory as, indeed, my opponent had no clue what the ideas are behind the opening.

What are the right openings for me depends on my time of life, my energy, my ambition, my available time.

Strangely in my youth I tried to play quiet, positional chess and to play classically (whatever that means), building up small advantages, fighting off my opponent's tactical ideas and then grind them down in the endgame. The Queen's Gambit was the ideal opening, I thought, to achieve what I wanted as white. With black I played the French against e4 and was happy to play the black side of a QGD against d4.

Then about 20 years ago I decided that I needed to improve my tactical play and that I should therefore switch to more tactical, double-edged openings. I started opening with e4. Against e5 I aimed for something like a Max Lange. I never had the guts to play the King's Gambit. Against the Sicilian either the Morra Gambit, if I just wanted to blow them away, or the Grand Prix Attack. Against the French I played a Winawer with an early Qg4, caveman stuff, etc. A lot of fun and certainly good for my tactics but the downside of this approach is that there is a lot of work involved.

Nowadays I am not prepared to9 spend so much time so I have changed my repertoire again to minimize the work needed. To that end I try and play openings which limit the opponent's choices and make my life easy. That means opening with d4 as white and playing some kind of London, either traditional or Jobava. As black against e4 I still like the French but also like the Black Lion. Against d4 or c4 I like the Dutch (from my period where I liked to play tactical openings) but with e6 on the first move to avoid gambit lines. If my opponent plays e4 on the second move I'm comfortable switching to a French.

An important concept is that of related openings. This can make it easy to transpose from one opening to another (Dutch to French) or to switch openings to ones with similar ideas. For instance as a Black Lion player I'm also learning the Modern as there can be move orders (early f4 from white) or opponents against which the Modern is more comfortable for me. Similarly as a London player I like to sometimes switch to the Trompowski.

Whatever openings you choose to learn the most important thing is to be comfortable with the kinds of positions that typically arise from those openings. If you like fast action and tactics then play openings which get the center open quickly with the pieces flying into action. If you like slow, maneuvering games then keep the center closed with a French, Modern, KID, Dutch.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: opening, analysis, learning, tactics, training
---


# Question
Title: What practices do you recommend for handling openings and variations?
What practices do you recommend for handling openings and variations?

After learning how to move the pieces, after understanding how the game is divided into stages, and after finding that openings can provide a wide range of theoretical exercises, I come to ask myself some questions.

This question is part of a series of questions asked by players who have begun their study of chess, and have previously learned chess terms, and now seek knowledge of how great players think and how they make decisions on each move.

previous \>\> Part-1
next \>\> Part-3

# Answer
> What practices do you recommend for handling openings and variations?

1. First and foremost, *play your repertoire*. Once you've chosen which openings you are going to play then play them in every game. The more practice you get with your chosen openings in important games the faster you will learn.
2. Learn the ideas behind your chosen openings. What is white trying to do in this opening? What is black trying to do? If you are white then you are primarily trying to implement white's ideas but secondarily, and still very important, you are also trying to stop black from implementing their ideas.
3. Find YouTube channels that cover your openings and interesting games with your openings. Search out interesting videos on your openings and use them to become familiar with the ideas both tactical and positional in your chosen openings. Some good channels to explore are Saint Louis Chess Club, Hanging Pawns, GingerGM
4. The most powerful learning you can do is learning from your mistakes. Where you can, for games with longer time controls, record the moves and go over the games. In some tournaments there is an analysis room where you can go with your opponent after the game to share your thoughts. This is a first good practice if you can. Second, when you lose or go astray in the opening, check out the theory when you get home. Did you miss an important move or idea? Or did your opponent play a new move or idea? Try and analyse, taking your time and writing your ideas down. Finally, check the game with the computer and see what it says you got wrong. It is important that this is the *last* stage not the first. You will learn much more if you use your brain first and not the silicon brain.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: opening, analysis, learning, tactics, training
---


title: Chessbase 16 - Sort variations

text:
# Question
Title: Chessbase 16 - Sort variations
Is there a way to sort variations in Chessbase 16? For example, if I add two variations and then I want to move the second variation up in the list, without promoting it to main line.

# Answer
When you're at the point where there are the variations, click the right arrow key as you normally would to click through moves. Then, the "Variations" dialog box should pop up. At this point, use the up or down arrow key to navigate to the move you want to sort. Then, click on the "Move up" or "Move down" button.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: software, chessbase
---


# Question
Title: What goes through the mind of a chess player in the endgame?
What goes through the mind of a chess player in the endgame?

After learning how to move the pieces, after understanding how the game is divided into stages, and after finding that openings can provide a wide range of theoretical exercises, I come to ask myself some questions.

This question is part of a series of questions asked by players who have begun their study of chess, and have previously learned chess terms, and now seek knowledge of how great players think and how they make decisions on each move.

previous \>\> Part-4

# Answer
The endgame is the part of the game which comes closest to being mathematically determined. In essence if there are 7 pieces or fewer left on the board then the result of the game with best play is known and can be looked up in the tablebases.

Further, there are many kinds of endgame positions with more than 7 pieces where it is clear to a player with the right "endgame knowledge" either which side is winning and the general process for winning the game or that the game should be drawn and what the drawing principles are for each side.

Ultimately there are different classes of positions with different algorithms for winning or drawing the game.

Consequently what goes through my mind are a series of linked questions:

1. Am I winning? (OK, it should really be "What is the evaluation here?" but I'm more self-interested than that)
2. If I am winning then do I know how to win? I can certainly know that I have a winning position with KNB vs K without knowing exactly how to win. If I don't know exactly how to win can I remember enough of the ideas and principles of the winning algorithm to realistically play for a win, to have a plan to keep me going.
3. If I am losing do I know enough about my opponent's winning algorithm to make it as difficult as possible for them to win? There are the 3-fold repetition rule and 50-move rule for me to aim for for my salvation.
4. If the game should be a draw do I know why and how I need to play to ensure the draw if I am on the weaker side and conversely what I need to trick my opponent into playing if I am on the weaker side?

There is a lot of knowledge of endgame structures and patterns involved here which is why at all levels of the game, from beginner to world champion, endgame study is a key component of maintaining and improving the level of play.
> 1 votes

# Answer
The traditional distinction between game stages is mostly academic in my opinion. I don't think the thought process of a chess player is radically different, except for the fact that you usually don't need to worry about king safety in the endgame, so players will consider moves and plans that use their king as an attacking piece.

When they exist, passed pawns become a major theme in the endgame since with fewer pieces on the board, it becomes more costly to dedicate one piece just to block it.

But other than the different strategic theme, the way in which we elaborate plans and calculate lines doesn't change that much
> 0 votes

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Tags: analysis, endgame, learning, tactics, training
---


# Question
Title: As regards the opponent's moves, what things do you usually pay more attention to in the openings?
As regards the opponent's moves, what things do you usually pay more attention to in the openings?

