# Question
Title: Latest time to castle in a tournament game
In a casual game I played, my opponent castled around the 80th move. I want to know what was the latest move in which a player has castled, in an official game. I don’t think that there is an entry for this on Krabbe’s record site.

# Answer
> 3 votes
This web page claims that "\[the\] latest castling was performed on move 48 in two games: Neshewat – Garrison, Detroit 1994 and Somogyi – Black, New York 2002."

According to https://www.chessgames.com, the first was Michigan Class A (1994), Detroit, MI USA, rd 2, Jan-15. That site gives that second game here with no tournament or match citation. These are actually both on Tim Krabbe's record page under the title "Latest castling" in the "Moves" section.

Game 1: Kingside Castling

```
[Title "Neshewat-Garrison, Detroit, 1994"]
[FEN ""]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qa5+ 5. Bd2 Qb6 6. Nb3 Ne4 7. e3 Qf6 8. Qf3 Qxf3 9. gxf3 Nxd2 10. N1xd2 Nc6 11. a3 d6 12. Be2 g6 13. Rb1 a5 14. O-O a4 15. Nc1 Bf5 16. e4 Be6 17. Rd1 Bh6 18. Kg2 Nd4 19. Bd3 Ra5 20. Nf1 Rg5+ 21. Ng3 Nxf3 22. b4 Bg7 23. Be2 Nh4+ 24. Kh1 Bh3 25. f4 Bg2+ 26. Kg1 Bxe4 27. Nd3 Bd4+ 28. Kf1 Rxg3 29. hxg3 Nf5 30. Rdc1 Nxg3+ 31. Ke1 Be3 32. Rd1 Nf5 33. Rb2 Bd4 34. Ra2 Ne3 35. Rc1 Ng2+ 36. Kf1 Be3 37. Rc3 Bd4 38. Rc1 Be3 39. Rb1 Nxf4 40. Rd1  Ne6 41. Nf2 Bf5 42. Bd3 Nd4 43. Bxf5 Nxf5 44. Ke2 Bh6 45. Ne4 Bg7 46. c5 dxc5 47. Nxc5 Nd4+ 48. Kf2 O-O 49. Nxa4 e5 50. Nc5 Nb5 51. Rd7 b6 52. Rb7 Nc3 53. Rc2 e4 54. Rxb6 e3+ 55. Ke1 Rd8 56. Rc1 h5

```

Game 2: Queenside Castling

```
[Title "Somogyi-Black E., New York, 2002 "]
[FEN ""]

1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 b6 4. Nf3 Bb7 5. Bf4 Nf6 6. Bc4 Nc6 7. O-O Nxe4 8. Nxe4 d5 9. Bd3 dxe4 10. Bxe4 e6 11. c3 Qe7 12. Ne5 Bxe5 13. dxe5 Na5 14. Bd3 a6 15. Qg4 h5 16. Qg3 h4 17. Qe3 Qd7 18. f3 Nc6 19. Rad1 Ne7 20. Bg5 h3 21. g4 Nd5 22. Qf2 c5 23. a3 Qc7 24. c4 Ne7 25. Qg3 Nc6 26. Bf6 Rh7 27. Rf2 Nd4 28. Bf1 b5 29. b4 bxc4 30. Bxc4 Qc6 31. Rd3 a5 32. b5 Qd7 33. a4 Bd5 34. Rc3 Bxc4 35. Rxc4 Qd5 36. Rc1 Nb3 37. Re1 c4 38. f4 Nc5 39. Qa3 Qd4 40. Qf3 Qd5 41. Qxd5 exd5 42. Rd1 Ne4 43. Rc2 Nxf6 44. exf6 Rh4 45. g5 Rg4+ 46. Kh1 Rxf4 47. Re2+ Re4 48. Rde1 O-O-O 49. Rxe4 dxe4 50. Kg1 Kb7 51. Rc1 Rd2 52. Rxc4 e3 53. Rc1 Rg2+ 54. Kh1 Rg4 55. Re1 Rxa4

```

---
Tags: castling, records, famous-games
---


title: How do you judge a sacrifice?

text:
# Question
Title: How do you judge a sacrifice?
I have been looking at several of Mikhail Tal's games recently, as they are exciting to analyze. Often Tal makes sacrifices in surprising positions, and almost always the computer finds that the positions are quite close despite the massive material deficit.

How can one accurately judge the compensation from a sacrifice? Are there any techniques to try to figure out whether or not it was worth it, and what should I be looking for here? How can I try to evaluate "king safety" and "weaknesses," and determine whether or not they are worth the material loss?

**Note:** I am not just asking about a combination that returns the material.

# Answer
> 14 votes
I will assume here that you are talking about sacrificing pieces and not just pawns, which require less compensation.

For a sacrifice to work out you generally need to either 1) checkmate the opposing king, or 2) eventually gain the material back. There are other scenarios, but they're less common and I will ignore them here. Often goal 2 occurs because Black is required to give up material to avoid goal 1.

Either of those goals can be accomplished in the short term by a forced sequence that you can calculate, or in the longer term, where you don't calculate an exact sequence that will lead to your win but are confident that your good position will lead you there eventually.

Unfortunately there are not reliable quantitative compensation metrics such as "an exposed king is worth two pawns". Long-term sacrifices are generally made on intuition, which improves as one gains experience. There are some decent rules of thumb, though. Here are some good signs that your attack may succeed:

* If you have two more pieces attacking his king than he has defending it.
* If you are down a piece, but currently have more pieces actually participating in the game than he does (for example, both your rooks are active, but he still has one on a8 blocked in by a knight on b8).
* If it is difficult for him to route his pieces back to defend his king.
* If it is difficult for his king to run away (often the bottleneck is at f8).
* If you have certain configurations of pieces (e.g., a knight on the sixth rank supported by a pawn, or doubled rooks on an open file) that are more valuable than you'd expect purely from their "point value".
* If the king's pawn cover is broken, or if he is stuck in the middle of the board.

If, say, you can sacrifice a piece for a pawn and three of the above conditions apply, that is a good sign that the attack will succeed at one of its two general aims. But it all depends on the actual position.

# Answer
> 2 votes
One of the better books on "judging" a sacrifice is "The Art of Sacrifice" by Rudolph Spielmann, even though it is a bit dated (1935).

In a "non-gain" sacrifice, one doesn't really think of compensation. Instead, the mentality is, "can I get a winning attack?" Normally, the sacrifice is large enough so that if you don't win by attack, you will lose the game on material. So most sacrifices involve either an immediate "mating attack," or at least a "king hunt," whereby the king is forced into the center of the board. In one notable game (against Rubenstein), Spielmann sacrificed a whole rook for a king hunt, and won with a mating attack of queen and rook against queen and two rooks, because the enemy king was totally exposed.

Other sacrifices can occur when your opponent has most of his pieces on say, the queen side, and you outnumber in the vicinity of his king say, five pieces to two. In that case, the priority is to remove the two pieces so that the remaining three can administer checkmate. In that case, it might be worth sacrificing a rook, or even a queen for a key defending knight; after that loss, the opposing king is helpless against your remaining pieces.

An exception to the rule about compensation occurred after a "classic" sacrifice of a bishop for the h pawn. Spielmann also captured the g pawn, and eventually the f pawn fell, so he had three pawns for the piece, enough "compensation." Eventually the Black king was driven to the queen side, where it was in the way of his other pieces, and Spielmann could win by queening his "passed" h pawn; with the "crowding" of Black's pieces on the opposite side more than compensating for his piece advantage.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I assume what you're asking is how do you evaluate a position when the compensation is unclear because you either lack the time or the ability to calculate out the variations.

Most top level players tend to play instinctively. About 90% of the time you'll see the move you're going to play within the first 3-5 seconds. The rest of the time is spent analyzing that move and the alternatives. Magnus is on record saying that's exactly how he thinks. I'm sure Tal would say the same.

The primary focus is the opponent's king. (I'll assume we aren't talking about positional sacrifices) If you can prevent the opponent from castling that's probably worth 1-1.5 pawns by itself. Exposing a castled king is probably worth more but it depends on the position. How many pieces can you bring to attack in that part of the board? How many pieces can they defend with? Are there hanging pieces that could potentially be won? How loose is the opponent's position? Those are the types of questions that tell you what kind of attack you can expect. You need at least two pieces to mate-even the queen can't mate by itself. If you can create a two or three piece advantage in one sector the attack is likely to succeed especially if the opponent's position is loose and has hanging pieces.

I'll add virtually any attack is justified if you can get unlimited checks because you can always force a draw if things don't work out.

Along those same lines is the "fall-back" move. Say you're analyzing a line and you aren't completely sure it works but you notice in the middle of your analysis that an alternate move either gives you an equal position or a forced draw. In that case you can justify the sacrifice. Let it play out for a few moves and see if the opponent makes a mistake. If they don't, then you can analyze at that point without wasting a lot of your time. You'll be able to analyze deeper into the position but you still have your "fall-back" move if your analysis fails or you discover a mistake. A "fall-back" move allows you to justify a sacrifice because you know you can't be worse than that position.

# Answer
> -1 votes
My recent experience tells me that it depends on positional evaluation. Normally you think the position would result in an attack resulting in mate or a huge material gain.

Sometimes it is forced on you. I recall beating a much higher rated player many decades ago. He had a positional edge and put his horsie in a strong position. I sacrificed a rook for it plus a pawn and went on to win because I had an overwhelming positional advantage even without an attack.

That sort of thing has happened often. Probably more than I just do it purely intentionally so as to gain some positional advantage.

But for me the common cause of winning is positional advantage from the sacrifice. And that is hard to compute so it takes more experience and feel than calculation.

---
Tags: learning, sacrifice, aggressive-play, tal
---


title: Touch move rule loophole

text:
# Question
Title: Touch move rule loophole
When I touch two pieces simultaneously, how will the touch move rule apply? How is this rule used for this situation? I could not find any resources to do with this situation.

# Answer
> When I touch two pieces simultaneously, how will the touch move rule apply?

It will primarily depend on your intention, or rather what onlookers clearly perceive as being your intention.

Here's what the latest FIDE Laws of Chess have to say:

> 4.1 Each move must be played with one hand only.
>
> 4.2.1 Only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares, provided that he first expresses his intention (for example by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”).
>
> 4.2.2 Any other physical contact with a piece, except for clearly accidental contact, shall be considered to be intent.
>
> 4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard,with the intention of moving or capturing:
>
> 4.3.1 one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved
>
> 4.3.2 one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched that can be captured
>
> etc.

