# Question
Title: How often do strong players (FM or above) miss under promotions?
In the April 2022 Reykjavik Open two players missed winning under promotions.

In the first Hjartson probably saw that the forcing line starting with Qf7 would lead to stalemate after the queen promotion but missed that promoting to a bishop would win.

```
[title "Hjartarson (2465) vs Andersen (2582) Reykjavik Open 2022"]
[fen "4r1k1/3R2p1/2q1P2p/5QnP/5N2/6P1/5P2/6K1 w - - 0 1"]

1. e7 (1. Qf7+ Nxf7 2. exf7+ Kh7 3. fxe8=B! (3. fxe8=Q? Qg2+ 4. Kxg2=))

```

A few rounds later Willow missed an easier under promotion here. Promoting to a knight would have given good drawing chances. The move played led to a loss.

```
[title "Gretarsson (2542) vs. Willow (2411) Reykjavik Open 2022"]
[fen "5r1k/6p1/2p1R3/p1P2P2/P5P1/3qQ2K/4p2P/8 b - - 0 1"]

1... Rd8 (1... e1=N)

```

In contrast Makkar found the winning under promotion to a knight here. Perhaps it helped that the pawn moved captured a knight.

```
[Title "Rajat Makkar (2399) vs Neil Berry (2240) 4th EJCOA IM Norm 2022"]
[fen ""]
[Startply "36"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bf4 O-O 6. e3 Nbd7 7. c5 c6 8. b4 b6 9. h4 a5 10. a3 h6 11. Bd3 Ba6 12. Bxa6 Rxa6 13. b5 cxb5 14. c6 Qc8 15. c7 b4 16. Nb5 a4 17. Qc1 Ne4 18. Qc6 Nb8 19. cxb8=N Ra5 20. O-O g5 21. hxg5 hxg5 22. Bc7 1-0

```

How often do these master level players miss under promotions like this?

# Answer
TL;DR - somewhere in the range of 15-23% of the time? This rough estimate only involves cases where the underpromotion is immediately possible on the player's move (so not anything like the example of Hjartarson having to see an underpromotion when calculating a variation). Also, the script only returns cases where underpromoting would have made a real difference if played.

I wrote a script that went through the top games in my big database (sorted by white elo), from Carlsen's elo to an elo in the high 2300s. Out of these 335,480 games, the script returned 206 instances where underpromotion was the best move (and where it would have actually mattered). E.g., if the second best move was still clearly winning, or if they both led to a mate for the same side, these cases wouldn't be counted.

* Note that the script isn't perfect -- I found one example where underpromotion was only as good as promotion to a queen. However, it seems in most of the positions, underpromotion is best and it would have had a significant impact.

Of these 206 instances, the script recorded 48 cases where the player didn't do the underpromotion. This is a failure rate of around 23%, although note that some of these games were blitz and online.

Here are some of the highlights:

Karpov-Korchnoi, Dortmund 1994 (white to move):

```
8/Qb3P1k/4q3/P2p4/2pPpbp1/1r2N1Pp/7P/5BK1 w - - 0 61

```
* In this one, Karpov obviously considered the option of promoting to a knight. However, after doing so White should not capture Black's queen! The way to a draw is very study-like. One line: 61.f8=N+! Kh6 62.gxf4! Qc8 63.Qb8!! Qxb8 64.Nf5+, and somehow the knights give a perpetual. This is just amazing.

```
1q3N2/1b6/7k/P2p1N2/2pPpPp1/1r5p/7P/5BK1 w - - 1 64

```

Popov-Mamedyarov, world blitz 2018 (black to move):

```
3R4/3b1kp1/5p2/8/6P1/4QP2/3p1K1P/2q5 b - - 7 54

```
* At the time, Mamedyarov was rated 2817 in classical, and so this might be the highest rated player missing an underpromotion ever. Of course, just a blitz game though.

Alekseenko-Ding Liren, World Cup 2019 (black to move). Note - this is the example I mentioned where my script was wrong:

```
8/1p6/p1p2kp1/P3p2p/1PP1Pb1P/R1n2K2/2Bp4/8 b - - 6 50

```
* My script was incorrect here, as underpromotion is not any better than regular promotion to a queen (although at the same time, it's not any worse).

Hou Yifan-Dzagnidze, Geneve FIDE GP Women 2013 (black to move):

```
4r3/1p3p2/p2n1P2/6R1/P4PP1/2P5/3kp1KP/R7 b - - 1 36

```

Here Black's best saving chance by a significant margin would have been ...e1=N+, although the game would have likely still been lost.

I also ran the script on the first 380,000 games in the big database (up until somewhere in the 1970s). Interestingly, 65 positions were found where underpromotion was best, but the player missed it in only 10. 10/65 ~= 15% is a lower failure rate than the 48/206 ~= 23% one mentioned earlier (though not by that much), which might seem surprising. One would assume that high elo players in the (mostly) current era would do better than players of the past. But there are two factors to consider here:

* As mentioned before, some of the games in the "high elo collection" were fast time controls.
* Selection bias: the high elo players tend to have high elo opponents, who would try to not go into a position if they saw that there was a strong underpromotion. So for some cases where an underpromotion was missed, it was probably the case that the player's opponent also didn't see it -- which means the position wasn't as trivial as avoiding a stalemate or something like that.

Anyway, two highlights from the search through these old games:

The first earliest case: Gossip-Schiffers, Germany 1889 (white to move):

```
rnb1r1k1/pP2qppp/8/1n6/3Q1P2/2P1BN2/P1P3PP/R3K2R w KQ - 0 14

```

And here's a game between two famous players: Pachman-Flohr, Interzonal 1948 (white to move):

```
8/4P3/1p2K3/5n2/1N1pk2p/8/7P/8 w - - 4 58

```
> 4 votes

# Answer
I do not think this is so unique (e.g., a few days ago, in an friendly online 5+3 tournament, a FM missed a mate in 1 with only 5 pieces on the board, and the game ended in a draw), as you can see here missed checkmate with ...Qxa3# instead of ...Qc2+ that was actually been played during the game, at min. 50:18 and they realized that only during the post-game analysis around 1:27:20.