After learning how to move the pieces, after understanding how the game is divided into stages, and after finding that openings can provide a wide range of theoretical exercises, I come to ask myself some questions.

This question is part of a series of questions asked by players who have begun their study of chess, and have previously learned chess terms, and now seek knowledge of how great players think and how they make decisions on each move.

previous \>\> Part-2
next \>\> Part-4

# Answer
In the opening every time my opponent makes a move the first thing I ask myself is "Was I expecting that move?". In other words, did my opponent make one of the standard replies in that opening or did they play something different.

If they played a standard move then normally I reply almost immediately with the next standard move in the opening.

If they played a move I don't recognize then I ask myself what the idea is behind their move. Maybe they are making an immediate threat which I must counter. Or maybe they are playing a move order trick to try and get me into a line I don't want which is better for them.

If I don't see a problem for me with their move I then ask myself if it was just a mistake and can I punish it. It could allow me to play a tactic. It could allow me to achieve one of the goals of my chosen opening which normally they should stop (e.g. e5 for black in the Classical Dutch or e4 for white in the same opening). It could introduce a new weakness which I can try to exploit by departing from the normal moves of the opening.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Primarily how it influences your strategy.

Secondarily to discover their playstyle and skill level - eg. Are their movements intentional blocks to your strategy or accidental? Do they like a closed or open state? Are they happy to simplify or leave things complicated?
> 0 votes

---
Tags: opening, analysis, learning, tactics, training
---


# Question
Title: What goes through the mind of a chess player in the middlegame?
What goes through the mind of a chess player in the middlegame?

After learning how to move the pieces, after understanding how the game is divided into stages, and after finding that openings can provide a wide range of theoretical exercises, I come to ask myself some questions.

This question is part of a series of questions asked by players who have begun their study of chess, and have previously learned chess terms, and now seek knowledge of how great players think and how they make decisions on each move.

previous \>\> Part-3
next \>\> Part-5

# Answer
The middlegame arises out of the opening and so in the early middlegame the ideas arise out of the opening chosen. For instance, the King's Gambit has the idea of opening the center quickly, allowing white rapid development and an early kingside attack often targeting the naturally weak f7 square. A hypermodern opening like the Modern has the idea of avoiding occupying the center with pawns. Instead it tries to exert control over the center with pieces. At the same time it looks to encourage white to over extend creating the possibility of a counter attack.

So, in the early middlegame the thoughts mostly center around the best moves to make to further these opening related plans. For a tactical opening these plans will be tactical and for more positional openings they will concern the creation of weaknesses in the opponent's position which can be exploited later.

In the late middlegame the emphasis changes. After the middlegame comes the endgame and it becomes more important to start thinking how to transition to a favourable endgame. For example, if you would have a much better endgame then it can make sense to force the exchange of queens, or if that's not possible, give your opponent every opportunity to exchange queens. Conversely, if you would be at a disadvantage in the endgame then try and keep queens on and try and create complex positions where it is easy to go wrong.

Throughout the middlegame, from early to late, it is important to bear in mind that tactics often play a key role in deciding the game and the middlegame is usually the area of the game with the most tactical possibilities. Hence it is important to have a checklist of questions to ask yourself before moving, like:

1. What checks do I have?
2. What threats do I have?
3. What threats does my opponent have?
4. What weaknesses does my opponent have that I may be able to exploit?
5. What weaknesses do I have that my opponent might be able to exploit?

All of these questions will require some calculation of variations to answer in full. So, two further rules are useful:

1. Calculate variations through to the end or even one move beyond because there is almost nothing worse than calculating a variation, playing it and discovering at the end that you missed your opponent's move which turns the position round.
2. Sometimes when you see a promising move, A, which you want to follow up with move B, it can be more effective to reverse the moves. Make sure you check both move orders.
> 1 votes

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Tags: analysis, learning, tactics, training, middlegame
---


# Question
Title: How many openings should I study simultaneously?
I want to start studying a few openings. Say I am currently most interested in the King's Gambit as white, and want to play it as often as possible. (This isn't particular to the King's Gambit, I just had to name something.) Since I want to practice that opening, I obviously start my white games going `1. e4`. But then black goes `1... c5` or `1... d5` or `1... Nf6` or...

Clearly I can't start studying all `1. e4` openings simultaneously, so I have to accept that some times I will be out of prep after a single move, and that game will be "wasted" in terms of practicing the opening I'm actively studying.

But I could at least study King's Gambit and, say, Sicilian at the same time, and thus be at least somewhat better covered. And then, because I will be white only half the time, maybe I should also keep one or maybe two openings in active study as black as most places where you play chess, you play black as often as you play white?

Obviously this depends on my personal capacity, and you can never know me well enough through this site to give me good, bespoke *personal* advice. But reflections on how this is commonly approached would be nice.

# Answer
You should definitely study 1...e5 and 1...c5 first (these are the most common and Black's best responses).

If you do not have enough time to study Sicilian, you should go for one of the many sidelines, which are much easier to learn. I recommend going for the Bb5-Sicilians or the Closed Sicilian, but the Alapin, Westerinen Attack (b3), and other systems are also viable. You need to accept that you'll play a game of chess where you can't claim an opening advantage when playing sidelines.

Against the Caro-Kann and the French, you can play the Exchange variations where you do not really need to know the theory (after e.g. 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Bd3) and everything else will be so infrequent that it shouldn't bother you.
> 6 votes

# Answer
My approach is to have a repertoire and then understand the thematic tactics, pawn structures, and tabiyas of the openings in the repertoire.

I prioritize studying the openings I face most often and are the most complex. Once I have a feel for the whole repertoire I focus on areas where I am not performing well.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: opening, learning
---


# Question
Title: Can a king capture a piece in front of the enemy king
Can I eat a piece in front of the enemy king with my king?

For example: My king was on b6, the enemy knight was on b5, and the enemy king was behind the knight on b4.

So can I capture the knight with my king, even if my king will then be in front of the enemy king?