The firs thing to note is that of you used two hands then that will be punished as an illegal move (article 7.5.4).

If it is clearly accidental then you will be permitted (required) to move the piece that it was clearly your intention to move. An example of this is something which sometimes happens to me when I reach across the board to move a piece on the far side and my forearm brushes and sometimes knocks over the tallest piece on my side of the board, my king.

So, that leaves cases where you deliberately touched two pieces simultaneously with one hand. There are two articles which deal with that in the laws, one more draconian than the other and so far less likely to be invoked.

> 11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever.

If an arbiter saw you do this (deliberately touch two pieces simultaneously with one hand) then they would likely immediately warn you. If the opponent claimed that it was an annoyance you might receive more than a warning.

Repeat infringements would put you at risk of:

> 11.7 Persistent refusal by a player to comply with the Laws of Chess shall be penalised by loss of the game. The arbiter shall decide the score of the opponent.

In extreme circumstances (I cannot think of any time this has been invoked) the arbiter could punish you under:

> 11.1 The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute.
> 16 votes

---
Tags: rules, loopholes
---


title: Black answers to Grand Prix attack

text:
# Question
Title: Black answers to Grand Prix attack
I am reading about the Grand Prix Attack and the main lines of development for Black. One line considered is as follows.

```
[FEN ""]

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 d6 3. f4 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Bc4 Nc6 6. O-O

```

After White castling, I read, Black's best moves are Nf6 or Ne7 after e6.

As a beginner I want to ask, due to the fact that the idea behind the Grand Prix Attack is to attack Black's kingside, is queenside castling a line to consider for Black?

# Answer
I play it to avoid 'normal' sicilian lines.

When possible I do attack often on the Kside.

OTOH your example line is not one that gives me a lot of problems. What causes me more problems as white is fighting for an early d5 by black and attacking on the Q side.

Yes some opponents have castled Qside as black which led to other type of play than a Kside attack by white.
> 3 votes

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


title: Is White in a weaker position?

text:
# Question
Title: Is White in a weaker position?
Is White in a weaker position than Black? How do I analyze this position?

```
[FEN "2rq2kr/p1ppbp2/1pn1p1pP/4P3/3P2Qn/2PB4/PP3P2/RNB1K2R w - - 0 1"]

```

From this point onward, I tried a mobile chess-free app and turned the board, on each move. I mean from both ends that the computer was playing. But each time White lost or drew at max. How can I say at this stage that White is in a weaker position? What are the key points?

# Answer
> 11 votes
```
[fen "2rq2kr/p1ppbp2/1pn1p1pP/4P3/3P2Qn/2P5/PP3P2/RNB1K2R w - - 0 1"]

```

> Is white in a weaker position then black? ... What are the key points?

The key points are -

1. White is a whole piece down for no compensation
2. White has no attack
3. White has no pawn levers
4. The white h pawn is weak and black can round it up at leisure and take it

In short, white is not just weaker than black, white is completely lost

> Please review it again. My bad, I missed the white bishop, now edited in Fen

Well, a white bishop suddenly appearing on d3 changes everything. The g6 pawn is now a major problem for black. With white to move (as indicated by your fen) black is just lost. The knight on h4 is en prise. White can just take it. Here's what happens if black tries to recapture.

```
[fen "2rq2kr/p1ppbp2/1pn1p1pP/4P3/3P2Qn/2PB4/PP3P2/RNB1K2R w - - 0 1"]

1. Rxh4 Bxh4 2. Bxg6 fxg6 (2...Kf8 3. Bxf7 Kxf7 4. Qg7+ Ke8 5. Qxh8+ Ke7 6. Qg7+ Ke8 7. h7) 3. Qxg6+ Kf8 4. Qg7+ Ke8 5. Qxh8+ Ke7 6. Qg7+ Ke8 7. h7

```

# Answer
> 2 votes
White has an attack going with Rxh4 followed by Bxg6.

Black has no attack/no plan. One now needs to calculate if Rxh4 and Bxg6 is forcing enough for white.

With a quick calculation one can see that White's pieces flow and hence White is in fact winning here.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Who is on the move?

With white to move it looks like white is better off although black has positional advantage in the long run unless white has tactics to finish things.

This is hard to tell and no wonder your computers have problems!

---
Tags: analysis, strategy, learning
---


title: How to avoid blundering in chess?

text:
# Question
Title: How to avoid blundering in chess?
I realize that there is no point in playing good chess if you end up blundering away a rook or a bishop. I end up blundering atleast once in two games which generally ends up with me resigning due to frustration. For eg., in a recent game, my opponent took my pawn with his bishop and I took another of his pawns in return. However, I didn't realize that after taking my pawn, he was also threatening my rook. Thus I blundered away my rook. Is there any technique to avoid making such blunders?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Playing good chess is still totally worth it. It's much easier to blunder in a deseprate position than in a good one. That being said, the main path towards stopping blunders is improving your tactical skills so you can detect threats more easily.

With enough time on the clock, you should always look for forced moves both you and your opponent may have (checks, captures, mate threats...) There's probably a reason for your opponent's last moves, so think of what new threats it creates.

---
Tags: opening, online-chess, middlegame
---


title: How viable is the hippopotamus defense?

text:
# Question
Title: How viable is the hippopotamus defense?
Clearly the defense is not viable in top level chess for classical time controls. Roughly at what rating is it viable to have the hippopotamus defense as your primary black defense?

# Answer
> 2 votes
It depends on the players and how black continues after whites moves.

For me, I find it easy to beat players using it for black.

That might speak more to their lack of experience than the opening. But then you dont find many high rated players using it so there is no conclusive proof.

# Answer
> 1 votes
The Hippo can be viable even at the top levels with classical time-controls, but it is more of a matter of *when* is it viable.
Certainly no player gets to the top levels playing passive chess and we are unlikely to ever see it at slow time-controls; however some ~2600 players play it in slow time controls *when* White only has two pawns in the center and the adjacent pawns are blocked.

For example: 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Nf3 a6 5.a4 b6 6.Be3 e6 7.Qd2 h6 is quite acceptable

**update:**

* Donchenko (2604) played it in Gibraltar Masters 2019.
* Flores, Diego (2601) 20th Dubai Open 2018.
* Sethuraman, S.P. (2639) Qatar Masters Open 2015.
* Gustafsson, Jan (2630) 1-0 Fier, Alexandr (2636) ESP-chT CECLUB Honor.
* Bruzon Batista, Lazaro (2653) Badalona op 36th
* Malakhov, Vladimir (2709) has played it...

# Answer
> 1 votes
It is viable at all levels, but there are more critical tries as Black, that is why it is rare at the top level.

The defense was even used twice by Spassky in the 1964 World Championship Match against Petrosian, both games drawn.

---
Tags: opening, rating
---


# Question
Title: What to play vs. 1. d4 when Sicilian is my favorite defense?
I've been playing chess since my childhood however just recently got into chess very seriously and my online balance was approx. 90-60 out of 150 games and then I lost 25 games due to a broken phone. Now I'm rated 1323 and my balance is 118-96 rising drastically from 1116 a month ago. Currently I'm playing 20 games and winning in about 16 of them. I have been playing very well since learning new openings. So I would say I'm experienced online when I have been challenging people and mostly I am the white player which I do play very well as against \>1400 using Stonewall as white and generally winning 9 out of 10 games. Recently I have been using Kopec system vs Sicilian defence players and wrecking my opponents. But I have been playing as black more often now for overall game development and started using Sicilian def. but found that playing against `1.d4` gives me serious trouble and confusion of how I should play it. For example:

```
[FEN ""]
1. d4 c5 2. dxc5

```

leaves me in an inferior pawn position and enemy queen staring me down

I am more a tactician and I set up position rather than setting up traps or use an exchange of pieces to gain center board position until I have better position/castle and I am up on pawns/pieces and then gg.

# Answer
You can play the Stonewall defence with black as well, as `quid` suggested. You can start with a Dutch and get the familiar structure (just an example):

```
[FEN ""]
1. d4 f5 2. c4 e6 3. g3 Nf6 4. Bg2 d5. Nf3 c6

```

---

Or you can play as you have shown and don't have to worry about `dxc5` (it actually isn't such a good move):

```
[FEN ""]
1. d4 c5 2. dxc5?! e6 3. Nc3 (3. b4? a5 4. c3?? axb4 5. cxb4 Qf6-+) Bxc5=

```

If this variation was your only problem, it should be solved now... :-)

If you don't mind playing Benoni or the Benko gambit I would stick with this variation.
> 14 votes

# Answer
I think you *under*estimate the scope of opening theory and *over*estimate the efficiency of sticking to a few "pet lines".

As already mentioned by bof, playing ..c5 against 1 d4 has little to nothing to do with the "Sicilian Defense". White very specifially has to continue with e4 in the second or third move (after 2 c3/Nf3) to transpose into the Sicilian. Any other moves and you are in a completely different opening with very own motives and ideas. Actually, there is no such thing as "the" Sicilian either: White has no less than 4 common alternatives for his second move alone (Nf3, Nc3, c3, d4) that lead to very different positions.. and it's not going to get better from that point on regarding the size of the move tree. Telling us that you play "the Sicilian Defense" is equally vague, as there are many different systems Black can use (based on g6, e6 or e5, mainly).

Trying to only play lines that are similar to each other will lead into a dead end in the long run (even if it might be successful for now). It's an illusion, especially when playing Black: No matter what you do, your opponent always has the choice to disturb your plan by playing a line you don't like (e.g. an early Bf4/Bf5/Bg4/Bg5 can be a real pain if you try to play Stonewall Attack/Dutch). Most openings offer the possibility for both players to choose either really sharp or really quiet continuations, and you have to adapt to the choices of your opponent. Because the higher your rating, the better your opponents will get in adapting to **you**.

The 1 d4 c5 variation illustrates this point pretty well: Because you don't have the full picture yet and only tried to apply the (Sicilian) schemata known to you, the variation gave you a lot of trouble. kmartin on the other hand applied a common motive from the Queen's Gambit (variations of this can be found in many other openings, e.g. the French Defense) to prove that you can take back that pawn with tempo (or trap the opponent if he's too greedy) and have a comfortable game (after 4 Nf3 d6, your position isn't that much away from a common Sicilian one after all, hooray!).