IMHO, we are all humans (even titled players - and the aforementioned FM is very good also at online blitz games) and the example above only shows that (if they are in zeitnot/have some concentration issues) even strong players can miss a very easy move.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: statistics, pawn-promotion, master-games
---


title: why f4 for white in this position

text:
# Question
Title: why f4 for white in this position
I was playing a rapid game with the white pieces the other day and I reached this position

```
[FEN ""]
1. b3 d6 2. Bb2 e5 3. e3 Nc6 4. c4 f5 5. g3 Nf6 6. Bg2 Be7 7. Nc3 Bd7 8. Nge2 O-O 9. d3 Re8 10. O-O Rc8

```

The engine recommends playing the pawn break 11.f4 in this position. I don't understand what this pawn break accomplishes. I also thought that playing 11.f4 makes the e3 pawn weak and Black's rook is already on the e-file and I don't want to defend this backward pawn. I also calculated some short forced lines of captures on f4 square but didn't know how to evaluate the position and understand why this is still good for White. I would appreciate some feedback about why f4 is good in this position, and some other positions in other openings that playing f4 is actually good (I'm thinking maybe English opening but not sure).

# Answer
First off, it's good that you're careful about not creating weaknesses. Noting that the e3-pawn might be vulnerable to the e8-rook is good. Many players just push pawns without considering what pawns/squares they may weaken.

In this position though, an important point is that Black's pieces are quite passive and cramped. This will make it more difficult for him to attack the e3-pawn. Also, because your opponent's pieces currently aren't good, you'd like to open up the position before they can become good.

After 11.f4, if Black plays say 11...Bf8, then Stockfish gives is 12.Qd2 g6 13.e4 Bg7 14.exf5, etc. So here the e-pawn wasn't an issue for White, as it was soon advanced. Meanwhile, after 11.f4 exf4, SF gives 12.Nxf4 Ng4 13.Qd2 Bg5 14.Ncd5, and try as he might Black is unable to win the e3-pawn. Now White will likely continue with h3 on the next move, kicking the knight off g4.

```
2rqr1k1/pppb2pp/2np4/3N1pb1/2P2Nn1/1P1PP1P1/PB1Q2BP/R4RK1 w - - 0 14

```

In this position, note how White's b2-bishop, f1-rook, and f4-knight have been improved, thanks to the f4 ...exf4 Nxf4 exchange a few moves prior. While Black's rook has also benefited from this, it is unable to work with any of its fellow pieces effectively. So White benefits more overall from these events.

The f4 push is a useful idea to remember in the e3 English. It's definitely not always good, especially if your d-pawn is no longer on d2 (as it weakens the e3-pawn). However, if you can defend the e3-pawn with many pieces, and if your opponent has difficulty attacking it, then f4 becomes more sound. The key question is whether playing f4 gives you more activity than it does your opponent, and if the problems they will have to deal with outweigh the problem of the e3-pawn for you. The position you gave is an example where the answer to this is yes.
> 5 votes

---
Tags: strategy, pawn-structure
---


# Question
Title: Do I have to make a move on a DGT board at the start of the game when opponent is not present?
In a situation when you are playing on a DGT board as white and your opponent has not yet arrived at the board, should we still make the move on the board after the game has started?

Let's say your opponent is still on the way to the tournament and therefore has access to the live broadcast and you have made a surprise first move. Now your opponent is not surprised anymore. Since this is just 1 move it won't matter much but he/she can quickly go through some previous games in the DB to see if you have played the same first move.

If you didn't make the move and wait for the opponent to arrive your time is running.

# Answer
> 6 votes
> Do I have to make a move on a DGT board at the start of the game when opponent is not present?

The standard approach, even before the advent of DGT boards, was that your clock is started, you then write the move down in the presence of the arbiter and press the clock. This move is played when your opponent enters the playing area. You are not allowed to cross the move out and change it before (or after) pressing the clock.

# Answer
> 5 votes
Actually, I am somewhat surprised with the original answer given. I am an International Arbiter, Category A, and have been arbiter at many top-level events and with many world-class players, including the current World Champion and two former World Champions.

Here are the applicable sections of the FIDE Laws of Chess:

Article 6.2.1 - "During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his own clock and start his opponent’s clock (that is to say, he shall press his clock). This “completes” the move."

Article 6.6 - "At the time determined for the start of the game White’s clock is started."

Article 7.5.3 (probably the most applicable and important in this situation) - "If the player presses the clock without making a move, it shall be considered and penalized as if an illegal move."

Article 8.1.2 (also applicable and important in this situation) - "It is forbidden to record the moves in advance, unless the player is claiming a draw according to Article 9.2, or 9.3 or adjourning a game according to Guidelines I.1.1"

I understand in these times when potential cheating is something that we need to consider, so it is up to the organizer, if the games are being transmitted, to take the necessary steps to incude delaying the transmission. That said, nowhere in the FIDE Laws of Chess is there a rule stating that a player may just write the move and later make the move when the opponent shows up.

---
Tags: rules, fide, tournament, chess-clocks, arbiters
---


# Question
Title: Factors that contribute to slow move generation in building chess engine
I'm building a toy chess engine. I have a *correct* but *slow* move generation. Doing perft on starting position to depth 6 with my engine takes 8 seconds and but takes stockfish 0.5 seconds on my computer. So that's an order of magnitude difference.

I'd like to exposit the algorithms I've used so far to see if anyone can spot any obvious problems. How I've implemented move generation so far:

* Rust as programming language, so there should be little/no language overhead
* Bitboard representation with u64 for each piece type, white occupancy, black occupancy, board occupancy
* Non-sliding pieces uses look-up table to find attack mask
* Sliding pieces uses look-up tables generated through magic bitboards
* Moves are generated by piece type
    + pseudo-legal style -- I check for king-check during the make-move stage
    + For each piece type, loop through the LSBs (`x & -x`) of the bitboard
    + Obtain the attack mask and generate a move structure (32-bits in size)
    + Do this for all the piece types
    + Generate move for enpassant if applicable
    + Generate the moves for castling if applicable
    + To elaborate, e.g. for the start position, the pawn bitboard has 8 bits set and I iterate through them to generate the 16 pawn moves.
* For `make_move`
    + The move structure distinguishes between castling, enpassant, promotion, normal move so make\_move is more efficient, no hunting through bitboards to see what type of move it is
    + Do the bit operations needed to update the bitboards
    + After doing `make_move` check if king is in check, and dispose move if it is
* There is little/no dynamic memory allocation during the movegen/makemove process because I implement these using iterators, which incurs very little overhead in Rust. Almost all operations are on the stack.
* I've also tried zobrist hash generation, which also works properly according to Perft numbers. For the caching, I use a hash map with `(hash, depth)` as the key and `count` as the value, so the same position at the same depth is not calculated twice. This does not seem to make much difference in the performance.