Why can't I eat the piece in front of the enemy king?

```
[FEN "4k3/4p3/4K3/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

# Answer
> 4 votes
No. Kings cannot move into a position to be captured by another piece. Said differently, Kings may not move into check.

See also the FIDE Laws of Chess which clearly state:

> 3.9.1 The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained from moving to the square occupied by the king because they would then leave or place their own king in check.

> 3.9.2 No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.

The Black King defends this pawn. Thus, the White King may not capture that pawn because the White King would be moving to a square where it would be attacked by the Black King (illegal according to Section 3.9.2).

The OP contends that since a "King cannot capture a King" that the pawn capture is legal. This is simply not true. Section 3.9.2 does not allow the Kings to move within one square of each other. The fact that the Kings can't capture each other isn't relevant because such a move is illegal and results in an illegal position according to the Laws of Chess:

> 3.10.2 A move is illegal when it fails to meet the relevant requirements of Articles 3.1 – 3.9

> 3.10.3 A position is illegal when it cannot have been reached by any series of legal moves.

The diagram below each King's legal moves in the position with the pawn (left) and without the pawn (right).

---
Tags: rules, check, kings, captures
---


title: Can White win this middle game?

text:
# Question
Title: Can White win this middle game?
I played a game that ended with a draw and this is the end position:

```
[FEN ""]
[startply "119"]

1. e4 f6 2. d4 d6 3. c4 b6 4. Nc3 Bb7 5. f4 Nd7 6. Nf3 c5 7. d5 Qc7 8. Bd3 a6 9. a3 O-O-O 10. Be3 Re8 11. Qa4 e5 12. f5 Kd8 13. O-O-O Ke7 14. g4 a5 15. Qc2 Kd8 16. a4 Kc8 17. b3 Kb8 18. h4 g6 19. h5 g5 20. Be2 h6 21. Kb2 Ka7 22. Nb5+ Kb8 23. Nxc7 Kxc7 24. Ka3 Nb8 25. Nd2 Na6 26. Nb1 Nb4 27. Qb2 Ba6 28. Bd2 Ne7 29. Bxb4 cxb4+ 30. Ka2 Bb7 31. Nd2 Rc8 32. Nf3 Kb8 33. Rc1 Rc5 34. Qd2 Nc8 35. Ne1 Na7 36. Nd3 Be7 37. Nxc5 bxc5 38. Qe3 Ba6 39. Rc2 Bb7 40. Kb2 Kc8 41. Kc1 Kd8 42. Kd2 Ke8 43. Ke1 Kf8 44. Kf2 Kg7 45. Qc1 Kh7 46. Kg3 Kg7 47. Rf1 Kf7 48. Bd3 Ke8 49. Rcf2 Kd7 50. Rg2 Ke8 51. Rh2 Kf7 52. Kf2 Kg7 53. Ke3 Nc8 54. Ke2 Nb6 55. Kd2 Nd7 56. Qb2 Nf8 57. Kc1 Nd7 58. Kd2 Nf8 59. Kd1 Nd7 60. Kd2 1/2-1/2

```

I am unsure if White could convert their material advantage. On chess.com, the engine gives White +10.1, which is usually more than enough to win, but I am not sure of a winning plan.

# Answer
> 9 votes
As SecretAgentMan already said in his comment, whites only attempt is to sacrifice the queen. This can be done on g5, e5, c5, or b4.

* On Qxe5 or Qxc5 the knight takes, which keeps the blockade.
* Qxb4 can be prevented with Rb8xb4.
* So, lets try Qxg5 hxg5 h6+ Kh7 Rh5, idea Rxg5, but then, simplest, Rg8xg5 and everything is blocked again.

Black doesn't even need the bishops to set up this fortress.

Such a huge space advantage as you had in the game - opening part well played! - usually wins, but make sure you have one, ideally two (on different wings!) open files, for example, play 12.dxe6! or 16.b4! or 19.g5!. Alternatively or additionally, make sure that you can sacrifice a piece against two pawns. For example, play 24.Qd2! with the idea Nxg5 and Bxg5 or play 37.Nxb4!.

---
Tags: analysis, strategy, draw, middlegame, closed-position
---


# Question
Title: Why should White give up the bishop (pair) in this example?
Stockfish evaluates this as advantageous for White (+0.6 at depth 22), with Bxe4 being the only move retaining the advantage. Why is this so good for White?

1. We give up the bishop pair
2. We're left with the bad bishop vs the opponent's good bishop

Even after 1. Bxe4 Qxe4 2. Qxe4 dxe4 which looks like a textbook good bishop vs bad bishop scenario, Stockfish thinks that White is better (+0.2). Why is Bxe4 the best move and why does it lead to an advantage for White?

```
    [FEN "r3q1k1/ppb2p1p/2p3p1/2Pp1B2/1P1Pn3/4B3/P1Q2PPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1"]

```

# Answer
> 2 votes
We can't read the engine's mind. The evaluation is the result of calculation to depth 22, i.e. looking 11 moves ahead; the main line(s) after both 1 Bxe4 and White's alternatives should give some idea of why the engine gives White +0.6 here and why the alternatives (mainly Bg4 and Bh3) are worse.

Looking at it without an engine, we might guess that after the trades on e4 White has a worse Bishop but more space and a Queenside majority -- and no more worries about a Black attack on the Kingside. After 1 Bxe4 Qxe4 2 Qxe4 dxe4 White can move the Bishop outside the pawn chain with tempo (discovered attack on bPe4), and 3 Bg5 also controls d8 so that after Black defends the pawn White can continue 4 Rd1 and 5 d5, curing the d5-hole (White doesn't want to see Black play Rd5 or Kd5), start getting the Queenside pawns moving, and maybe use the d-file. White also has the option of not trading Queens and instead trying to use the e-file with something like Qd1 (Black won't play Re8 because then Bd2 wins).

If Black answers 1 Bxe4 with dxe4 then White seems to win the e-pawn by moving the Bishop (2 . . . f5 doesn't help Black because 3 f3 and the pinned pawn falls); then the "+0.6" might mean that Black has some compensation thanks to the better Bishop.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Bxe4 does not lead to a permanent advantage for white, but Bg4 or Bh3 also do not.

The position is static (blocked center pawns, no passers, one open file) and the bishops are not that good in such positions. The Ne4 is as good as the Bf5. After Bxe4 Qxe4 Qc3 white has a bit more due to the control of the e-file (which is based on quite abstract tactics) and due to his qualitative majority on the queen side. His heavy pieces are more active. But black can neutralize this with careful play.

I am pretty sure that many GMs would actually avoid Bxe4 and play Bh3 or Bg4 instead, so you are right if you are doubtful about Stockfish's suggestion. All three moves, Bg4, Bh3 and Bxe4 are playable and of comparable quality. And none of them gives white a relevant advantage.

---
Tags: strategy, pieces, trading, minor-pieces
---


# Question
Title: Is there a position with the stupidest possible move?
I define a stupid move as a move that

1. puts the opponent in zugzwang so that all their moves result in mate in one (weaker version: a loss);
2. is chosen instead of a move that gives mate in one (weaker version: a limited number of moves).

A move is more stupid as the ratio of type 2 moves over type 1 moves grows. I'm looking for a position with the most stupid move possible.

This question is similar to these interesting questions:

# Answer
> 33 votes
**Every** single legal move from White checkmates—except the extremely stupid Bd7. There are 12 (discovered) checkmates with the rook on g2 alone. After the stupid move, Black is forced to give checkmate in 1.

EDIT: Thanks to @Noam D. Elkies for his improvements: Here Black has the **choice** between no less than **6** legal moves - all of which checkmate!