So, my advice would be that instead of asking us and thus limiting your attention to only one or maybe a couple of defenses with the same patterns you already know, give ALL of them (and the White openings, too, of course) an honest try yourself\*. Then you can make that choice on your own. And even if you end up choosing the Stonewall Attack and Dutch Defense as your favorites anyways, having looked into the others and thus broadening your view will pay off, believe me. And no, time consumption is not an excuse. Whoever devotes the time to ponder the question of his opening choice enough to consider asking it on stackexchange also has 10 minutes to look up the main lines of some opening before he starts playing. The actual work is nicely hidden in that playing.. which by itself should be considered a pleasure, not a chore, right? :)

\*It's okay to look up variations as long as you don't overdo it. There are a lot of purists around that claim that noone below 2000 elo or some other number should be learning any opening theory at all, but I disagree with that. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You should however put a serious effort into trying to understand how cars work and what the differences between a Mini and a SUV are before you settle to buy one. ;)
> 3 votes

# Answer
I'm a big believer that players below expert level should play system openings against 1. d4. They drastically reduce what you need to know to get a playable game. Bobby Fischer thought the same way and played the King's Indian but the problem is that opening has acquired a lot of theory since then.

The Tarrasch Defense is very much a system opening. You can play a Tarrasch formation against everything except 1.e4 and black will equalize easily against everything except one line-The Rubinstein. Even then the advantage in the Rubinstein is smaller than in most d4 defenses and black has an active position and a lot of options and can dictate the direction of the game. On top of that, the characteristic move of the Tarrasch is c5 which means you will learn a lot about sicilian-type positions by playing it.

A lot of the same is true of the Dutch which is a mirror image of the sicilian.

Lastly, the position you give is an old Benoni. There's nothing wrong with it at all. Black can aim to control the dark squares and reach an equal position (in which case it is a system opening) or play more aggressively with the main line Benonis. My only concern is that there are some lines that are a little advanced positionally and black can struggle in a cramped position if he doesn't know what to do. Sill, at your level you should be able to equalize easily and get an active position in 99% of your games.
> 1 votes

# Answer
This is the problem with playing Black. You must find a completely new opening against 1.d4. Here is a plan for learning.

1. Learn a reply to 1.e4(Sicilian)
2. Learn a reply to 1.d4. You can try the Queen's gambit as a safe opening choice.
3. Learn a system(like London system, King's Indian setup...)so that you can play against irregular defences or openings.

I have not mentioned to play openings for White, since you do not need to know an opening. A system can be played for both sides.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: opening, sicilian-defense, 1.d4, stonewall-attack
---


title: How to study a chess tactics book?

text:
# Question
Title: How to study a chess tactics book?
I've been playing chess for quite a while now, but I still consider myself a beginner. I play with friends most of the time. Now I want to get better so I bougth a tactics book (Yusupov: Build up your chess - The fundamentals). But I'm wondering how to study the book efficiently.

In the book itself, Yusupov recommends to set up every position and play them through on a chessboard. I imagine I could also use a software for that. Is there any software, that is particularly suitable? That let's me set up the position (maybe even save it) and then play through all the variations given?

And generally speaking: what is your approach, to studying a chess tactics book? How do you work with a book like "Yusupov - Build up your chess"?

Any help is appreciated :)

# Answer
> 4 votes
Well for starters I advise you to try out Daniel King's Power Play series, it helped me take my chess to the next level at the time.

Also, rule number 1 when learning anything about chess. **Never** do it on a PC or something that's not physical... Always, always, always have a real chess board when practicing tactics and end game... Openings are more about memorizing so it **can** be done without a real chess board, but even then I still prefer a real board.

There's of course a reason for this... Having physical contact with the pieces has a bigger impact on your mind, it helps learn and even memorize certain aspects of the tactic. This is of course also scientific, having an actual physical contact with things has a much bigger impact than something that isn't. If you ever download the Daniel King series (he's an english GM) he will also advise the same thing :)

---

However, it would obviously be a waste if you didn't learn something from the book you have! So first off, don't expect this to end fast, this will take time... unlike learning from a teacher or someone who speaks... Learning chess from a book takes time.

First off you will need to take your time and understand every single move, one of the hardest things to learn from chess books are tactics... Those have a lot of annotations and many variations (especially if you look at some rook lifting tactics, f4 pawn push, h4 push etc...). After you are done with the first chapter in the book, if you completely understand what's going on, you will most likely handle the rest fine if you take it at a good pace. Rushing things won't get you anywhere so take your time.

If you have any further questions feel free to ask, I'll answer to the best of my abilities.

***A good endgame book to learn from is Domination in 2,545 Endgame Studies By Kasparyan... I bought the book and I can tell you, it's a piece of gold.***

# Answer
> 4 votes
If you can solve straight from the diagram then do that. Otherwise it's more effective for over the board play to set up the positions on a real chess board. By moving the pieces you train your unconscious mind to recognise the patterns. Of course if you play online only then using software to do it will be better. And play through the variations too, sometimes the most important ideas will be in the variations.

# Answer
> 3 votes
First, I would like to say that the book you got is actually not really a tactics book. It is much more than that. It has chapters on opening play, on positional topics, on endgames and, yes, also many on tactics. I really like the book and I feel that working through it has helped me a lot.

Essentially, Yusupov gives you all the advice you're asking for:

1) play through all the variations on a board and try to understand all the ideas in them.

The book is very well structured so in many cases there are really not too many things going on simultaneously, at least in the earlier chapters. It is certainly a good idea to try and see whether you can even solve the examples that are used to explain the concepts. At least spending a couple of minutes on each before looking at the proposed solution and the variations may help you to pick up the main points more quickly. On the other hand, if you are not at all familiar with the concepts that are taught in a chapter, this may not make too much sense.

2) solve the exercises without moving the pieces and write down all necessary variations, only then check and compare with the solutions. If you cannot make progress without moving pieces, then try with moving pieces for a couple more minutes.

I feel that this writing-down process has really helped me to find more defensive option of my opponent. Also, whenever I got really stuck on one of the exercises, it was because I had either missed an important idea or I had stopped calculation of a variation too early without being able to assess it properly. Both give you a more or less direct push into a direction for improvement.

I am not sure it really has to be a real board. When I am traveling, I often use an ipad for this as it is simply more flexible. I feel that I have not too much trouble moving back and forth between this and a real board. In particular, if you use functionality for saving and replaying variations you need to be careful to really look at each move and understand its purpose. It can be rather tempting to simply play the animation and look at the fireworks on the board without understanding what happens. While this will consume valuable chess training time, it will likely not lead to a substantial chess improvement.

A final, suggestion from myself would be not to rush it. Take your time really working through the book. I actually went over it a couple of times, redoing the exercises. Since there are 12 per chapter I have not fully memorized them, so in many cases I still have to find the solutions. Sometimes it then happens that I remember that the move I just found is actually correct. I then force myself to really check all different variations as I would have to in a real game.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Yusupov's book (series) while excellent, is not a tactics book (series). When I hear "Tactics Book" I think of books like Maxim Blokh's utterly fantastic "The Art Of Combination" or any of the series from Russian Chess House "Manual Of Chess Combinations," where you have a position and a side to move and an expected result (Black to play and draw, for example).

In the case of Yusupov, yes. Set up a board and play over all the moves. An old book of Nimzovich's taught me to use *2* boards, in fact. Use one tournament-sized board for the actual continuation, and a smaller magnetic pocket set for the variations. That way if I get distracted by something I see I can follow it out on the pocket set without losing my place in the actual continuation on the "main" board.

(And I'd recommend a real board, at least for the main one, unless you only play on a computer screen in online games. Using a tournament quality board helps accustom your eyes to finding lines like you're studying over the board during a game. Of course if your eyes are already good at spotting them on a real board, feel free to just use a computer screen. But if that's the case, I doubt you'd be asking this question.)

In the case of the tactical books like I was talking about, the whole idea there is to solve the problem in your head, just as you would have to do in a game. For that, working from the diagram alone is acceptable, though if you're just starting to do this, you might want to set up the position on a board so it "feels" to you like you're playing a "real" game. In any case, even if you set up the position on a real board, don't touch a piece until you have either solved the problem, or run past your imposed time limit (ten minutes is usually a good limit to set).

# Answer
> 1 votes
Okay, I've been a chess teacher for over 10 years. Mostly juniors but some adult students as well. Repetition is the key to learning tactics at your level. I have some of Yusupov's books. He wrote a number of them in this series. They are quite good and cover a wide range of subjects. I'm not sure I would recommend them for tactics though. 1001 Chess Combinations and Sacrifices would be good. The books by Chandler, "How to beat your Dad at Chess" in particular, it has examples of every type of mating combination. Good to know. Perhaps Winning Chess Tactics by Seirawan and Silman. Repeat the problems over and over to learn to recognize the pattern. Good luck!

PS-I forgot to mention, Chessable is a great site that encourages repetition learning.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I use a modified version of De La Maza's approach.

The first time just go through it normally. Keep track of the amount of time you spend and which ones you get wrong. Play through the ones you get wrong until you understand them.

The second time through do the same thing except cut the amount of time in half. If for some reason you can't cut the time in half, figure out which ones are giving you the most problem and work on those areas. For example if you're missing a lot of knight forks you might want to do knight tour drills or a lot of simple one move problems.

Each subsequent time do the same thing- Go through the entire book and cut your time in half (ideally while increasing accuracy)

Keep repeating until you can do the entire book in one day. Then move on to the next book.

# Answer
> 0 votes
It somewhat depends on what your end goal is. If your desire is to play over the board, then setting up the pieces like Yusupov recommends is a good idea at least initially. If you only play online, then it might be better to solve them directly from the book, or in a program.

For software you can use a chess database program to enter a position and look at it:

* Chessbase (commercial product) is the gold standard but very expensive
* Scid (free. Scid vs. PC is a fork of this that seems nice) http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/

# Answer
> 0 votes
During chess book examples and exercises, try to find all the variations and find out the best ones. Try to memorize the useful variations. Find a book with lots of exercises. Set them up on a board and go through them. You will eventually get familiar with all the common situations and be able to punish your opponent for their blunders. Also, don't rush through all the chapters if you have not completely understood them. Re-read them again and again until you get the idea.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Two ways I do it.