I can see that data structure improvements might make it a bit faster, or optimize for hardware instructions, but to observe more than an order of magnitude difference in speed, I must be using inferior algorithms. But none of my reading points to the answer.

I'm happy to elaborate on anything else I've missed. Is there anything obvious in these algorithms that I can be doing instead?

# Answer
8 seconds for perft(6) is alright - and move generation is not particularly important in the grand scheme of things. There are 3000+ chess engines with perft speed around the same speed as yours. Move generation usually only takes around 10% of the time. Evaluation, pruning and move ordering are all significantly more important factors.

However, one of the best things you can do to improve perft speed is to get rid of branched code. This does two things: First, branching is inherently slow, and the reason is somewhat complex but you can read about it here. In addition, Rust's compiler automatically "vectorizes" code, i.e. takes sequential code and "parallelizes" it. Again, a complicated topic, but you can read about it here. This results in a huge speed boost sometimes (and is partially the reason why the linter recommends iterating over a list by value, as it is able to very easily autovectorize it). However, branched code makes it significantly harder for the compiler to identify potential places to autovectorize.

So, instead of using

```
if to_move == 0 {
    2
} else if to_move == 1 {
    5
} else {
    panic!("Invalid color!")
}

```

use

```
const FOO: [u8; 2] = [2, 5];
FOO[to_move as usize]

```

Finally, use a profiler! find out what parts of your code are slow and speed them up
> 1 votes

---
Tags: engines, programming
---


# Question
Title: Understanding why alpha-beta cannot be naively parallelized
I have seen it suggested in various places (e.g., on Stack Overflow posts) that alpha-beta pruning cannot be "naively" parallelized. To me, an intuitive parallelization of alpha-beta with `n` threads would be to assign each a thread to process the subtree defined by each child of the root node of the search tree. For example, in the tree below, if we had `n >= 3` threads, we would assign one to process the left subtree (with root b), one to process the middle (root c) and one to process the right subtree (root d).

I understand that we will not be able to prune *as many* nodes with this approach, since sometimes pruning occurs based on the alpha-beta value of a previously processed subtree. However, won't we have the wait for the left subtree to finish being processed anyway if we run alpha-beta sequentially? By the time the sequential version knew it could prune part of the c and d subtrees, the parallel version will already be done processing them, right? While running alpha-beta on each subtree, we can still get the benefits of pruning for that subtree.

Even if the number of children of the root is greater than `n`, the number of processors, why not just run alpha-beta on the leftmost `n` subtrees and then use the results to define alpha and beta for the next `n` subtrees until you have processed the whole tree?

Perhaps this approach is so simple/trivial that no one discusses it, but I am confused why so many resources I have seen seem to suggest that parallelizing alpha-beta is extremely complicated or leads to worse performance.

# Answer
> 6 votes
I think you underestimate just how much pruning gets done in modern chess engine. They do not only use alpha-beta pruning alone - they prune nodes that seem unpromising using a variety of heuristics, to the point that the effective branching factor in chess engine search is around 2, that is, depth 15 takes twice as long as depth 14. In addition, all modern chess engines use the results of previous searches to get an idea of what the next search will look like. In fact, it is estimated that over 50% of the effort of the engine is spent on the first move alone, and 90% on the first three or four moves. Naively parallelizing alpha-beta could technically work and may even produce small strength gains, but it leads to evaluating significantly more nodes than single threaded.

TL;DR: Alpha-beta requires a lot of enhancements to work well, and these enhancements do not work well with parallelization.

---
Tags: engines
---


# Question
Title: Editing (end)-game: how to move few pieces in accordance with a book to follow the solution to a problem
What is the most easy way to follow a dozen of moves from a book ? I would like to edit a particular position and then see what the solution in a book (in my case "100 endgames you must know" in Villa's book) says. It is hard for me to follow just the notation in the book and actual moving pieces would make things easier. Is better some program or rather web page; which one ? I do not actually need to be advised by some engine, just editing and following the solution will be enough.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I do this by having two physical chessboards. One for the book and one for my analysis. It helps to have smaller "analysis" sized boards so that two boards do not take up too much space.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I use syzygy.com on my phone. Although it’s a tablebase engine, I use it for setting up positions of any scale including FEN input and playing through them. It’s just a single screen and no login or navigation is required. I feel a bit guilty because I am sure it would be good for my visualisation skills to just look at the diagram, but what the hey. I can also grab the FEN again easily to make a diagram or load into an online engine.

A bottleneck for me is the translation between text and spatial language. Maybe a mild dyslexia, maybe something to do with having learnt descriptive notation as a boy. I prefer animation if I am following a solution e.g. Chessbase.com or black & white figurines in the text if I must read from a book.

When I am composing problems I generally use Olive because that allows me to store lots of intermediate positions. It also has the built-in Popeye problem engine. If the problem is difficult, I may have a physical board in another room so I can shift to the other and get a change of posture and hopefully of perspective.

A physical board is particularly useful for solving or composing retrograde analysis because the physical pieces off the board gives me a count for pawn capture or promotion purposes.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Most authors expect readers to follow the moves as they read. By doing so you can focus on learning what the author is trying to teach you instead of leaving a good part of your attention to keeping track of the position.

The obvious option is a physical board but you can also use an analysis board on Lichess or open up a new Lichess study if you want to store your work (both options are free).

There's other software that can help you (like ChessBase for example) but it'd probably be a bit of overkill.

---
Tags: endgame, software, books, notation
---


# Question
Title: What is the process for becoming a FIDE rated chess player?
I am new to chess. I read about **FIDE** so my question is: How can I can play in a FIDE tournament or become a FIDE-rated player?

Is there any online process for that, or something else? Right now I only know about FIDE and not much about their process. Someone told me about FIDE but he was not very clear about them.

# Answer
> How can I can play in a FIDE tournament

In exactly the same way you would a non-FIDE rated tournament. First enter. Then play.

> How can I can become a FIDE-rated player?

To get a FIDE rating you need to score at least one draw against at least 5 FIDE rated opponents in FIDE rated tournaments with a performance rating of at least 1000 over a period of not more than 26 months.
> 11 votes

# Answer
To get a FIDE rating, all you need to do is play in a few FIDE rated tournaments. Many big open tournaments with lots of players are FIDE rated, so those would be a good bet. You can find these tournaments by just searching on Google "Chess Tournaments in x" where x is the region you live.