```
        [FEN "k1B5/p1P1p3/P3P3/8/1p6/bpp5/qnp3R1/2K4B w - - 0 1"]

```

*Interesting side note*: We are in effect asked to create a chess puzzle for a chess variant where the goal is not to give checkmate, but to get checkmated, with only one losing move. This chess variant can be played against the WorstFish lichess bot. It's actually quite hard to make it win against you.

# Answer
> 19 votes
On 4 January 2007, in item 334 of his Open Chess Diary, Tim Krabbé considered the question of what is the worst chess move. His specification was "White has n moves, (n-1) of which would mate Black in 1; the nth forcing Black to mate \[them\] in 1." The higher n, the better. Noam Elkies found an example with n=28.

```
[Title "Noam Elkies, after H H Cross"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "8/1b1nn3/p1N2p2/P1r5/P3KPr2/QBk1NRP1/P2R1P2/4B3 w - - 0 1"]

1. Qxc5+ Nxc5#

```

Krabbé goes on to list other examples with higher n, but they entail the use of promoted pieces in the diagram and/or promotion moves. One example:

```
[Title "Joaquim Crusats and Kasper Henriksen (after Dittmann), 2007"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "b2qQRQ1/3P1N1Q/n2K1k2/3P3Q/4P1Qp/5pNP/1R5b/B7 w - - 0 1"]

1. Qe7+ Qxe7#

```

# Answer
> 18 votes
Here's an idea, which I'm sure of can be optimized:

```
[FEN "Q2Q1B2/4R3/N1Q5/3Q4/2Q2Q2/k4NQ1/p1Q5/K1b1Q3 w - - 0 1"]

```

1. Qb2 forces Bxb2#; there are more than forty mate-in-ones you can choose from instead.

# Answer
> 9 votes
Position with just knights, where one white move mates in one and another move forces black to mate in one. Not many stupid moves, but also not many pieces (and piece types).