1. I use an Android app called Chessify for studying purposes only. It is a chess ocr(optical character recognition) app. It is a great study tool. There are other ones out there. I just prefer Chessify. Take a picture of the board and either save to the device or send the FEN file to your device for study. Works great on books and electronic screens(useful for ebooks, youtube videos that have images of the board).
2. I also have a small board specifically for study. I at times need a break from electronics. Currently I am reading, "The Amateur's Mind" by IM Jeremy Silman and the small board I have is perfect for study. Sit with the book and go through the games over the board.

# Answer
> 0 votes
There are two possible goals when reading a tactics book:

1. Learning about the existence of tactical patterns;
2. Knowing those patterns from heart and recognize them in a position without calculating.

For 1. read the book from start to end. Stop at every position. Make sure what happens in every position. Understand the lines that are written. Find and understand why other moves are not mentioned. Do you calculations on the board if necessary. The more you progress, the less you will need a board, but do NOT put any pressure on you in that respect.

Step 2 needs completion of step 1. Repeat every position - as much positions per day as is comfortable for you - until you make no mistakes for two runs.

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Tags: learning, books, training, beginner, study
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# Question
Title: Must one say "queen check" before capturing a queen?
I was playing a friend and I took her queen. She said that I didn't say "queen check" beforehand. I have never heard of this. Is it a rule?

# Answer
The official FIDE laws of chess do not know about a queen check. Announcing a "queen check“ might even be considered a case of "to distract or annoy the opponent“ (11.5). Even announcing a "king check“ is not recommended.

That’s for tournament chess. In informal games, it is not unusual in some groups to announce a check and a "queen check“ (by "gardez“, French for "keep attention“). Even there it is not a rule, but a courtesy. Not announcing a check or gardez is considered impolite, but you may take the queen anyway.
> 50 votes

# Answer
No.

Some people think it is polite to say 'gardez' to alert a player that the Q can be taken.

But no rule says you have to say check nor gardez and in serious games with good players it is not done.

This gardez for Qs is just a very informal rule amongst some low level players that I have not seen in actual use for 60 years but have read about as being more common (where?) in the past. It is possible that I never played at such a low level to encounter it; but I still believe it is rare perhaps because it is very old and now obsolete as even relative newish players do not need that alert.
> 31 votes

# Answer
The important part is that you and your friend agree on what to say and when. If you both agree that queen check (or gardez) is a nice thing to say, then go ahead and say it.

I suggest taking the time before your next game to clear this up. Also, if you play any friends of your friend then ask them too what they prefer.

That being said, if your friend want to play strangers, online, in tournaments, or whatever, then they will have to get used to people not saying it. If they try to make non-friends say gardez, they are likely to be met with a simple "no".
> 14 votes

# Answer
I've been playing for more than 40 years and never heard the term, casual or tournament. Admittedly, I have less than a dozen in-person games in the last 20 years.
> 2 votes

# Answer
No, as others have said, not even (king) check needs to be announced. Queens can be traded or sacrificed. It's not possible to define precisely when the Q is under threat and needs response.

However chess softwares usually have a sound effect when king is checked. And in one blitz game, my opponent took advantage of that annoying sound!

```
[fen "1r3k2/p4pp1/8/8/8/P7/KPQ3P1/6q1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Qc5+! Kg8 2. Qxg1

```

I wished they had a Q alert.
> 2 votes

# Answer
It is just a courtesy designed to ease new players into a game with multiple rules, and your friend might have mistaken it for an actual one. Or maybe she's used to it and wanted to establish it as a common rule between the two of you. The game is supposed to be fun for everyone. Talk it out.

When I was a little kid, my parents would always say it to me when they were teaching me how to play. They still do, nowadays, but mostly as a means to tease me.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Well, there is no official FIDE rule about saying 'Queen-check', so you don't.

However, I've got something to add about chaturanga, an ancient form of chess. In it, the rook is the most powerful piece, and when it is attacked, it is considered good etiquette to call out, 'Check-rook'.
> 1 votes

# Answer
No because the whole point is to capture the King, so it's not necessary, & has never been an official rule as far as I know. If you do it with the Queen, why not with any other piece which ultimately has little to do with you winning? I was taught that you should announce a King check to give your opponent an opportunity to fix it, but I don't know if it's *necessary*.
> 0 votes

# Answer
Although the official rules of chess don't allow for takebacks in tournament or rated games, and expect players to notice when their queen is in danger, people who are playing for purposes of mutual enjoyment should adjust those rules when doing so would enhance that enjoyment. If a game has reached an interesting position but one of the players makes a silly move that would drop the queen, having the opponent take advantage of that would render the game up to that point essentially meaningless. If the opponent instead says "Are you sure you want to let me capture the queen?", and allows the first player to make a better move, the players may then be able to get more enjoyment out of the interesting position.

Beginners should play a mixture of "friendly" games which allow generous takebacks, and strict games with no takebacks, since the two kinds of game will impart different lessons. A novice who plays only strict games with other novices may place too much focus on encouraging and exploiting the kinds of blunders that experienced players would never make, and would thus be unable to formulate any kind of strategy that would have any hope against experienced players. Playing "friendly" games may allow players to get more experience against how to handle good moves by opponents (even if it takes the opponent a few tries to find a good move), but may fail to teach the discipline necessary to avoid blundering in rated or tournament games.
> 0 votes

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Tags: rules, queens, check
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# Question
Title: Chess variation where the goal is to lose all pieces
A friend challenged me to a chess variation I have never heard of.

* All chess rules apply.
* If you have an opportunity to take a piece, you must take it, you cannot avoid or block exchanges.
* The only piece that cannot be taken is the king and there's no checkmate but you can check the king, and you can castle.
* The strategy is to force your opponent to take all your pieces.
* The winner is the one who has no pieces on board except the king.

Questions:

1. Have you ever heard of this variation before? What is it called? Is it formally recognized like Chess960?
2. I played black and lost all the matches. Does White have a decisive advantage since he can play d4 followed by Bh6, and losing a piece and stay ing one move ahead? This variation does not seem fair because it looks like a race to lose everything, hence White will win the race by force every time.
3. If it exists and have a community, what are the main tactics and strategies, especially when playing black?

# Answer
> 4 votes
> I played black and lost all the matches. Does white have a decisive advantage since he can play d4 followed by bh6 and lose a piece and stay one move ahead?

According to Dr Mark Watkins of The University of Sydney, *losing chess* has been solved and White can force a win with 1. e3:

> The move 1. e3 has been solved as a win for White under both FICS and International Rules. The final leg was actually much easier than expected, as I wasted around a year on false leads. In fact, the not-too-deep idea 1. e3 b6 2. a4 e6 3. Ra3 Bxa3 4. Nxa3 Qh4 5. a5 bxa5 6. Qh5! leads to some queen races where White just needs a bit deeper search to show a good score

# Answer
> 2 votes
I suppose this chess variation is called **Anti-chess**. You can also play it online on **lichess.com**, **chess.com**(new version).

# Answer
> 1 votes
The variation I used to play is suicide chess, where the king can be captured. I have not heard of your variation though

Answers To Your Questions:

* No, Chess960 is when both sides start with identical starting pieces but the pieces on the 1st and 8th files have been scrambled.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Yes, I have played this variant before. This was a common game my family played when I was a kid, and we still play it now and then. We had slightly different rules about the king- it was just a normal piece for us, that could be captured and capture just like any other piece. I think that helped to balance the game somewhat, and was a slightly more equal variant than what you have described.

Wikipedia also describes this variant. It has many names, the ones I have seen most commonly are Takeaway Chess and Antichess. It is described on Wikipedia with the same version of the rules I have described (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing\_chess), and a bit of the game's history and strategies. Wikipedia also claims that it has been weakly solved as winning for white with 1. e3. Thus, it has been proven that white always wins, but every line has not been calculated for the forced win (if this makes no sense, you can read about the different ways games can be solved here). However, since no one can memorize the number of potential lines required to win it, you can still play it and be competitive in your games with your friend.

Furthermore, Wikipedia provides several other lists of rulesets for this variant that are less common but still played in some local areas. Yours is one of them, so I would assume that your friend got this from an area where that version of the variant was played.

I have seen Antichess on chess.com, on the 4 player chess server. It is not currently among their standard 2-player-chess variants, perhaps because it has indeed been solved and wackos who wanted to get crazy ratings would be able to use computer help much more easily, or just memorize a bunch of winning lines. I agree with their evaluation of there not being much use of putting it in the 2PC variants, but the 4PC variant is quite fun, and has not been solved as an extra bonus. :)

It occurred to me after writing the above paragraph that Lichess has this among their 2PC variants- in fact, I checked and it is apparently their most popular variant- even more than Chess960. So I guess it can work in 2PC online. I'm pretty sure that while it's not recognized by FIDE or anything, being on Lichess and chess.com indicates that it is a major part of the chess community. Many other variants, like Chess960 have gained steam in local clubs, online, and in mid-level tournaments, before getting recognized as a real thing by FIDE. I don't think that will happen with Takeaway Chess, since it's already solved, but it still seems to have a sizeable community.

As for strategies as Black, you can read the Wikipedia article I already cited for deeper analysis and other references, but I'll summarize some stuff here.:

As black, the variation that is the hardest to play against as white is the `Liardet Defense`, which is `1. e3 b6`. This makes the game take a very long time, and can send the game into an endgame, which are much more ferociously complicated than normal chess endgames, and can for all practical purposes make the game a coin toss when the game is played between two not-Magnus-Carlsen-level players. Thus, I would suggest that you try to figure out how to get into an endgame, which should actually be far more complicated than the middlegame, where there are more pieces on the board, counterintuitive though it may seem.

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Tags: strategy, chess-variants
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# Question
Title: How to decide what openings to stick with?
I've come to the conclusion that I'm at the point where it would be better for me to stick with a handful of openings I can know well as oppose to how I would normally just play quite a large range of openings. My question is how I would find out what openings suit me since I plan to constantly play them because honestly with so many openings it feels difficult to choose. For instance I can't decide whether I prefer e4 or d4? Also I don't really have an "official" repertoire against openings that aren't d4 or e4 such as g3/g6 or b3/b6 openings, is this an issue? I normally just follow opening principles (control the center, develop etc.) to get by those openings.

# Answer
> 8 votes
Yes, it is better if you concentrate on just a couple of openings. Even though it feels difficult to choose, you should know if you like closed positions (then, generally speaking, play 1. d4 as White, and choose e.g. French and the King's Indian as Black) or open positions (when it makes more sense to play 1. e4, and e.g. Sicilian and the Grünfeld). If you have no preference, check your results - play the openings which you were successful with in the past.