There is no online sign-up process necessary. Once you play 9 FIDE-rated games and score at least 3/9 (unless the rules have changed) then you'll have a FIDE rating.
> 4 votes

# Answer
The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has several types of FIDE rating. The easiest FIDE rating to get is the online FIDE rating. For that purpose, FIDE has a website that is relative cheap because you only need to pay 25 Euros per year (25-30 U.S. Dollars).

These are the most important links:

https://chessarena.com/?popup=registration

https://chessarena.com/
> 1 votes

---
Tags: rating, fide
---


# Question
Title: Why is the chess.com analysis of this position -5?
I'm looking at the analysis of a recent daily game I played on chess.com, and have come to this position with black to play. Chess.com suggests white's last move (Nc5) was a blunder, and the analysis is now down to -5 (it was previously -1, which matches the material difference). But the suggested line after this (Bxc4 bxc4 - an even exchange of bishops) doesn't come anywhere close to justifying why this move loses 4 points. What have I missed here?

```
[FEN "r2qk2r/ppp2ppp/2n1bn2/2N5/2Bp4/1P2P3/P2Q1PPP/R3K1NR b KQkq - 1 10"]

```

# Answer
> 6 votes
Very interesting question! Why when the Knight was on a4 the engine evaluation was -1 and when the Knight is on c5 the engine evaluation is -5? When the Knight was on a4 Black had an extra pawn, consistent with the engine evaluation of -1. Now that the White Knight is on c5, Black can attack it playing Qe7 followed by Ne4 (attacking the White Queen) and the threat of Qb4 check. So, Black has the opportunity to win some extra tempos and to put the Queen and the Knight in excellent squares.

White can avoid a check mate with a precise play, but even if that occurs, Stockfish "thinks" that that the endgame is hopeless for White. However, you need to take into consideration that an endgame could be hopeless for an engine, but not for a human. So, -5 is the engine "perspective," not a human perspective. For example, "my human evaluation would be -2" because Black has an extra pawn, better development, the threat of Ne4 and Qb4 check, and it will be difficult for White to castle. However, many good moves will still be required to win the game. The probability of making mistake exists. We all have seen or played games where Black is winning and suddenly White is winning because Black made a mistake.

Many years ago, a chess engine evaluation of +1 meant that White was winning with a pawn. For example, in the position that you are asking, many years ago, the engine evaluation would have been -1 because Black has an extra pawn. However, with the availability of $200 computers or $100 cell phones that provide powerful hardware resources, and the creation of modern chess software, chess engines can "see" in seconds 20 half-moves ahead in seconds (10 moves). Also, after those 10 moves chess engines can "guess" black and white chances. So, the engines calification -5 implies that most likely Black will win the game with a high probability (90-100%). If you give the hardware more time, they can "see" 50 and even 60 half-moves (between 25-30 moves).

When you post this kind of question, the best is that you post either all the moves of the game or the FEN that is a code that allows everybody to paste the position in a chess GUI. In this case, this is the FEN: r2qk2r/ppp2ppp/2n1bn2/2N5/2Bp4/1P2P3/P2Q1PPP/R3K1NR b - - 0 1

P.S. A half-move is a move of White or Black. A move is a a move of White AND Black.

P.S.#2 If somebody wants to play the position against the best level of Stockfish on Lichess using Black pieces this is the link: https://lichess.org/GQ9TqTKa/black

P.S.#3 If somebody wants to play the position against the best level of Stockfish on Lichess using White pieces this is the link: https://lichess.org/84aSHZKU

---
Tags: analysis
---


# Question
Title: Is the decline in chess strength in a GM as they age similar to their ascension or different?
I mean, given that GMs or other strong players (I choose strong players because their peak rating vs low has "more data" than that of weaker players but it probably relates to weaker players also) decline in strength, can anything about that decline be predicted by their ascension?

For example, would the rate of Elo decline have anything to do with rate of the increase? (assuming no rating floor as with USCF ratings)

Or would the computer measurement of accuracy decline as it had increased?

I suspect there is no such simple relationship -- it is not symmetrical. But I wonder if neuroscientists or cognitive psychologists could use chess as a way of predicting general cognitive decline or even helping mitigate it -- maybe show individuals what to expect and ways to compensate for it by preparing for it with specific exercises.

I am by the way guessing increase is much sharper curve than decrease -- perhaps even the sharper the increase (indicating more native talent or whatever) the smoother and slower the decline.

I think chess and probably other skill games where computers display far-above-human ability are uniquely suited for getting a general picture of cognitive ability whereas IQ tests can simply be taken so many times that they become useless for genuine assessment.

However, other types of objective mental tests like short-term memory and reaction time would be interesting to juxtapose with this kind of chess testing.

Edit: It does not have to be a positive correlation; it could be the faster the ascension the slower the decline. I recall reading the earlier one took up chess the longer skills were retained which sounds reasonable. Reshevsky played good chess well into his 70s and he of course was a famous prodigy. Capablanca also was one but he died relatively young. Morphy same situation. Karpov learned from just watching at also a young age (I think learning without being taught the moves as a toddler is always a good sign and all these guys did it while the rest of us don't have a firm grasp on en passant even after it is explained) and remains a grandmaster-strength player.

EDIT: I meant to ask mainly about the way the brain works as it ages and whether chess can help predict how the brain will work in other areas. This is not meant to be a question about why people get into chess or why they leave it. It is about players who continue to play for potentially years beyond their peak and what happens to the rating of an active player as measured by computer as well as ELO -- when a player starts losing ELO, what aspects of his game suffer, what remain stable and maybe even improve as they age and how rating increase patterns might predict decline. Note that even if a sharp increase tends to be followed by a slow decline, this is a kind of relationship between the two patterns: I do not think a sharp increase growing up predicts and equally sharp decline, quite the opposite. In languages, the earlier the language is learned the better it is retained and I think that I read chess works the same way: former child prodigies play better chess in old age than players who started in their teens, even if at some point both the former prodigy and the "late bloomer" were equals: I think the latter will find that he starts to lose understanding of concepts that are intuitive to the ex-prodigy. And if it does not work that way, that is really interesting although profoundly unlikely that somehow starting late somehow is better for chess long-term -- I suspect zero evidence for that although each player is his own special case.

Here is a story that is tangentially related. An aged physicist had stopped being able to communicate but when another physicist visited her, instead of talking in English to her (which was her adopted second language) he spoke to her in her first language, German and she was able to converse well. One might have thought, Well, she learned and spoke English more recently, so this should be her best current language, but not so at all. This is also like an old person saying, I can't remember what I had for lunch but I recall my childhood like it was yesterday.