```
    [FEN "8/8/8/5N2/4N1n1/7k/4n3/7K w - - 0 1"]

```

---
Tags: problems, checkmate, zugzwang
---


# Question
Title: What are some resources for someone past beginner but whom is not yet intermediate?
I've been playing chess off and on for the better part of 15 years, however, I've never done it enough to count myself as any good at it. I'd like to get better, but intermediate guides go over my head, and "chess for beginners" is all about rules and simple stuff I picked up a long time ago. I'm looking for something that can help me improve from my weird in-between state to an intermediate level.

# Answer
> 7 votes
I will go ahead and assume that your playing strength is roughly at ~1100 Elo, since that is what I consider to be the approximate level of an "advanced beginner", so to speak.

To a player of your level, I would give the following advice:

Chess is a game which consists of three main phases: The opening, the middle game, and the endgame. These three phases are characterized below.

* The opening: The part of the game where both sides have yet to get their pawns and pieces into action. Both sides should strive to take control of the center, develop their pieces, and put their king somewhere safe.
* The middle game: Both sides come into attack range of each other, and a battle for the advantage is begun. Many things happen, and the ability to think of "a plan" is vital not to get lost completely.
* The endgame: If the game is not already decided in the middlegame, one can expect that both players are somewhat comparable in strength, causing them to eventually trade down pieces until not very many are left. Since there are not many pieces left, the ones that are still present matter more than ever, and tactical ability combined with concrete knowledge of basic endgames is key to playing the endgame with success.

Q: What does an advanced beginner need to know about the opening to up their game?

A: In the opening, one needs to know about the basic opening principles, and one should strive to apply them into their games. For instance, look into the thread Good openings for a beginner (for white), and xaisoft's answer, which outlines some opening principles. The following link also gives some advice on how to conduct one's opening play as a beginner: https://www.chess.com/blog/NimzoRoy/chess-opening-principles.

Q: Why is it good to follow the opening principles? Why shouldn't I just learn concrete opening variations?

A: The opening principles are the *easiest means* to get you to **a playable middle game**, and if you follow them you would be surprised at how often they will succeed in guiding you towards the right moves in the opening. As to why one should not focus on learning concrete opening variations as a beginner, it mainly has to do with the fact that it's too early for a beginner to do that.

The reason you study specific opening theory is to try to get a concrete advantage out of the opening, and at the beginner scene, most players don't know opening theory, **and will thus not very likely play the exact lines you've studied**. This means that you will have to spend an unreasonably big part of your studying on openings, which will impede your progress in the other two major phases of the game. Also, as a beginner, **it is extremely difficult to learn specific openings well**, since that requires understanding of the ideas in certain positions(which is very hard to attain if you don't know much about planning in chess in general), and not just knowledge of precise variations.

Q: Ok, so I applied the opening principles, and got my pieces out and all that. What's next? What about the middle game?

A: Following the opening principles, unless you're facing some really nasty opponent, the following will most likely happen:

* You will most likely have a pawn or to in the center of the board.
* Most of your light pieces(knights and bishops) are likely out of their starting positions.
* Your king is likely castled already.

Now it's time to start looking for short-term and long-term goals for you(and for your opponent!). In the middle game, the thing that will make you reign supreme over beginners is *tactics*, and *plan-oriented play*. Most beginners are not very procifient at tactics, and do not play their moves according to a clear-cut plan.

Q: Ok, so what are *tactics*? How do I learn them?

A: The term *tactics* is an umbrella term that involves *concrete, often forced, sequences of moves* in a position. These sequences can be one move long(like capturing hanging pieces), or more long, and complex(like conducting a well planned attack successfully against the opposing king).

Normally, the difficulty of a *tactical sequence* is determined by how long it is; shorter sequences are easier, and longer sequences are harder.

As a beginner, one should focus on learning to find these shorter tactical sequences(1-3 moves deep) consistently. To do this, use the following guidelines for calculating(looking for) tactical variations:

**THE GOLDEN RULE FOR CALCULATING TACTICS**

At every move in a tactical sequence, consider the responses in the following order of priority:

1. First, consider *all* the checks in a position;
2. Then, consider *all* the possible captures in the position;
3. Consider other moves.

Using this will help you to spot the details that make or break a tactic.

But starting out with tactics, one should definitely look for some common *tactical ideas* that will further aid one's play. Here is a good list, with examples, of a wide array of tactical ideas: https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tactics--definitions-and-examples. Learning how to apply these in one's games is not easy, and practice is crucial. Playing games is very good to improve calculation, and solving tactical exercises, on for example http://chesstempo.com/, can be very beneficial as well.

Q: Ok, great! So, what about *plan-oriented play*? What is it, and why is it good to learn?

A: By *plan-oriented play*, I simply mean that one should always make a move according to *some* plan, and not just make an arbitrary move with no clear purpose other than wanting the game to progress. Bent Larsen, one of the great players in the 1960's and 1970's, has the following very famous quote attached to his name: **A bad plan is better than no plan!**

What this means is that a you need to have a goal in mind - however misguided - to ever hope to beat your opponent. If chess were boxing, this advice could be that no matter how unrefined, it's better to throw punches aimed at your opponent, than it is to just throw your arms around aimlessly and run around in circles.

As a beginner, go for simple plans, like trying to win a pawn or piece by threatening it with your pieces. Or you can try to use tactics, to gain material or to try and mate your opponent's king.

The plan can even be long-term, like "I don't want to get checkmated on the first rank, and I don't want my knight on f3 to be pinned. Therefore I will go h3, to create *luft* for my king, and prevent my opponent from stepping on g4."

If you don't find an immediate plan, it could help to "talk with your pieces", and try to improve their placement. By this, I mean that you should try to evaluate if a piece is badly placed or not, by trying to give your pieces some personality traits:

* The knights like to stand in the center, where they can move very freely, and control the enem forces. Even better if they are defended by a pawn, and there are no annoying enemy pawns to chase them away! The knights don't like very much to stand on the edge of the board, which leaves them restricted. But as long as it's not a corner square, it may be tolerable. In general, the knights are stronger in closed positions(not many open lines).
* The bishops like best to stand placed on long, unrestricted diagonals. This way, they can be relatively safe, and at the same time work to make the opponent's pieces stumble over each other to avoid the scary bishops in the distance. Since the bishops are so mobile, they like to have multiple targets in the enemy camp. The bishops dislike being treated like pawns, and they absolutely *hate* having to be trapped behind their own pieces, with no hope of coming out to play in the near future! The bishops are stronger in open positions(many open lines to work with), with pawns on both sides of the board.
* The rooks like open ranks and files, and in particular, they love to work together. The best thing they know is to "double up" on an open file, and then just crash into the enemy's position. This can be devastating for the opponent, since the rooks are real powerhouses. In particular, the rook likes to go on the seventh rank, where it will run around, scaring the enemy pawns, and severely restricting the movement of enemy pieces. Rooks are, like bishops, stronger in open positions, with open lines to work on. However, they are also more vulnerable, since they are more valuable than a bishop or a knight.
* The queen boasts with unparallelled power at the board. She likes to spread terror in the enemy camps, and will gladly cooperate with other friendly pieces to get her way. She likes the center, where she has free access to almost any part of the board, but she hates getting in the line of fire from the enemy lines(that's no way to treat a lady!), and wants to stay safe, if possible. Therefore, she often waits until after the opening to get out, when the coast is clear, in some sense.
* The king is the most important piece, and he knows it. Therefore, he makes a point of staying safe at all cost. During the middle game, when the battle is in full swing, the king wishes to sit back and ride out the storm in safety, behind his loyal pawns and pieces. However, when the dust settles somewhat, and the endgame approaches, he feels it's a lot safer to go out and show who is the real boss! Boasting with striking power close to that of a rook, he will join up with his allies to end the battle, using his flexibility to drive away those who dare oppose him. However, he is still quite gun-shy, to be honest.

Knowing your pieces is the fundamentals to learning how to use them properly, and it's a vital part of learning how to go from beginner to intermediate player(it's at the core of so-called *positional play*). Searching for "planning in chess" should bring you some helpful online resurces.

Q: Do I really need to study endgames if I want to improve? They are boring, and I never even reach them in my games, so what's the point?

A: If you really wish to improve, the endgame is essential to study in some detail. However, the endgame has an unfair reputation of being boring. Granted, there aren't as many "flashy" moves. However the tactics are never-ending, and in many cases the endgame is a battle on the knife's edge. So even if it doesn't look very flashy from an onlooker's perspective, I can promise you: it is when you learn to truly appreciate its many finesses!

Also, if you're never reaching endgames in your own games, it often means that either you or your opponent tries to avoid the endgame at the cost of a potential loss, or it means that your games are very lop-sided(someone gets mated or loses many pieces early on). As soon as you play someone of equal ability, you won't get fooled by your opponent's tricks, and your opponent will not very easily fall for your traps either. Therefore, to win, you will need to be able to outlast your opponents, and be prepared to face them in the endgame. Expecting never to reach an endgame is equivalent to expecting that at least one player will make a *severe* mistake early on.

With that being said, at the beginner level, you don't really need to learn everything about endgames immediately! Learn the basic mates with rook, queen, etc., and learn the basic concepts of pawn endgames(there's a wiki page on this topic here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King\_and\_pawn\_versus\_king\_endgame). Some basic concepts of rook endings could also prove useful, and in general, the more endgames you study, the better! However, don't push yourself if you can't stand studying endgames further. If you want a good book on endgames to use as a beginner, I'd recommend *Silman's Complete Endgame Course*. It divides the different endgames after player ability, rather than piece configuration, and you can use it to improve later as well.

That concludes it, I think. I cannot think of anything more I'd say to an advanced beginner seeking to improve. Good luck with your ambition!

# Answer
> 5 votes
The internet is an amazing tool - for good or for ill. All of the following will help people at a *wide* variety of levels.

I'd suggest looking into some sort of tactics training. chess.com has a good reputation; I personally use lichess; I used to look at chesstempo. Practicing a few a day (or an hour or so a day) can give you an amazing boost; this is probably the best "bang for the buck". (I speak from experience!)

Find a good YouTube channel with a presenter who speaks to your level and has a teaching style you enjoy; there are a TON of options out there. Depending on your level, something like the Backyard Professor, IM John Bartholomew, any of the St. Louis Chess Club, MetoJelic, Dereque Kelley, etc. I enjoy all of those and many more (they're at widely different levels) for different reasons. (I enjoy others like the Ginger GM, too - but I definitely wouldn't watch him at a "lower" level... he'll give you bad habits that he can get away with.)

If you want to improve some openings, I can't stress chessable enough. My online rating jumped about 200 points just by going to this site every day for two months. (Yes, online ratings are "worthless": it's the relative level, not the absolute.)

Another option would be to find a player whose style you like or have empathy with, and go to chessgames to look through all of their games. Walk through them slowly, trying to figure out why they made the moves they did (when they did) - and why their opponent did what they did.

Beyond that, *play* games - and then analyze them afterwards. Even just walking back through slowly, trying to identify what went right or wrong (and what could have been better) can help a LOT. Lichess has the option to analyze your games for free - which is a HUGE boost. I've seen the advice "play slower games" (10+ min. on the clock) from quite a few people, as those games give you more time to calculate, analyze, and think. Practice visualization!

If you don't like the internet, there are always physical books - but I'll let someone with more experience on them weigh in. I've got some, I enjoy them, but I don't know enough to make recommendations.

Good luck!

# Answer
> 1 votes
I have good memories of Josh Waitzkin's Chess Academy from Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition (2007 PC software), which includes lessons, lectures, and annotated games. It starts off with the beginner basic rules but always touches upon important concepts that will take you deep into intermediate territory. For what it's worth, it also got agadmator's praise in his recent The Chessmaster (NES) vs Stockfish video.

Online there are copies of the CD software still for sale. Nowadays you can find all the lessons recorded online.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I would also recommend various books by Yasser Seirawan, he has a way of simplifying positions. His books are for beginner to intermediate level players.

---
Tags: learning, beginner, recommendations
---


title: How does PGN indicate null moves?

text:
# Question
Title: How does PGN indicate null moves?
How are null moves indicated in PGN which Lucas Chess will correctly interpret?

Context: I want to make PGN files of solution lines of series problems, in order to replay them in Lucas Chess. In serieshelpmates, Black plays a series of moves, with no White moves in between, until White checkmates. In other series problems, White plays a series of moves, with no Black moves in between.

Lucas Chess doesn't accept `null` or `--` as valid PGN. (This answer mentioned `--`.)

I use Lucas Chess because it enables the user to make the app display the board diagram nice and big, with figurines in a font that is nice and clear, and even specify the square colours so that they are nice and unobtrusive. I could try another chess app instead, but I need graphics that are suitable for people whose vision is not 20/20.

# Answer
Seems that Lucas chess can not read null moves. is Scid a good enough GUI? You can create null moves there by dragging the king on the opponents king. Download here, or with a Softwaremanager on Linux.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: software, pgn, notation
---


# Question
Title: What is the idea of this rook move in this puzzle?
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/problem/1000668

(Also if anyone knows how to start the PGN player with a black move, please let me know)