Although, to become a better chess player, you need to practice all types of positions. (But not all *openings*.)

To answer your last question: if your opponent plays an 'odd' opening, you should indeed be fine if you develop along the general principles (but watch out for sudden tactics).

# Answer
> 6 votes
Here's what you might consider a slightly off-the-wall idea for figuring out what kind of opening you might enjoy playing...

Get a source of games which will afford you a plentiful variety of openings. I use a games database, but take your pick.

Find some random way of selecting 100-200 of these games. You might pick the month of July in a random year; whatever is easiest for you. Try to make the other particulars as varied as possible, but choose games played by players whose ELO rating was at least 1800. Those will offer a few advantages over games played by lower-rated players:

* They will be full of the ideas that are characteristic of those openings
* They won't be cluttered by simple blunders that teach you nothing about that opening
* They will demonstrate the variety of positions (or lack of it) that comes out of each opening
* They will generally be true to the nature of the opening (strategic vs tactical, slow maneuvering vs immediate contact, melee combat vs constant attacking against constant defense).

Then, start playing through the games fairly quickly. Try to keep in mind that you are getting a *feel* for the opening, not trying to memorize or recognize anything. Ignore any variations, but if you stumble on a game you think might be useful or fun to analyze, tag it so you can return to it later. You shouldn't spend more than 10 minutes on the play-through for each game, and more often than not, it should take less than 5 minutes.

Bias your play-through time towards more unfamiliar openings with positions you aren't used to. Make sure you hit a couple of Trompowsky's, Budapest Gambits, Smith-Morra Gambits, Hedgehogs, Two Knights Tangos, Sokolskys, Grobs, Dutch Defenses, Snakes, Moderns, Wades, Veresovs and so on. This isn't a comprehensive list of relatively unusual openings, of course, but if you're missing one of these openings completely, your selection may be too homogenous. Go get some more.

If you find yourself playing through a game that's still very similar to a prior game, skip it. You can also just look at the ECO codes; if you have more than 5 of one code, skip the remainder.

If you find yourself playing through an opening you know, skip it. If you find a game that's out of book from move 3, skip it (you'll need to use some chess software and an opening book to make this efficient, but you can do it with an ordinary opening theory manual). These games won't contribute to your understanding of what kinds of new openings you might enjoy playing.

For each game you play through, play it through *once as White*, and then *once again as Black*. **Stop at move 20, and don't look at the remaining moves.**

Try to notice how you feel while you're playing through it, and how you feel about the resulting position. As White, and again as Black, were you: Excited? Bored? Anxious? Suspicious? Angry? Interested/Curious? Add corresponding tags to the games so you can find them again, preserving the color information. Note that "Confused?" isn't one of the options; it's fine if you're confused by an opening, when you first encounter it. That's a good place to develop more chess muscle!

Next, play through the games that made you Excited or Curious. This time, stop at around move 22 in each case, and put about 5 minutes' think time into selecting a move for the color who's on move, without looking at the actual move played.

How did you do? Compare the actual move, your selection, and a chess engine's preference. Did you do as well as, or better than, the actual player? If so, this might be a good opening for you to try first. If not, but the opening made you excited or curious enough, the fact that you didn't come up with the best move just means it's not as good a fit with the openings whose ideas you already understand - you'll just have to put more work into getting to know the ideas for these new openings.

You can ignore those games that gave you negative vibes, if you want, and I wouldn't blame you if you did. But consider that you might be able to use them to teach yourself patience, stamina, tenacity, adaptability, tolerance for discomfort, and a host of other character attributes that will make you much harder to beat. Try to "guess the move" for one color as you play through the remainder of the game (I prefer to choose the winner's color, but I play the loser's side too, occasionally, just to see if I can save the game). The experience will pay dividends, even if you don't use the game in opening preparation.

So, none of this work will be wasted, whether you choose to learn a particular opening or not.

# Answer
> 1 votes
For players are still learning the game (\<1900) it's best to play open, tactical positions. Those are the openings that will help you improve the fastest.

Once you get in the 1900-2000 range you can start looking a little deeper.

What are your goals? If you're very young and want to reach GM level you're going to pick different openings than the guy who plays for fun and only wants to get a playable position.

What's your approach to the game? Are you the type that tries to win every game or are you fine with drawing in certain situations? How do you try to win? Material, attack, position, endgame?

Beyond that, try to find one opening you're comfortable with and then look for other openings that compliment it.

# Answer
> 0 votes
You should stick one ONE opening for white and black. That still leaves a lot of ground to be familiar with but does cut it down enough so you have a much better chance of doing better than if you tried to really learn many different openings.

Now as to HOW to decide, one teacher had a preference test he gave. It asked many questions and then suggested the type of opening that would work best for your natural inclinations.

I would say start with open closed and semiopen. Which type do you like best.

Then look at what openings fit that category, and narrow it down by games you have played or other factors you seem to like in similar position types.

Then focus on just those openings. One for white and one for black.

# Answer
> 0 votes
There are many respectable openings. Understand that whichever of these openings you choose, you will be able to become a strong player and enjoy the openings. There may be some general criteria. Perhaps you want to avoid learning a lot of theory. Perhaps you want positions that are complex. In the end, have a general idea of what you want and just pick one. The chose doesn't matter.

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Tags: opening, learning
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# Question
Title: Does Stockfish NNUE have contempt implemented?
Per title. As I understand contempt, it's a setting in the eval function that adds a bonus for material remaining on the board. This makes the engine favor positions with more material (i.e. more complex, i.e. more scope to outplay the opponent). It is meant to make the engine avoid quick draws against inferior opposition.

Stockfish recently implemented NNUE eval, and I am unsure if NNUE eval can include contempt. If yes, how does it work? The description above doesn't seem to work anymore.

# Answer
No source, but I eventually found out (from other computer chess viewers) that Stockfish NNUE does not have contempt *per se* \- it's not clear how to implement contempt in NNs. However, Stockfish NNUE does use the handcrafted eval in certain positions, so there is still a contempt setting. Apparently, however, the effect is minuscule. Before NNUE, contempt=100 Stockfish plays a vastly different game from c=0 Stockfish; now they're similar (which shouldn't be surprising since handcrafted eval is not used often).
> 2 votes

# Answer
I'm not sure if you understanding of contempt is right, but in any case; I just compiled SF12 and it seems you don't have two versions of SF (the standard and the NNUE) but you can set your SF12 to behave standard or NNUE. In the configuration screen for SF12 you can enable NNUE, and also the contempt value.

So the short answer to your question is yes, SF12-NNUE has contempt implemented.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Contempt is implemented. But your understanding is not correct. Evaluation is already counting all possible factors which engine considers. But it does not understand the idea of risk. So "Contempt" switch is like "should I insist on evading of 3-rep/50-move rules when my eval says to repeat the move?" and it is typically on/off. With contempt=on, engine will not repeat position 3 times, effectively dropping the line of repeating right away. Most of engines already have contempt=on. This switch comes with little "margin" function which basically says "Am I losing that much to call for a draw?". If it does not see any losing, effectively it will not draw by itself. That function is very rarely used actually. Typically engines will always try to beat the opponent even if it will make them lose more. Most of the time engines don't have "draw offering" implemented.
> 1 votes

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Tags: engines, stockfish
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# Question
Title: What other games or chess variants are useful to improve your chess skills?
I know about Chess960, and you can play that online at lichess.org. Furthermore, I like playing Go as well. But are there any good variants and other ways to train that you use, and you know to work well?

# Answer
> 14 votes
I believe that studying Shogi added 50 points to my chess game. They are related games and thus share some related concepts. I believe Shogi showed me things about chess I had not understood before.

# Answer
> 9 votes
**Wikipedia has a pretty complete listing of chess variants broken down by:**

# Answer
> 2 votes
Playing other variants should only have a marginal effect on improvement, and sometimes it's bad(makes you think in ways optimal for the variant, but not for chess). **Since others have not mentioned it, playing blindfold chess may help with visualizations, but probably can only be played after a certain level of competency in chess,** but I suppose blindfold chess is generously defined as a chess variant. Of course the best way to improve at chess is to play/study chess.

# Answer
> 1 votes
In addition to the two nice answers already provided, I would like to mention the variant King of the hill, whose difference with normal checked is the following: in addition to checkmate, a legal move that moves one's own king to one of the center squares (d4, d5, e4, e5) wins.

This helps a lot for the control of squares. Indeed, one cannot neglect any center square. If one of the center squares is too weak, then soon or later the opponent will take profit of it.

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Tags: chess960, training, chess-variants, learning
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# Question
Title: At what level does being very aggressive stop being useful?
Aggression is excellent against weaker players. But too much is bad. The higher the level of play, the more you need to dial it back to be safe.

What is the point in ratings in which one should look more to playing positionally and stop going all out for attack and tactics? This is in order to avoid losing with barely inferior moves that a weaker player could not find a good response to, but a high-rated player can refute.

# Answer
> 8 votes
Whether aggresive or not, good chess works against all players. Bad chess does not "work" against anyone, but you can still beat a weak opponent in spite of it.

There are positions that require aggression, others that don't. After **1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3**, aggressive play is the only way you can beat a GM. After **1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5**, you should expect to be in a quieter game.

There's also a trend towards aggressive play requiring more opening theory to rely on (as mistakes will pay a higher price)

# Answer
> 5 votes
You seem to equate being aggressive with being inaccurate. I would say it's the opposite. Most top level players tend to be aggressive because you have to get wins to reach the highest levels. Caruana is the perfect example. He's a very strong player but couldn't beat Magnus because he wasn't aggressive enough and could only draw.

The best players all tend to be aggressive- Fischer, Kasparov, Magnus, Tal, Anand, Topalov, Morphy etc. Capablanca is the only truly great player (in my opinion) who played a defensive style yet even he lost to Alekhine.

I'll add that most engines can be very aggressive too, Generally, the first clue I have that I'm playing an engine is that I can't get the initiative. I've played some very strong players (GMs, IMs, world and national champions etc) and even when I lose I'm still able to dictate the game to an extent. Engines though are always able to keep the initiative and put me on the defensive if I just play normally. Accurate play and aggressive play are frequently the same thing.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Rather than a point in ratings I think it is a difference in ratings. At a difference of 400 points you can mostly play how you like. I recall a game from 2-3 years ago where Aronian was playing a 2400. He made an unsound sac in a quiet position and his opponent never had any piece coordination after that. The computer didn't like this sac at all. I doubt he would have played that way against an equal in that position.