So again, learning chess at 3 or 4 is probably a huge advantage. We note also that the best Polgar sister was the youngest and I can think of other cases where the younger of two siblings far outstrips the older in chess. Or fathers who make master but their sons make GM. It is having the advantage that the father did not have, a master player to learn from.

I also have noticed in the case of siblings that the older sibling finds the difference in strength to be a very touchy subject.

# Answer
I wouldn't like to believe that these have any correlation. Ascension to a GM title is quite sharp, but the person typically has to have started quite young and had great and unrelenting passion for the game.

Take Magnus Carlsen, for example. He was born in 1990, and his dad taught him how to play at age five. We played in his first tournament at age 8 and came in second at a 12U chess tournament when he was 12 in 2002. He became a grandmaster at age 13 after excelling in a tournament then, and became world champion in 2013 at age 22, and has held the title since, with no signs of slowing down. He will probably maintain a rating of 2500+ for most of the rest of his life (currently at 2859 standard time control).

I'm sure his rating will *eventually* decline, but probably at an extremely slow pace. And because of this, I don't see any correlation between the rise and fall of grandmasters.
> 3 votes

# Answer
This is a very interesting question and would be worthwhile studying if it was easier to isolate just the influence of chess on peoples lives.

There are many things that could lead to a player fast incline or decline in rating, we cannot forget that all players are humans after all. Some players go on to chase academic success or have a decline in strength which is related to them starting a family.

I would suspect that, even when just looking into chess there are many factors that could lead to players fast decline such as the number of matches played, the number of fast-paced tournaments, the number of most stressful championship matches the player participated in. There have also been some studies showing that blindfold simuls can cause very negative long term mental effects so that part also has to be taken into account.

That being said I would say it's hard to make the correlation between players raw incline and decline in strength, without taking into account the mentioned factors.
> 1 votes

# Answer
You made a very interesting question. I have seen that in general a big percentage of strong players retire sooner than "normal" players. Why? Many of those players start with exceptional results. Somehow, they never learned to fail on a big scale. No matter how good you are at chess, eventually you will have a big fall. A big percentage of those chess players never play again, at least in chess tournaments. It seems that their attraction to chess was to win, not to play. As they cannot continue with those results, they retire. Of course, the official explanations is different. It is very difficult to say that is hard to lose. In the other side, "normal" players learn that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. They even find difficult moments in their chess "careers." For that reason, they retire with a smaller percentage. That is what I have seen. However, this reasoning would be an "anecdotal" experience. This works for any strong player. The most difficult and valuable lesson in chess is to learn to lose and learn from your defeats. Chess has several similarities with life, and in life we have good and bad moments. When we have a bad moment, we need to learn from it, and move on.

Edit:

The OP asked me what my answer has to do with his question. The idea that I am trying to communicate is that grand masters of chess or strong players who quit chess or keep playing but a lower chess rating do not do it for their increase of age. The reason for that behavior is either they cannot live with big defeats in the chess arena, or they have lost their passion for chess, or they do not want to train hard, or they are sick. When you are sick it is difficult to do anything. In general, people retire when they are sick. Also, when you are sick you usually take medications that are well known to have side effects, among them the brain could be affected. Throughout history, many tribes have had a council of the elders. It is worth to note that the many of the U.S. presidents have had more than 70 years old. There are also other reasons, for example I have a friend, who is a chess grand master, got married, got a daughter, and now his wife and daughter are his new priority. On the other side, Vassili Smyslov, who won the world chess championship in 1957, when he was 36 years old, played all his life. When he was 63, Smyslov played the final of the candidates. He lost a match against the future world chess champion Kasparov who was 21 at that time, but Smyslov was the official number 3 in the world. At 80, Smyslov was still playing with superior results. He retired with 2494 FIDE rating. Smyslov only retired when he became sick. Among other health problems, he became blind. Even there, he wrote several books that are considered chess masterpieces.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: engines, statistics, computer-chess, elo
---


# Question
Title: Can you use the copycat strategy in correspondence chess?
The copycat strategy is a rather silly one that guarantees a 50% score. Basically, you play White in one game and Black in the other game. You copy moves from one game to the other. So for example, if in the game with Black your opponent plays 1. e4, then you also play 1. e4 in your game with White. Then when the opponent replies (with say 1...Nf6) then you play 1...Nf6 in your game with Black. You effectively cease to be involved in the game, which becomes a game between your two opponents instead. You'll either win one game and lose the other, or draw both - for a 50% score.

This strategy is inapplicable in OTB games since you only ever play one game at a time, but it can conceivably work in correspondence chess. Is it legal?

# Answer
According to the USCF correspondence rules:

> You may consult chess books and periodicals but not other players.

I would interpret this to mean that playing two opponents against each other would not be legal. You are getting the moves from another player, which is prohibited.

There's also a slight practical weakness in this strategy, especially if your opponents are aware you are doing it: it's possible that the delays between when the opponent makes a move and when you play it against the other opponent would make you use an extra day's worth of time. Eventually you may be forced to move before your other opponent does, or overstep your time and lose.
> 10 votes

---
Tags: rules, strategy, correspondence-chess
---


# Question
Title: Why is the King's Gambit not played often?
I have observed that the King's Gambit is *usually* not played at international level. Is there any specific reason for this?

# Answer
> 18 votes
One of the more common lines for the King's Gambit is accepting, followed by `3. Nf3`. That is, `1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3`. After this, black can follow with `3... d6`, the so called Fischer defense. Fischer was extremely confident that this was a bad position for white. He wrote an entire article about this line, and famously said, "In my opinion the King's Gambit is busted. It loses by force." On top of this he added, "Of course White can always play differently, in which case he merely loses differently."

I am not sure about other lines, but likely top grandmasters have analyzed them, and come to similar conclusions that white's position is not a good one.

**Remark:** Interestingly Fischer himself played the gambit a few times with great success, but he opened `3. Bc4`.

# Answer
> 6 votes
David Bronstein, in his book "The Modern Chess Self-Tutor," gives an interesting explanation for not playing it. Don't forget, he's used it many times in GM practice, including memorable games against Tal and Petrosian (the latter was an exhibition game in which they explore more fully an idea from an Alekhine-Keres game).