```
[Event "Juan Martinez Sola Open A"]
[Site "Almeria ESP"]
[Date "2015.12.18"]
[Round "2.1"]
[White "Arboledas Fernandez,A"]
[Black "Del Rio de Angelis,S"]
[FEN "q3r3/5k2/p4n2/2p1p3/1p3n1Q/1P2N2P/2B3P1/3R3K b - - 1 1"]

1. ... Rh8

```

My thought process is that the white knight is the only thing preventing Qg2#, so maybe putting a knight on d5 can deflect it away.

The solution of the puzzle for black is Rh8. This puts a threat on the white queen but it can just move away. The engine recommends either 2. Be4 Qxe4 and trade off pieces or 2. Bh7 to sacrifice the bishop, but I don't understand why Black has to trade. So why is Rh8 the correct move?

# Answer
> 0 votes
> so maybe putting a knight on d5 can deflect it away

Putting a knight on d5 will close the h1-a8 diagonal after a capture on d5 and therefore gives the chance to counterattack for white. Haven't analyzed but from intuitive POV black might even lose the knight after something like `1. ... N6d5 2. Nxd5 Nxd5 3. Be4`

> So why is Rh8 the correct move?

Notice the **a8** Queen pins the **g2** pawn and therefore **Rxh3** is a threat. Also White queen doesn't have any good squares apart from **e1** and **f2** to defend the **e3** Knight to the threat of **Rxh3** -\> **Rxe3**

> My thought process is that the white knight is the only thing preventing Qg2#,

This is exactly the idea behind Rh8 as well. say after Qf2 comes Rxh3, then in the next move comes Rxe3 removing the g2 defending Knight. White queen can't recapture rook since g2 will be unprotected then. This sequence will leave black with an extra piece and with then threats of Re2.

# Answer
> 0 votes
1...Rh8 2. Q-wherever Rxh3+ is winning for Black. The pawn on g2 is pinned and cannot recapture, but after 3.Kg1, Black plays 3...Rxe3 removing the defender of g2 and threatening Qxg2#. White either recaptures and is mated, or is down a decisive amount of material.

---
Tags: puzzles
---


# Question
Title: A critical endgame in the French Winaver
This endgame may even be critical of the entire variation. Stockfish 13 on move 34 depth 70/94 11.3 M of six men tablebases suggest a line that lead to the following endgame.

```
[FEN "8/2k5/1p4bP/3p4/8/4B3/1KP2P2/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

I tried with Houdini 6.02 and it give a fixed score of 1.49 , but on the second iteration ( after lot of depth and lot of moves) evaluation started going up. It suggest a deep win , but is really true? After all , Black may have a better defense, or may be able to reach the 50 move rule. What happens with perfect play? I suspect only Stockfish 13 running on DruDru technology on depth 70 ( or even higher!)with 7 men tablebases is able to give a definite answer.

# Answer
> 4 votes
The position is a draw, but not as easy as I first thought.

At first this looks like a simple fortress for Black.

Black needs to play...b5 : anyway, White can force it by bringing the wK to f4 (after c2-c3). Black has to react with ...Ke6 to prevent a trivial win on the kingside, and thus to push ...b5 to not let this pawn hanging.

Then the bB holds the h7-b1 diagonal and the bK defends against wK invasions:

* Against wKf4, we play ...Ke6. No invasion through the kingside.
* Against wKb4, we play ...Kc6. Instead, allowing wKc5 would soon lead to zugzwang: b5, d5 and h7 are three weaknesses, one too many for the bK and bB.
* And just one subtelty: against wKa5 we play ...Bd3! to prevent the only possible plan for White : invasion through the a-file and the 8th-rank:

---

```
[FEN "8/8/2k3bP/1p1p4/1K1B4/2P2P2/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

---

Now 1.Ka5!? starts the plan Ka5-a6-a7-b8-c8-d8-e8-f8-g8 ! We cannot stop the wK on c8 or e8 because of zugzwang, so we need to react now:

1...Bd3! 2.Be3 Kb7! 3.Bd4 Kc6 4.Ka6? b4! (reduces the number of pawns) 5.Ka7 bc3 4.Bc3

White will certainly win the Pd5 through zugzwang, but Black doesn't care : the resulting B+f,h vs B is a trivial draw.

```
[FEN "8/5k1b/7P/8/3B1K2/5P2/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

Black just waits with, e.g., Bg8-h7-g8

---

Edit : White can try to improve on this plan by placing her bishop on b4 and reaching this position (with Pf4 rather than Pf3) :

---

```
[FEN "8/1k6/7P/Kp1p4/1B3P2/2Pb4/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

---

Now:

If it is White to move, he can lose a tempo by 1.Bf8 Kc6 2.Be7 Kb7 3.Bb4, since 2...Bh7 3.Ka6 progresses

So let's consider it's Black's move. A bishop move loses immediately, so the two tries are 1...Kc6 holding b5 or 1...Ka7 preventing breakthrough down the a-file.

I believe White has chances in both cases:

1...Ka7 2.f5! is a surprising deflection that exploits the bK being so far from h7: 2...Bxf5 3.Kxb5 Kb7 4.Kc5 Be4 5.Kd6 and White wins with Kg7 and h7 - after replacing the bishop on d4 to prevent an exchange of the last pawn.

1...Kc6 2.Ka6 (there is no ...b4 now) 2...Bh7 3.Ka7 Kc7 4.Ba5 Kc6 5. Kb8 Bf5 6.Bb4

---

```
[FEN "1K6/8/2k4P/1p1p1b2/1B3P2/2P5/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

---

Now :

* 6...Kd7? 7.Kb7 allows the wK to c5 and leads to the loss of a pawn (and the game) by zugzwang: 7...Bh7 8.Kb6 Bd3 9.Kc5 Ke6 10.Kc6Z
* 6...Bh7? let the wK progress along the 8th rank: 7.Kc8 Bg6 8.Kd8 and the wK reaches g7, winning again.