I would like to see more analysis of games between unequals. It is instructive to see lines play out that usually only end up in the analysis.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Actually it depends on playing style some high ranked international players also have reputation of being aggressive or positional. It also depends of time Variants. So I would say it would be after 1500 as opponent would be also tough and knowing all tactics.

---
Tags: strategy
---


# Question
Title: How much do you actually learn from the book Modern Chess Openings by Nick de Firmian?
How much theory does the book actually cover and how far in terms of opening knowledge and building my opening repertoire will memorising every line of the book get me?

# Answer
The best uses for out of date opening books are -

1. Doorstop
2. Decoration
3. Emergency toilet paper supply when Covid means the supermarket has sold out

> how far in terms of opening knowledge and building my opening repertoire will memorising every line of the book get me?

You will be an expert in historical opening lines, but you will understand nothing.

MCO, latest edition 2008 as far as I know, is mostly composed of chess lines with minimal notation. Each line usually finishes with an evaluation like "=", "+=", "-+", etc.

I have the 11th edition from somewhere round about 1970. The last time I looked up a line in it was sometime in the 1970's. The main reason I still have it is that it is where I keep my signed scoresheet of my 1972 draw with Victor Kortchnoi - in a simul, obviously.

According to Amazon:

> Best Sellers Rank: 874,393 in Books
> 6 votes

# Answer
This book is a reference manual. Each page shows a diagram position from 2 to 10 moves deep. Beneath the diagram columns of chess notation denote how different games have proceeded from that position. The next page will usually contain the many footnotes referenced from the columns. These include source games or mentions of interesting alternatives.

Is it interesting? Well, it is a little bit. Maybe once a year it's even useful! For the most part, though, the information within this book is available via online tools that are both free and more complete.

Why consult the MCO about ideas in the Berlin when I can watch Yasser explain it to me on YouTube? If I'm curious about a particular line then I can plug it into an analysis board faster than I can even find the MCO on the shelf.

There's a reason why the MCO stopped in 2008. It is only useful to those who are unable to use modern home computers.
> 3 votes

# Answer
You aren't going to learn much that you couldn't learn from a database. MCO has very little explanation.

I will say though that it is useful to quickly run through an opening and get a feel for the types of typical positions that come up. Also, sometimes the positional evaluations might be interesting especially if they contradict the engines and databases.

Memorizing lines won't get you anywhere unless you're playing someone who tried to memorize the same but did a worse job at it. I can honestly say I have never once tried to memorize a line in the entire time I'm played chess. I do my opening analysis one time and usually remember most of it because I understand why I'm making the moves. If it comes up in a game and I don't remember it, I'll go over the analysis again. Usually that's enough.

For normal players (ie below GM) most openings aren't going to be more than about 8-10 moves deep. The first few moves you won't have to memorize because you play them all the time. So really, learning a line is learning about 4-6 moves which isn't hard if you understand why you're making those moves.
> 3 votes

# Answer
MCO is an excellent source of information. In fact, opening encyclopedias actuality are not related to the existence of chess engines or to the latest that has been played. Rather, the variants selected by the encyclopedia are important because the players who selected them are people with extensive experience in the field.

The time that has elapsed since they were selected does not mean that they are no longer current. The existence of the Spanish opening, for example, or other similar ones for centuries, testify to the solidity of these openings.

With the passage of time, players have found new ways of dealing with openings and new channels to lead the game towards the forms of play that **are convenient for them**, but thats not for everyone.

I provide a simple example. MCO helps research lines with potential for postal chess that resist attack from chess engines. I do not want to go into details of how I achieve it, but it is a laborious effort in which I compare the evaluations that the Masters recorded, against the result of recent games from the final positions of those lines in face-to-face and correspondence games.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: opening, theory, books
---


title: Is there a "touch-promote" rule?

text:
# Question
Title: Is there a "touch-promote" rule?
When a pawn is moved to the promotion square, can one change one's mind about what piece to promote to?
Say I:

* Push a pawn to the promotion square
* Remove it
* Grab an additional queen
(do not yet place it on the board and then realise queening would lead to stalemate)
* Grab a rook instead

Did I break a rule?

# Answer
> 29 votes
> So I grab a rook instead. Did I break a rule?

No, the FIDE Laws of Chess are very clear. The choice of piece is not decided until it touches the promotion square.

In so far as touch move applies to promotion the key is that the promotion must be performed with one hand. That is the same hand must be used to remove the pawn from the board (it does not have to be first moved to the promotion square) and to place the promotion piece on the board. How the piece reaches the "moving hand" is irrelevant. It may be transferred from the other hand. If a piece is captured in the act of promotion it must be removed also with the same "moving hand".

> 4.4 If a player having the move:
> ...
> 4.4.4 promotes a pawn, the choice of the piece is finalised when the piece has touched the square of promotion.
> ...
> 4.6 The act of promotion may be performed in various ways:
>
> 4.6.1 the pawn does not have to be placed on the square of arrival,
>
> 4.6.2 removing the pawn and putting the new piece on the square of promotion may occur in any order.
>
> 4.6.3 If an opponent’s piece stands on the square of promotion, it must be captured.
> ,,,
> 7.5.4 If a player uses two hands to make a single move (for example in case of castling, capturing or promotion) and pressed the clock, it shall be considered and penalized as if an illegal move.

---
Tags: rules, fide, pawn-promotion
---


title: Were my sacrifices sound in this game?

text:
# Question
Title: Were my sacrifices sound in this game?
```

[FEN ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 { I wasnt familiar with theory here, but I vaguely remembered seeing a kingside fianchetto somewhere and it seemed reasonable. } 4.g3 Bb7 5.Bg2 c5 6.O-O Be7 7.Nc3 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Bxg2 9.Kxg2 { Maybe not ideal, but I think white is better due to my lead in development, my strong c-pawn and in particular the weakness on d6. } 9...O-O 10.e4 Qc7 11.b3 Nc6 12.Ndb5 { The point is to take control of d6. The attack on the queen allows me to do it with tempo. } 12...Qb7 13.Nd6 Bxd6 14.Qxd6 { I might lose time if black finds a way to attack the queen. As long as I prevent d7-d5 and can coordinate in reasonable time I think I have a clear edge. Tell me if I'm wrong. } 14...h6 { ? I think this move warrants a ? because it does nothing to fight for d6 or counter attack. } 15.Rd1 { I wasnt sure if the bishop was going to f5 or a3 so I moved the rook first. } 15...e5 { Whether this move is good or not depends on whether my sacrifice is sound or not, which is beyond my skill to say anything definite about. } 16.Bxh6 Nd4 { I expected Ne8, but here I am not sure of anything. } 17.Rxd4 { Is this sound? My knight will be beautiful on d5, blacks rooks will both remain very passive. I intuitively felt like this gave a clear advantage. } 17...exd4 18.Qxd4 gxh6 19.Qxf6 Kh7 20.Rd1 Rae8 21.Rd6 Re6 22.Qf5 Kg8 23.Qg4 Kh8 24.Rd5 Rg8 25.Qh4 Kh7 26.Rf5 d6 27.Nd5 Kh8 { I couldnt find a way to proceed with the attack, though maybe I should have kept looking. Instead I decided to simplify a bit and hope that my extra pawns and strong knight will be enough. Intuitively I was sure that it was, but objectively I might have been wrong. } 28.Rf6 Rxf6 29.Qxf6 Kh7 30.Qxd6 Rg6 31.Qc7 Qxc7 32.Nxc7 Rd6 33.Nd5 Kg6 34.f4 Kh5 35.Kf3 f6 36.f5 Rc6 { ? This allows mate. Was white winning here if black had avoided the mate? I see no counterplay and white will soon create several protected passed pawns. } 37.Nf4 Kg5 38.h4

```

# Answer
I did analyze the game and it's just time consuming to annotate the whole game about all the inaccuracies and blunders made by black or white as there are many of them. Instead i wanna be more straight forward and answer your actual question about whether your sacrifices were good enough.

So the main sacrifices which i assume you are talking about are 16.Bxh6 and 17.Rxd4.

After 16.Bxh6 with perfect play, white can only achieve a draw, obviously your opponent made a blunder by playing 16...Nd4 (this loses him right away, I'll tell which is the best continuation after this move in my next explanation about 17.Rxd4) Why 16.Bxh6 is not the best?, because of

16...Ne8 (gets away from the queen attack of Qxf6 if after gxh6, also attacks your queen and threatens gxh6) 17.Qd2 (getting away from the knights attack and defending the h6 square, so now you are sacrificing your bishop for g and h pawn) 17...gxh6 18.Qxh6 (after this you are a piece down for 2 kingside pawns, which usually is good when you can complete the attack on kingside to gain an advantage, but here there is no other piece supporting the queen to attack the King to threaten a mate or gain any material or positional advantage, infact after this white has to settle for a draw with perpetual checking which is...) 18...d6 19.Qg5+ Kh7 20. Qh4+ kg8 21.Qg5+ 1/2-1/2. (If white wants to continue playing the position instead of perpetual, Black will have a slight advantage of around -0.4 and you can still play on with) 18...d6 19.Nb5( attacking pawn on d6) 19...f6 20.Nxd6 Nxd6 21.Rxd6 ( and the game goes on, though you have 3 pawns for his knight, after the exchange of queens and the other pieces at the right time, black with an extra knight will fight for the win, and white should play for a draw and achieving it shouldn't be hard. So instead of Bxh6, you could have just continued to play the position with 16.Be3 or 16.f3, white will have a good positional advantage)

16...Nd4?? (I don't know why your opponent played this, it just weakens his e5 pawn and does nothing else to defend white's Bxh6., black has totally worsen his position after this)