His reasoning for `2. Nf3` being preferable to `2. f4` is that like `2. d4`, `2. f4` fully declares White's intentions too early in the game. White is better off playing something like `2. Nf3`, when Black still has no idea what sort of game White is aiming for. He doesn't think it's necessarily worse, just that playing it makes Black's choices easier. `2. Nf3` keeps White's options open.

# Answer
> 5 votes
The King's Gambit is considered inferior because white is sacrificing king safety along with a pawn on move 2. Furthermore, although white would get an attack going along the f file in Morphy's day, now the correct defensive ideas are known for black and white has a harder time of it.

That said, the King's Gambit is a great weapon at the club level. In fact, Quality Chess will be releasing a book on the King's Gambit very soon.

# Answer
> 4 votes
One item that is **not** a reason that the King's Gambit isn't played more at the international level is this specious article from Chessbase News: "Busting the King's Gambit, this time for sure." In the article, Vasik Rajlich, the author of Rybka, claims that all moves but `3.Be2` lead to a forced win for Black, while that move draws. *However, though this was posted on April 2, 2012, rather than on April 1, the article was in fact one of Chessbase's annual April Fools' posts.*

# Answer
> 3 votes
Top players don't play sharp gambits such as this one much because they involve lots of forced lines. These lines are easy to calculate for an engine. The result is that you no longer play against your opponent - you're pitting your engine / memorization skills vs. theirs, and not your chess ability vs. theirs.

Source: Romantic chess in modern times

# Answer
> 2 votes
Typically, White wants to play the King's gambit to play some crazy lines, full of sacrifices and double-edged play like the Kieseritzky Gambit:

```

    [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. h4 g4 5. Ne5 Nf6

```

With a messy position on move 5 already ! And there are so many lines like that if Black is ready to accept the challenge. But that is a big IF. First, there is this defense advocated by Fischer everyone is mentioning that seems to be OK for black:

```

    [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

    1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d6

```

This move d6 simply removes the e5-square for the Knight, and this alone makes White's attack harder to carry on.

But I think that, really, what can discourage White to play the King's gambit, especially at higher level, is that Black can simply opt for an early d7-d5 setup, that usually gives a full (and quite boring) equality:

```

    [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

    1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 exf4

```

And honestly, after these 3 move, it is hard to see how White can attack... Check my introduction on the King's gambit if you want to get an idea on how to play this nevertheless interesting opening.

# Answer
> 0 votes
(I'm adding another answer because it's fundamentally different from the one I wrote above.)

GMs don't play the King's Gambit because it's inferior.

> Eventually, Leela reached the safe harbour that is the dream of every King’s Gambit player: a worse but holdable ending!

Source (in the comments to games 19-20)

In other words, at GM level, your target when you play the King's Gambit is a worse but holdable ending. This is reflected by the opening eval that engines give - usually around -1 after 1. e4 e5 2. f4.

Since White has an advantage in the starting position & you should be playing to win, a worse but holdable endgame is not acceptable. By extension, GMs don't play the King's Gambit.

(At amateur level the dream of every King's Gambit player is a mating attack in the middlegame.)

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


title: Is Houdini 6 a Stockfish clone?

text:
# Question
Title: Is Houdini 6 a Stockfish clone?
I've been hearing this claim being bandied about quite a lot and I'm wondering if there's any substance to it. Apparently the details are in a certain thread on Talkchess, but it's not viewable to non-logged in readers, and it won't let me register. There are no details about this on the Houdini Wikipedia page either.

Can anyone give a summary of the allegations and the evidence for (and against) it?

# Answer
Yes.

The search, evaluation, etc., are almost identical to Stockfish, with the notable exception of being rewritten in Dutch. A number of Stockfish developers, including former maintainers, have noted as such. To hide its origins, code was included that multiplied the node count by 8/7. Exploiting modular arithmetic tricks and archived Houdini games, this exact code was shown to be present in the release version of Houdini. The alleged performance improvements over Stockfish go away after removing this trick.

The leaked source code was compiled by Ed Schroder and found to have a 1:1 correspondence with Houdini in a vast number of test positions, while others, like Simon Guenther, have found that the leaked code behaves identically in the start position even up to high depths.

There were changes, but Mark Lefler, developer of Komodo, noted that a number ofaa changes were simply adding features reverse engineered from Komodo. In fact, in one file, evaluatie.cpp, you can spot the naming conventions used by the Hex-Rays decompiler.

Other features were unique, but minor. For example, the licensing system was not from Stockfish. However, the code came from TurboPack and was translated into C++, so it's not clear that that was original work, either.

Adjusting for the time of release, the version of Stockfish on GitHub at the time of Houdini 5's release was more or less equal in strength to Houdini 5. Later, when Houdini 6 was released, this was also true. (Source: nextchessmove's elo data + CCRL data)

In other words, Houdini did not notably build upon Stockfish in any meaningful way. The main reason it looks different is because of the Dutch translation and the fact that Stockfish has evolved significantly since Houdart last touched the Stockfish codebase.
> 13 votes

# Answer
Looks like the answer to the title question is "yes". Stockfish sued Chessbase (a distributor of Houdini) for violation of GPL, and in the settlement, Chessbase concedes that they "used Stockfish in violation of its license in two of their products, Fat Fritz 2 and **Houdini 6**".
> 5 votes

# Answer
A user on talkchess.com (by the name of `cucumber`) claims to have come into possession of Houdini's source code, and has noted a number of similarities between it and Stockfish's source code. In particular, they note that the Makefile contains the phase 'to build Stockfish' and they link a screenshot of a search function which appears to be Stockfish's, but translated to Dutch:

It is unclear if the source code they have is actually Houdini, though a few contributors to the thread allege that the compiled source closely mirrors the behaviour of the actual engine binary.

Additionally, `cucumber` claims that they obtained the source code illegally.

It seems that all claims here hinge on whether or not `cucumber` actually has Houdini 6's source code. Since they have stated their intent to **not** release it publicly, this will be difficult to verify.
> 4 votes

# Answer
The alleged source code **might** have been published online. I took a quick look into it, it looked like a valid strong chess engine. It was not a clone of Stockfish in the sense that the codebase was quite different, certainly not a 10 minutes copy-and-paste. It would've taken even the best talent months (or years?) of hard work to develop it, so it doesn't look like a prank. It certainly looks like the Houdini source code. I can't find anything in the code that says otherwise.

My personal feeling is the Houdini author must have studied Stockfish's source code very carefully. But ... honestly who wouldn't? Komodo is famous for tracing every single bit in Stockfish and apply/improve the ideas in their own engine. I believe everyone who is serious in chess engine programming would treat the Stockfish source code like a bible.