In both cases White wins, yet Black still has a **draw** with either the passive 6...Kb6! denying any more progress for the wK, or 6...d4! 7.cd4 Kd5, aiming for counterplay. Thanks to @Scounged for checking this with Stockfish 13.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Here is my analysis of this endgame.

The analysis partially repeats some findings by Evargalo's answer, but as connected variations.

The PGN viewer on this site is a bit awkward in my opinion, so I also created a blog post on my chess.com user site.

The endgame is a win, as long as white prevents the black king reaching c4 (followed by b5-b4), or sacrificing the d5 pawn at the right moment. The general winning approach is to come closer with the king, and if the black king opposes, then the bishop "stings" him away. If black plays Kc6-b5-c4, then white plays (for example) Bd4 and Kd2-e3-f4-e5. If black plays Kd7-e6-f5, then white plays Bd4-g7-f8+ and Kd2-e3-d4-c5. The critical attempt is d5-d4 and K to d5, then white plays Kb2-b3-b4-a5-a6-a7 and then goes to g7 via b8, or he wins the b5 pawn by sacrificing his h7 pawn. But this route is not possible when the black king can close it by bringing the king to c4. Then it is a draw.

You can check the table base wins and draws mentioned in the analysis, for example on shredderchess.com, or on Lichess.

```
[Title "Analysis"]
[FEN "8/2k5/1p4bP/3p4/8/4B3/1KP2P2/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.c3 $1 {White moves the pawn to a square where it is not attacked.} ( 1.
Bd4 $2 {Let's first look at this move which, slightly surprising, throws
away the win.} 1...Kc6 2.c3 Kb5 3.Kc1 {what else?} ( 3.Kb3 Bd3 $10 ) 3...
Kc4 4.Kd2 ( 4.Bxb6 Kxc3 {also draws as the white king is too passive.} )
4...b5 {The threat is b4.} 5.Ke3 Bb1 ( 5...b4 $2 6.cxb4 Kxb4 7.Kf4 {does
not draw, the black king is too far away.} ) 6.Bg7 {Moves away from the
danger zone d4.} ( 6.Kf4 b4 $10 ) 6...Bh7 7.Kf4 d4 $3 {The key move. The
black king needs the square d5.} 8.Bxd4 ( 8.cxd4 b4 9.Bf8 Kxd4 10.Bxb4 Kd5
11.Kg5 Ke6 {is a table base draw. The pawns are separated by just one
column, black blocks them on the h7-b1 diagonal. The white king can not
reach g7.} ) 8...Kd5 $3 ( 8...b4 $2 {is wrong.} 9.cxb4 Kxd4 10.b5 Kc5 11.
Ke5 {and the white king does the job alone.} ) 9.Kg5 Ke6 $10 {This is a
position where the black king and black bishop block the white king along
the diagonal h7-b1.} 10.Bg7 Bb1 11.Kf4 Bh7 12.Ke3 Kd5 13.Bf8 {controls b4,
otherwise, black plays Kc4 and b4.} 13...Bb1 {Black waits.} 14.Kd2 Bh7 15.
Kc1 Bg6 16.Kb2 Kc4 17.Bb4 Bh7 18.Kc1 Kd3 19.Kd1 Bg6 20.Ke1 Bh7 21.Kf1 Bg6
22.Kg2 Ke4 23.Kg3 Bh7 24.Kg4 Ke5 25.Kg5 Ke6 {White has not made progress.
So, this shows the main drawing idea for black. Notice how the black king
just has to stay one of the three squares e6, d5 and c4 to prevent that
the white crosses the Rubicon anywhere on the board. If c3 and b5
disappear, we get a table base draw. Let's now return to the position after
1.c3, which, amongst other moves, wins.} ) 1...Kc6 2.Kc1 {Now black has
three choices.} 2...b5 ( 2...Kb5 {has the same idea as in the 1.Bd4?
line: Go to c4 and play b5-b4. But here c3 will be protected when the
black king reaches c4. Or the white king will be placed more active on e3.
} 3.Kd2 Bh7 4.Bd4 Bb1 5.Ke3 Kc4 6.Kf4 $5 ( 6.Bxb6 Kxc3 7.Kf4 {actually
also wins, because the black king is too far away, but let's execute
black's idea, to show that it doesn't work.} ) 6...b5 7.Ke5 Bh7 8.f4 Bb1 9.
f5 Bxf5 10.Kxf5 b4 11.cxb4 Kxd4 12.h7 $18 {This is why the idea doesn't
work.} ) ( 2...d4 {Stockfish's main line after long pondering. It has the
same idea as 7...d4 in the 1.Bd4? line, but here the black king can not
reach c4 and black can not exchange the b-pawn against the c-pawn.} 3.Bxd4
$1 ( 3.cxd4 $2 Kd5 4.Kb2 Kc4 {does not win, because the white king is
bound to b2.} ) 3...b5 4.Kb2 $1 Kd5 5.Kb3 {White has prevented Kc4} 5...
Bh7 6.Kb4 Kc6 ( 6...Bd3 7.h7 Bxh7 8.Kxb5 {is a table base win. The pawns
are separated by two columns. The black king and bishop can not work
together harmonically on one diagonal, like g8-a2 or a8-h1, to prevent the
simultaneous advance of both pawns.} ) 7.Ka5 Bd3 8.Be3 {Zugzwang} ( 8.Ka6
$2 b4+ $10 ) 8...Bh7 9.Ka6 Bd3 10.Ka7 Kc7 11.Bf4+ $18 {The white king will
reach g7, or win b5, leading to above table base win. Let's go back to the
position after 2...b5.} ) 3.Bd4 {Prevents d4 ideas for the moment and
frees the way for the white king.} 3...Kd7 4.Kd2 Ke6 5.Ke3 Kf5 6.Bg7 Ke6
7.Kd4 Kd6 8.Bf8+ {Forcing the king away from the opposition.} 8...Ke6 (
8...Kc6 9.Ke5 {and the white king goes undisturbed to g7.} ) 9.Kc5 Bd3 10.
Bg7 {Zugzwang} 10...Bh7 11.Kxb5 {We saw a comparable position where black
drew with the d-pawn on b5. Here the white king is active and by attacking
the d-pawn, which binds the black bishop, white will slowly push back the
black king.} 11...Kd6 12.Bf8+ Ke5 ( 12...Kc7 13.Kc5 Be4 14.h7 {leads to
the already mentioned table base win.} ) 13.Kc6 Ke6 14.Kc7 Kf7 15.Bg7 Ke7
16.Bd4 Be4 17.Bc5+ {Again forcing the white king to leave the opposition.}
17...Ke6 ( 17...Ke8 18.Kd6 {leads to the main line at a later moment.} )
18.Kd8 Bg6 {Preventing Ke8.} 19.Be7 {Zugzwang} 19...Kf7 ( 19...Ke5 20.Kd7
d4 21.cxd4+ Kxd4 22.Ke6 $18 {The black king is too far away.} ) 20.Kd7 Be4
21.f4 {Otherwise, Bf3 is disturbing.} 21...Bh7 22.Kd6 Be4 23.Bg5 Bh1 24.Ke5
{Now, the black bishop would like to protect both d5 and the diagonal b1-h7
by going to e4, but this runs into c4. But the black king alone can not
handle the f- and h-pawns.} 24...Bf3 25.f5 Bg2 26.Bf6 {The threat is h7.}
26...Kg8 27.Bg7 Kf7 28.f6 {Threatening h7 again.} 28...Kg8 29.Ke6 Bh3+ 30.
Ke7 $18 {f7+ can not be prevented.}