17.Rxd4 ( this is not a bad sacrifice, white still has the advantage of space, open king, isolated black pawns, 2 extra pawns for the exchange down, after this the way you carried on to play is fine because the endgame results you in a win, *yes even if black hadn't given you the opportunity to mate him* as you are 3 pawns up for the exchange, you can create passed pawns and black can do nothing to prevent the loss. But the best continuation than 17.Rxd4 which helps you to see the win right away was...) 17.Bxg7 (Completely opening the kingside, also gets back the sacrificing bishop which you will see in couple of moves) 17...Kxg7 (the best black can do, but still hopeless) 18.Qxe5 ( attacking the d4 knight and also threatening Qg5+. White gains the sacrifice back with a huge advantage even if black plays 18...Nc6 by playing 19.Qg5+ and then 20.Qxf6) 18...Qxc6 ( has to give up the d4 knight to defend the f6 knight which is the only defender around his king) 19.Qg5+ Kh8 20.Rxd4 ( White has huge advantage of two extra pawns, open black king, active rooks, space advantage, and can go on to achieve the win easily)
> 5 votes

# Answer
To get a definitive answer, you should run your game through an engine. I'll give you my (human) assessment:

* Before 16.Bh6 your position is already clearly better. You could just have played Be3 and there will never be a black knight on d4. The d-pawn is an eternal weakness, your position is just very comfortable.
* After 16.Bh6 black had to grab the material with 16…Ne8 otherwise he is just lost. You would probably have to play 17.Qd2 gxh6 18.Qxh6 and unfortunately you don't have any immediate attack. My first impression was that you might just have enough compensation, because the black queen is far away from the defence, but now I would probably prefer black after 18…f5. Maybe 19.Qg6 Ng7 20.Nd5 is enough for white to stay in the game.

```

[FEN ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Bb7 5.Bg2 c5 6.O-O Be7 7.Nc3 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Bxg2 9.Kxg2  O-O 10.e4 Qc7 11.b3 Nc6 12.Ndb5 Qb7 13.Nd6 Bxd6 14.Qxd6 h6  15.Rd1 e5  16.Bxh6 Ne8 17.Qd2 gxh6 18.Qxh6 f5 19.Qg6 Ng7 20.Nd5 Rae8 21.Nf6 Rxf6 22.Qxf6 Nd4 {"And e4 is falling."}

```
* After 17.Rxd4 you are clearly better, but you could just have taken on e5, right? Two pawns up, no trouble.

PS: I see that Pavan Nadig posted some computer analysis, but maybe a human look at things is nonetheless interesting.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Yes and no.

On an absolute basis definitely not.

On a relative basis yes because you won.

What makes a sacrifice sound is whether it works or not. Not what some engine says is perfection, just what THAT game result is. Obviously it may not be 'sound' but it only has to work once to be *sound*, which depends on you and your opponent at that time.

Many top players make an 'unsound' sacrifice once, but may never attempt it again.
> -2 votes

---
Tags: sacrifice
---


title: Do sacrifices work mostly for masters?

text:
# Question
Title: Do sacrifices work mostly for masters?
Many beautiful and celebrated master games feature heavy sacrifices of material that result in checkmate, or at least the regaining of more material than was sacrificed. In most cases, the original sacrifices were soundly based on positional considerations.

How well do these tactics work for amateurs? Do many make "correct" sacrifices (from the master point of view) and then lose because of incorrect follow up? Do amateurs sacrifice at the "wrong" times (when positional considerations don't warrant it)? Or is it usually to be the case that if "someone is good enough to sacrifice (correctly), they're good enough to win?"

# Answer
> 7 votes
This happened once, I was white and had misplayed the opening:

```
[FEN "r1bq1rk1/ppp2p1p/3p2p1/2nPp2n/1PP1P3/2N1bP2/P2NB1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 1 12"]

```

I thought that Kh1 would lead to a deadly black attack, so I sighed and played 12.Rf2. There followed 12...Qh4 13.Qe1 Qxf2+ 14.Qxf2 Bxf2+ 15.Kxf2, I had lost an exchange, the queens were off and I assumed I would be lost.

I then proceeded to blow black off the board -- black's rooks turned out to be completely useless, my pieces found great squares, and I won in 32. Of course there were also many more mistakes, according to the computer.

So if a completely unintentional sacrifice can work, then so can intentional sacrifices, right?

I believe that *a good move is a good move*. If a sacrifice gives compensation (in terms of great squares for pieces, or an attack, etc), then it does, regardless of the level of the players.

Yes, weaker players are more likely to make mistakes and lose the compensation. But guess what, they are also more likely to make mistakes without playing the sacrifice! Maybe the sacrifice is the best move, and not playing it is already a mistake.

> How well do these tactics work for amateurs? Do many make "correct" sacrifices (from the master point of view) and then lose because of incorrect follow up? Do amateurs sacrifice at the "wrong" times (when positional considerations don't warrant it)? Or is it usually to be the case that if "someone is good enough to sacrifice (correctly), they're good enough to win?"

This is hard to answer because at one hand, *yes, of course weaker players are much more likely to screw it up*, because that's what weaker players do, that's not really related to the move being a sacrifice. Weaker players will also play a conscious sacrifice less often, because it's easy to understand that you'll lose a piece, and less easy to understand that you get positional features in return that make up for it, or that the tactic actually does lead to a forced mate in 6. So most amateurs play it safe (but not all).

But if we assume the *opponent* is at the same level, so also an amateur, then I think sacrifices can be very effective at amateur because the opponent is also less likely to see them coming, and more likely to be confused by them.

So I don't think a general answer can be given, and think what matters is that *a good move is a good move*. Many moves gives up some type of advantage in return for another type, and sacrifices are just one example of that.

I think amateurs don't play them as often as they should, because of unnecessary fear.

Edit: I guess I need to add the whole game

```
[FEN ""]
[Date "2010.09.05"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1927"]
[BlackElo "2040"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 O-O 5.Nf3 d6 6.Be2 Na6 7.O-O e5 8.d5 Nc5 9.Nd2 Bh6 10.f3 Nh5 11.b4 Be3+ 12.Rf2 Qh4 13.Qe1 Qxf2+ 14.Qxf2 Bxf2+ 15.Kxf2 Na6 16.Ba3 Nf4 17.Bf1 c5 18.dxc6 bxc6 19.Nb3 Rd8 20.Rd1 Bb7 21.Na5 Rab8 22.c5 Nc7 23.cxd6 Nb5 24.Bxb5 cxb5 25.Nxb5 Bxe4 26.Nxa7 Ra8 27.N7c6 Bxc6 28.Nxc6 Rxd6 29.Rxd6 Rxa3 30.Rd2 Nd3+ 31.Kf1 Nc1 32.b5 1-0

```

# Answer
> 4 votes
A sacrifice will work equally well for any chess-player provided he sees it, which a master is much more likely to do based on his skill level and previous experience. Of course, you wouldn't want to make a sacrifice if you couldn't see an immediately winning follow-up. Maybe the master could make such a "speculative" sacrifice if his judgment felt the position warranted it, relying on his skill to find a winning continuation amidst the ensuing complications, but a weaker player is much less likely to accomplish that. You have to train yourself you look at all the possible moves in a position, even ones that immediately seem unsound or foolish, to find potential sacrificial lines and develop this skill. I can tell you from personal experience that it can be done.

# Answer
> 3 votes
There are three types of sacrifices:

1. The move leads to a clear win such as checkmate.
2. The move gains a more abstract advantage such as space or initiative.
3. The move 'feels' right though the player cannot plumb the depths.

While the first point's 'clear win' may differ depending on the skill of the players, this is not actually a sacrifice. Sometimes it is called a 'sham sacrifice'. This is a combination that yields a happy result and is good stuff indeed. Amateurs can successfully sacrifice this way. In one of my earliest games I missed a mate-in-2 where the first move was a sham rook sacrifice.

The second point is more interesting. This is where amateurs begin to fall down. Your better amateurs (USCF Masters, for example) navigate these waters pretty well. They have a good understanding of the related abstractions. I don't think the GMs would always agree with the sacrifices made by the USCF masters, but they'd agree with the ideas. As we move down the skill tree to Experts, A-class, and B-class players, the sacrifices would get more and more dubious and any benefits squandered quicker. These players choose inefficient moves, losing time and allowing a defenders to negate the value of the sacrifice. Before long the amateur is generally down material without compensation.

The third point is called a "speculative sacrifice" when made by a GM and a "guess" or a "blunder" when made by anyone else. The point of this sacrifice is to complicate the position to such a degree that the superior player will be able to wring value from the position as the lesser player falters. That is, the Master sees good outcomes but cannot be sure any of them will come to pass. Michael Tal was the king of speculative sacrifices. Unless you're Mikhail Tal\*, you probably shouldn't be doing this if you care about winning. If the post-mortem of such a game causes spirited debate among chess players it was likely a *successful* move regardless of the game's outcome. When the amateur plays this move, he generally has a resignable position within a few moves.

* You aren't.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Tom, you seem to be confused.

This

> Many beautiful and celebrated master games feature heavy sacrifices of material that result in check mate, or at least the re-gaining of more material than was sacrificed.

and this

> In most cases, the original sacrifices were soundly based on positional considerations.

are unconnected except physically in your first paragraph.

"heavy sacrifices of material that result in check mate, or at least the re-gaining of more material than was sacrificed" are based on *tactical* and *psychological* considerations not *positional* ones.

As CConero points out, these work equally well regardless of your ability. The only difference which difference of ability makes is your ability to see them in the first place. Stronger players are better than weaker players at spotting these and marginally better at calculating them. Usually spotting them in the first place is harder than making the necessary calculations to verify that they work.

I said that this type of sacrifice is often also based on psychological considerations. Some players, even or especially world class ones like Alekhine or Tal, make sacrifices where it is not possible to calculate the complications in a reasonable amount of time. Chess is mostly played between human beings and human beings are psychological beings. Their performance can be affected by fear and doubt. Such sacrifices depend for their success (or otherwise) on the two players' ability to see through the calculations *and* their mental toughness.

This is particularly true for the second player who faces the unexpected shock to the system that the sacrifice brings in a position which he thought was relatively safe and solid. If he is mentally fragile then an unsound sacrifice can still lead to mental disintegration and an undeserved loss.

There are, however, sacrifices which are "soundly based on positional considerations". There are many examples in master play which have their own, more subtle, beauty.

Sacrificing a pawn to gain a purely positional advantage or to negate a big positional disadvantage are very common in top level play as are exchange sacrifices (sacrificing a rook for a knight or bishop often with a pawn as an additional sweetener). These are much rarer in amateur play, requiring a level of positional judgment and knowledge which requires a great deal of experience and training to develop.

# Answer
> 0 votes
It may seem that way because masters would make sacrifices based on their judgement of how well it work.