I feel Houdini was unsurprisingly sourcing information/ideas etc from Stockfish and Robolitto, but it was not a clone more like a genuine efforts to improve old ideas and develop new methods.

The definition for `cloning` is confusing. Chess engine authors believe a "clone" happens if an idea (or some code) copied from Stockfish. The general public would think a "clone" is a direct copy-and-paste from Stockfish (maybe just change the program name in UCI?).

We need to work out the definition.

**PS:** the code looked like a stolen product:
> 4 votes

# Answer
I saw the code and there is no doubt that code was stolen form Stockfish Here's a small snippet that I saved. I no longer have the code since I found out it also includes code stolen from komodo ( reversed engineer). There are many many examples just like this,

The one of the right was from Houdini, the one I the left is from the Stockfish repository from a few years ago, not current dev Stockfish - commit begins with in "...cd8dc0a" https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/706/commits/cd8dc0a1016cefe332f41fd7645b4b8462b1e466

I was able to build an exact clone of Houndin 6.03 from the entire source that is on the right. This is just one example - that are many snippets just like this one. It provided exact node count and pv when one performed "go depth xx" on any position with Houdini 6.03.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: engines, stockfish, houdini
---


# Question
Title: How to calculate the number of positions in chess?
For layman, can someone explain how you calculate the number of available positions in a chess game, and how do you get the huge number of 10^120 or 10^46?

# Answer
We can easily get a reasonably good upper bound on the number of positions. At any point in time, each player has 16 pieces of which the 8 pawns can perhaps be promoted to a knight / bishop / rook / queen. Consider all captured pieces to be off the board but part of the position (this would increase the number of positions but that is fine because we only want an upper bound). Thus in each position the number of combinations of pieces each player has is less than 58. Place the kings on the board first. There are less than 642 ways to do that. Line up the 30 other pieces in any order and place them one by one on the board or off the board (captured). There are at most 6330 ways to do that. This gives a total of less than (58)2×64^2×63^30 \< 6×1068 positions. Double that to include whose turn it is. I had ignored castling rights; you can check that it is negligible by similar calculations.

This bound is very much smaller than what you gave in your question, even though it is an extremely loose upper bound, because you had a misconception. The number of possible positions is **not at all** the same as the number of possible games. For example, there are less than 642 positions with just the 2 kings, but at least 2100 possible games starting from any such position (under the 50-move rule but ignoring 3-fold repetition rule for easy estimation). Moreover, the 10120 estimate is assuming the game lasts 40 moves (2 plies) and each move has about 1000 possibilities. The real total number of possible games (including stupid ones) is obviously **way** more than that, since we already have 2100 possible KK games alone!
> 9 votes

# Answer
One way to do it is think about what the smallest computer encoding of a chess position (in bits). The maximum size for a given encoding provides an upper-bound on the number of chess positions. For some really tight upper bounds check out https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/19397/smallest-chess-board-compression/19446#19446. This gives an upper bound of 2^160 (10^48) positions, which is a bit high, but not that much higher than the true value.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Assume that only checkmate or stalemate ends the chess game. It implies that every legal position in the classical chess remains legal. Then, the number of legal positions in chess does not exceed 53005918951815626260641171706639462843262017900515420, please see Lemma 16 in

http://ssrn.com/abstract=3978669

The upper bound in Lemma 16 is not minimal because takes into account many positions which are impossible to achieve in a game.

For every p \in {0,...,8}, any position with p white pawns cannot contain 2+8-p white bishops on the squares of the same colour.

For every p \in {0,...,8}, any position with p black pawns cannot contain 2+8-p black bishops on the squares of the same colour.

If the white king is in check then Black cannot have a move.

If the black king is in check then White cannot have a move.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: theory, mathematics
---


title: Why is this puzzle solved

text:
# Question
Title: Why is this puzzle solved
I did the following puzzle on chess.com:

And it shows solved with the following configuration:

I do not see why this is a solution. Black can take the Rook, and I don't see how to punish it.

# Answer
After **2. Rxf6+** Black is fighting to survive and **2...Kxf6** is Black's only way to delay the final result (assuming best play). White must respond with **3. Rxg6!** which is the only move to maintain the advantage.

Black gets a very vulnerable King while White gets an active Queen and Rook with good coordination and a safer King.

After **3...Ke5 4. Qg3+** Black is forced to choose

* between losing the Queen with 4...Qf4 5. Re6+, or
* playing 4...f4 which is the human move (Engine wants to lose the Queen),

yet this f4-pawn push still loses to 5. Qg5+ as illustrated.

One commenter points out that the 6. Qxh5 is unclear. I agree that 6. Qe7+ forking the King and Rook is the human move and the most practical move. I would play that as well.

For those interested, the less practical line 6. Qxh5 wins as well and leads to a situation where Black must either give up the Queen or submit to a forced mate.

```
[Title "Black is in Trouble"]
[FEN "5r2/6k1/1p2Rbp1/p2p1p1p/2q5/2P1R3/PP3PQ1/6K1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Rg3 Kf7 2. Rxf6+ Kxf6 3. Rxg6+! Ke5 4. Qg3+ f4 (4. Qh2+ {Also fine for White}) 5. Qg5+ Ke4 (5... Rf5? 6. Qe7#) 6. Qe7+ Kd3 7. Qxf8
(4...Qf4 5. Re6+ Kxe6 6. Qxf4)
(6. Qxh5 Kd3 7. Qd1+ Ke4 8. f3+ Kf5 9. Qb1+ {Black must give up the Queen or there's a forced mate in 10})

```
> 4 votes

# Answer
It's won for White because Q+R coordinate to attack the exposed bK which Black can't defend for long.

I assume you started 1 Rg3 g5 2 Rxg5+ Kf7 3 Rxf6+. Then Kxf6 4 Rg6+ and now:

4 ... Ke7 5 Qg7+ Rf7 (Kd8 6 Qg5+ Kc8 7 Qe7 and mates soon) 6 Qg5+ Ke8 (Ke6 7 Qg6+ Rf6 8 Qe8+ as in the next variation) 7 Rg8+ Kd7 (Rf8 8 Qg6+) 8 Qd8+ Kc6 9 Qe8+ Rd7 10 Rg7 1-0