```

# Answer
> 1 votes
According to Stockfish 14.1 NNUE White Wins with C3, though it IS very complicated and it IS necessary to go to depth =. 79 or higher to get it.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Based on the answer of Evargalo, who demonstrates nicely a critical attack line to storm the fortress. Following the bishop on b4 line at "1...Kc6 2.Ka6 (there is no ...b4 now) 2...Bh7 3.Ka7 Kc7 4.Ba5" Black can deviate, counterattacking and modifying to a smaller fortress, with a line like Kd6 5. Kb6 Ke6 6. Kxb5 Kf5 7. Bc7 Kg6 8. Kc6 Bg8 9. Kd6 Kxh6 10. f5 Kg5 11. Ke5 Bh7 12. Bd8+ Kg4 13. f6 Bg8 14. Kd6 Kf5 15. Ke7 Kg6 drawing.

# Answer
> 0 votes
According to Stockfish 14.1 NNUE depth =90 the position is evaluated at 4.25, that appears to be a win, yet it may be necessary FinalGen to get a definitive answer.

# Answer
> -3 votes
After long analysis, it seems that Black defense could be broken. But more than 50 moves without pawn moves or captures are necessary at a certain point. With still 8 pieces on the board , and therefore a draw under both FIDE and ICCF rules , though it is not a technical draw.

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Tags: endgame, computer-chess
---


# Question
Title: Why exchanging light-squared bishops is an inaccuracy here?
In the following position, Stockfish 14 says the move **1...Be6** is weak, with the score going from -0.4 to +0.7.

```
[Title "Black to move"]
[FEN "r1b1kb1r/p4ppp/2p5/1p2P3/8/1BP5/P4PPP/R1BK3R b kq - 1 12"]

1...Be6 2.Bxe6 fxe6

```

What's wrong with it? **1...Be6 2.Bxe6 fxe6** and White's e-pawn is now fixed, and it's fixed on a dark square, the same color as the remaining Bishops.

# Answer
> 2 votes
*What's wrong with it? 1...Be6 2.Bxe6 fxe6?*

Probably nothing. At the end of your line white has slightly more active rooks and some space advantage, but the fact that black's pawns are on better squares and his queen side majority will give black good counterplay.

Stockfish wants to move the Bc8 to a6 in his preferred line 1...a5 2.a4 b4 3.cxb4 Bxb4. The bishops then support the c-pawn, but this will lead to nothing against sensible defense.

Both moves can be analyzed to 0.00, so in absolute terms, Stockfish tells wonderful stories.

---
Tags: engines, endgame, strategy, bishops
---


# Question
Title: How do I implement UCI in my Python chess engine?
I have developed a chess engine in Python with negamax, alpha beta and piece square table. I want to "compile" my code into a UCI compatible one so I can load it to Arena GUI, but I have no idea at all how to do that and every time I search for information I found it very confusing and counterintuitive. Could someone give me a light, a direction please, cause I don't know how to even begin ...

Note: I use Python chess module in my code and the moves are returned in UCI format since I use the `return move.uci()` method, but I don't understand if this is enough or how to load my code to Arena GUI, I have just few experience developing.

# Answer
I once posted a simple code example on Stack Overflow. This may help. There they also mention the python-chess package, but that does not support the full set of UCI commands.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: engines, computer-chess, uci, arena, minimax
---


# Question
Title: Why is pawn captures on e5 is a blunder in the King's Gambit?
chess.com says this move is a blunder, so it must be *really* bad, not simply bad. I don't understand why, and I'm out of my one free daily analysis. Could you please explain why?

I chose this move because, a) winning a pawn on a square that isn't attacked by anything seems better than losing my pawn on f4, and b) because doubled pawns on the king's file looks like good protection until I castle (if at all).

```
[FEN ""]
[Startply "5"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 Bc5 3. fxe5?? {[%draw full,f4,yellow][%draw arrow,f4,e5,red]}

```

# Answer
> 16 votes
Taking the e5 pawn allows black a devastating check on h4 with the queen, which (after blocking with pawn to g3) inevitably allows black to capture the e4 pawn with check again, winning your h1 rook.

Keeping your pawn at f4 prevents all that, given that now Qh4+ can be successfully blocked with g3. The f pawn blocks the queen's path to e4.

Furthermore, if you immediately play the knight to f3 instead of capturing e5, you eliminate the queen check threat altogether - provided you keep your knight on f3 for a while of course.

# Answer
> 1 votes
In general it is not good to open up the kingside wide open without developing pieces, especially since f2 and that diagonal is weak (think Fool's mate). Queen pawn moves are inherently safer since the queen is ready to back up the pawn if needed, making an aggressive Black queen pawn capture like Qxd4 impossible compared to Qxe4+.

---
Tags: opening, analysis, kings-gambit
---


# Question
Title: How can I mate the black king in 4 moves or less (helpmate)
In this helpmate puzzle, it is White to move.

# Answer
Fun problem. White mates with 1.Ke3 Qg4 2.Kf2 (where the king goes doesn't matter) 2...Kg6 3.Ne5+ Kh5 4.hxg4#.
> 5 votes

---
Tags: problems, checkmate, puzzles
---