Beginners often make sacrifices that are total nonsense. They might beat some other weak player with it but against a decent player they lose with such nonsense.

New kids just learning who have some skill already, often fall in love with nonsense sacrifices because they like to play a wide open slash and burn attack rather than play a sounder game. If the sac is borderline and not an obviously stupid move they might get away with it on occasion. Especially if the line is complicated and the other player is unfamiliar with it and could make mistakes that would lose.

---
Tags: tactics, master-games, sacrifice
---


title: Beat the Polish defence

text:
# Question
Title: Beat the Polish defence
I was playing a game against a FIDE master which started with the Polish defence, Spassky gambit: 1. d4 b5 2. e4 Bb7 3. Bxb5 f5

```
[White "Bad_Bishop"]

[FEN ""]
1. d4 b5 2. e4 Bb7 3. Bxb5 f5

```

What are the main plans and variations?

# Answer
> 1 votes
I tried the line 1.d4 b5 2.e4 Bb7 3.Bxb5 f5 4.exf5 Bxg2 5.Qh5+ g6 6.fxg6 Bg7 7.gxh7+ Kf8 8.hxg8=Q+ Kxg8 9.Qg6 Bxh1 from the comments & gained dynamic equality.

The line from *1. d4 Volume 2* given by @magd gives a game more in my style & less in my opponent's, but only with a slight edge.

# Answer
> 5 votes
I have the book "1.d4 Volume 2" by Grandmaster Boris Avrukh in front of me. Not the line you're looking at but Avrukh says 3.Bxb5 Bxe4 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.0-0 e6 6. c4 Be7 7.Nc3 Bb7 is perfectly playable for Black.

Avrukh's mainline vs the Polish defence is 1. d4 b5 2. e4 Bb7 3. Bd3 (solidifying the centre and aiming to prove the centre pawns are better than the wing pawns.) Nf6 (3...a6 4.Nf3 transposes to the St. George defense) 4. Nd2 e6 5. Ngf3 a6 6. 0-0 c5 7.dc Bxc5 8. e5 Nd5 9. Ne4 Be7 10. a4 b4 11.Nfd2! (heading for c4 and and freeing the Queen on the d1-h5 diagonal) ... and eventually += on move 18. The main plan for White is to play with pieces in the free space in the centre and possibly aim to attack on the Kingside or fill the holes left behind in Black's pawn structure. For more details buy the book.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Your best bet here is 4.Nh3 so your opponent doesn't get a tempo with 4. ...fxe4

If he takes with his pawn 4. ...fxe4 You can simply continue 5.Nc3 followed by 0-0 and you're clearly better.

If he takes with his bishop 4. ... Bxe4 you can with no fear proceed with 0-0 and your knight will always pose a threat such as Ng5 attacking his bishop and with pressure on f7 and even e6 if he moves his d pawn, or Nf4 where your knight gets a secure,strong position but in that case you should be careful about his g pawn advancing. All things considered white is better in this position.

# Answer
> 0 votes
It is probably the worst response possible. You can accept the pawn with 4.exf5. Then, Black will play 4...Bxg2, then 5. Qh5. Black's kingside weaknesses will result in loss of material. Black is forced to play 5...g6, The following \[best, probably\] moves are:

6. fxg6 Bg7 7. gxh7+ Kf8 8.hxg8Q+ Kxg8

When Black's bishop captures on h1, then you can trap it with f2-f3. Stockfish evaluates the position at depth 22 as +2, approximately.

If Black does not go ahead with his plan of winning the exchange, with 4...Nf6 (prevents Qh5+), then you play 5.Nf3. Your rook is safe, you have more space, and Black's kingside has been weakened. Stockfish evaluates the position as +4.4!?

---
Tags: opening, gambits
---


# Question
Title: Where do I play online games with a long time control?
I don't have a lot of opportunity to play serious OTB games, so I'd like to play chess online. On chess.com, though, the longest standard time control is 30 min per person, presumably there are not many players wanting to play at longer time controls there. I prefer to have more time, though.

Is there a website where there are enough people willing to play 1 to 1.5 hour (per person) games, so that you are paired within a reasonable amount of time (say, 15 minutes)? (Preferably based on online rating, of course.)

# Answer
> 7 votes
On chess.com, there are at least two groups of people interested in games with long time controls (e.g. 90'+30'' and 45'+45''): the Slow Chess League and the Slow LIVE Chess Association.

They have regular Swiss style tournaments where you have to agree on a date with your opponent under pretty elaborate rules (including penalties for not showing up).

This is not exactly what you asked (random, instantaneous pairing), but probably the better way. The problem with long time controls online is not only finding people who want to play, but discouraging people from losing interest and quitting.

As far as I know, these were founded on ICC when chess.com didn't exist yet. So maybe there is something similar on ICC.

# Answer
> 5 votes
In chess24 you can choose 90'+30" games and they have a lot of users.

I haven't played a game that long so far but I believe that the matching time can suit you.

EDIT: I have just tried to play a 60'+30" game and I got paired in less than two minutes.

# Answer
> 4 votes
ICC has a large number (around 1,000) of players who play games at SD 45 d/45 in a league called the Team 45 45 League. Due to the amount of time required to play a game, all games are scheduled at a time mutually agreed upon by the players themselves. Captains select who will play on the 4 boards in each round.

You will need an ICC membership to play, and a compatible client (they use Blitzin and Dasher).

For more information, see the Players Handbook at http://www.team4545league.org/

There is also a group at ICC called Chess9030 who play in a league at SD 90 d/30 controls. See their website at http://www.chess9030.com I don't know how large their membership is, but I've observed that their games take place less frequently than those of T4545.

While there are occasionally pickup games at controls longer than 30 minutes, they are unusual on ICC.

Good luck!

# Answer
> 3 votes
The Lichess4545 League runs various slow time control tournaments on lichess. Their primary league is a 45+45 team tournament with games once a week, but there's also the Lonewolf league which is normally a 11 round swiss tournament with a 30+30 time control and various others that are accessible to players that have played in the league. Personally, I have greatly enjoyed both of these.

# Answer
> 2 votes
There is an online chess league, All Nations Chess League, pretty much the same as a regular chess league, but online. I used to play there 7 years ago, at the time they were playing league matches on playchess.com, probably the same today too. ANCL community was quite respected in playchess.com.

They build teams from several Elo ranges(like 1200-1400, 1400-1600, ... 2000-2200 etc), so no matter which team you are in, you will have some very strong friends in your team, which greatly contributes your self improvement.

I recommend you to play there.

---
Tags: online-chess, time-control
---


# Question
Title: What is the best approach to this situation?
So I am still learning chess and I have a lot of trouble in these situations. Please help me with what to do in the next few turns.

# Answer
You are a queen and a piece down. Your position is completely hopeless. Your best move here is to resign the game.

It's not clear how well your opponent has played to reach this position but you have clearly played very badly indeed. An opponent who was good enough to reach this position is going to finish you off very quickly regardless of what you do.

As a beginner you need to start by learning about opening principles, tactics and simple endgames. If you use the search function in this forum you will find many questions and answers that can help you with these.
> 5 votes

---
Tags: middlegame
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# Question
Title: When is it right to start learning strategy after tactics
I have been furiously solving tactical puzzles for 6 weeks now and about three weeks ago I reactivated my account on chess.com.

Long story short I have seen my "rating" go from 1280 to 1590 during this time and for the first time ever I qualified for the second round, not in one but two tournaments on the site so I am definitely seeing improvement.

After asking for the computer analysis for the games that I have lost, I decided to also analyze the ones that I won so I got the last one, which I was feeling particularly good about it, and it turns out that the only reason I won is because my opponent did far worse blunders than I did. If he had been just a little bit stronger he would have crushed me.

I have followed the recommended variants and I just cannot understand why the position I ended up with is far worse than the one the computer recommends. I have zero understanding of positional play.

I feel that I still need A LOT of tactical practice, I still miss quite a few solutions from rather simple puzzles, but I am wondering if by not knowing strategy all this tactical knowledge might go to waste because of mistakes and blunders during the games.

So the questions would be:
\- When is it a "right" time to start easing off on the tactical training to start balancing it with strategy/positional one?
\- If I focus on these two, is there some kind of heuristic as to how to balance that training (20% - 80%, 30% - 70%, 50% - 50%)?
\- As a bonus, if you could recommend some basic literature for someone who has absolutely zero understanding of positional play it would be appreciated.

Thanks.

# Answer
Improving positional understanding is a longterm project. You do it by playing, by analysing, by going through well annotated master games and by working through books on the subject. But contrary to tactical exercises these things often don't have an immediate effect. Personally I also misapplied a lot of positional concepts that I had read about. Positional understanding will only help you if it is *complete* on some level. As soon as that happens there often is a sudden rise in strength.

Given that successfully applying positional concept depends a lot on accurate calculation, the right time to get really serious about training positional understanding is probably when you start getting diminishing returns from your tactical training. It's unlikely that you are at that point yet.

But if you have fun doing the things I mentioned at the beginning, there is no reason not to do them. Just remember that you will probably misapply ideas and not necessarily see immediate benefits. And try to not be too dogmatic about the things some authors tell you. The main thing is the discovery of amazing ideas and possibilities in chess.

* Nimzowitsch: My System, a classic, it was definitely revelatory to me and also a lot of fun to read because of the evocative prose. (I don't know about the english translations though.)
* The Yusupov-Series: Very systematic training of all aspects of the game. If you hit a wall in pure tactics training, the orange books might take you to the next level.
* John Nunn's Move by Move: Just one example of many well commented game collections. This one literally explains every move, making it more suitable for relative beginners.
> 13 votes

# Answer
In economics, it's called the "law of diminishing returns." You study tactics for a while, and then reach a point where you seem to make little progress.

Then you "switched gears" and studied strategy, and that helped your game a lot because it was what you were weak in. So keep studying strategy until you "hit a wall," at which point tactics may be the scarce factor of production.

Or it may be something else, such as endgames. The quickest way to improve is to work on the thing you are weakest at.
> 4 votes

# Answer
The short answer is that when you reach the point where you aren't making major tactical mistakes but are still losing. In practice that's around 1900-2000 (online ratings about 2200).

My opinion is that beginners should have a basic understanding of positional ideas. For example, you should know what doubled pawns are but you shouldn't start trying to build complex Silman-like plans until you reach the point where you need to know it.
> 1 votes

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Tags: strategy, tactics, positional-play, training
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