4 ... Kf7 5 Rg7+ Ke6(f6) (or Ke8 6 Qg6+ Kd8 7 Qd6+ and mate) 6 Qg6+ Ke5 (Rf6 7 Qe8+ Kd6 8 Qe7+ Kc6 9 Qxf6+) 7 Re7+ Kf4 8 Qg3#

4 ... Ke5 5 Qg3+ f4 (Qf4 6 Re6+ Kxe6 7 Qxf4) 6 Qg5+ Ke4 (Rf5 7 Qe7#) 7 Qe7+ wins the Rook. Black can try to counterattack with Kf3 8 Qxf8 Qe2 but 9 Rg3+ ends it (the pin prevents fxg3, and after Ke4 10 Qe8+ skewers the Queen).
> 1 votes

---
Tags: puzzles, chess.com
---


# Question
Title: Could White have won this double rook endgame?
I reached this position as white that led to a draw:

```
[FEN ""]
[White "Bad_Bishop"]
[Black ""]
[StartPly "61"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4 5. Bxc4 e6 6. h3 Bh5 7. Nc3 Nbd7 8. O-O Bd6 9. e4 e5 10. g4 Bg6 11. dxe5 Nxe5 12. Nxe5 Bxe5 13. f4 Qd4+ 14. Qxd4 Bxd4+ 15. Kh2 Bxc3 16. bxc3 Bxe4 17. g5 Bd5 18. Re1+ Kf8 19. Bb5 Ne4 20. c4 Nd6 21. cxd5 Nxb5 22. Rb1 a6 23. a4 Nc3 24. Rxb7 Nxd5 25. Re5 c6 26. Bb2 Rd8 27. Rf5 f6 28. gxf6 Nxf6 29. Bxf6 gxf6 30. Rxf6+ Ke8 31. Re6+ Kf8 32. Rxc6 Rg8 33. Rc2 Rg7 34. Rb6 Ra7 35. Rcc6 a5 36. Ra6 Rxa6 37. Rxa6 Rd5 38. Ra7 h5 39. Kg3 Rc5 40. Ra6 Kf7 41. Kh4 Ke7 42. Rh6 Rc4 43. Kg5 Rxa4 44. Rxh5 Ra1 45. Rh7+ Kd6 46. Ra7 a4 47. f5 a3 48. f6 a2 49. f7 Rg1+ 50. Kh6 Rf1 51. Rxa2 Ke6  1/2-1/2

```

I was up a pawn and had more active rooks. **How could white have won this endgame (if there is a win at all)?**

# Answer
48.Kf6 should be winning. After say 48...a2, white goes h4-h5-h6 and something involving ...Rh1, Rxa2 Rxh6+, Kg5 followed by Re2 will lead to the Lucena position.

Much earlier on, I believe 31.Kg3 is winning, but it's also the best try by elimination: without an active king (which is the most important non-trivial factor in rook endgames), white won't be able to win with just his f- and h- pawns vs. black's h-pawn if he loses his a-pawn, and after Rg8 as happened in the game, white's own king is exposed to a perpetual. Black is doomed to passivity because his rooks are disconnected, and white can slowly capture the rest of black's pawns and/or get his king to e6 and promote the f-pawn.

P/S: 17.Re1 Kf8 18.Ba3+ Kg8 19.Rad1 followed by 20.Re7 looks crushing.
> 7 votes

# Answer
I feel like you should have played `31. Rff7` or `32. Ree7` on the next move, doubling rooks on the seventh rank (even though I don't how much better it is :-) ). Black wouldn't have been able to create any play with his rook. Instead you (naturally) took the pawn freeing both black rooks.

Altogether I liked your game. GG!
> 4 votes

# Answer
The original endgame might very well be a draw due to the open position and the large number of weak pawns.

The position after 45 .. Kd6? is won for white...until 48. f6?. You needed this square for the white king in order to escape from rook checks. Could have won with 48. h4.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Starting with 30 Rxf6 + Black to move Houdini 6.02 d = 39/81 takes to a winning seven pieces endgame for White (+ 2.53) . The endgame is even rook and three pawns vs rook. Mate in 30.
> 0 votes

# Answer
Stockfish 14.1 NNUE rules this endgame to be a clear win for White. It returns +6.30 after only 3 minutes of analysis. The key move is , after 30…Ke8 31 Ree7!! with a fatal bind for Black.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: analysis, endgame, rook-endgame
---


# Question
Title: As an amateur, how to learn WHY this or that next move would be good?
I am a typical amateur in Chess, played as kid a bit with my Dad and some friends, never got really good or invested much time, but always "a bit" interested in the game, so I play from time to time since then. In recent years I started to play a bit more, on chess.com. I like their game analysis feature, which helps me to understand a bit what I did wrong in my games.

However, this is all done by the AI, I cannot really ask a question there. But this is exactly what I would like to do - when I am in this or that situation in a game, I would like to ask a pro what he or she would do in that situation, and even more important: WHY so?

There are several places online where one could check for "the best" next move. But I want to learn, I want to become better, so I would need an explaination of WHY this or that move would be good.

What would you recommend where I should ask these kind of question? Is this forum here the right place to ask, or are there better places online for that?

# Answer
I'd like to add an important point: "Move", *singular*.

Obviously, chess truth rarely is inside of single moves. I'm quite a strong player and frequently exclaim "What?" if the engine plays some outrageous move again. In this case, nothing will spare you from going into moveS, plural. Some points are only revealing themselves after a few moves (and yes, you must learn to cut down the combinatorical explosion - "checks and captures first" is a good heuristic).

For example, start with the question directly below yours. "-5? What? That bad?" I didn't believe it either, so I went a bit deeper into sensible defense tries of White and how the engine totally annihilates the opponent. Thus I was able to condense it into one sentence: In all variants, White lacks a tempo to castle into (relative) safety, since all the attacks come with tempo win.

Play out the variants until you understand where the advantage lies. It can be easy (two-move combination which mates, or win the queen) or very hard on your level (some decisive positional advantage). With experience comes pattern recognition, and sooner or later you will do this automatically and your chess subconscious will honk stuff like "Combination imminent! Check if standard sacrifice works!". Naturally, begin training the easy stuff first.
> 18 votes

# Answer
AI isn't really that good at explaining chess moves in human terms. There are several attempts but also too many positions where their advice is wrong or confusing. We need to be realistic about what's possible. Even if a human Grandmaster were to explain us their analysis, lots of details would fly over our heads. Now imagine a much stronger player who can't even speak any human language properly.

As for what we can actually do, we can play out with the suggestions from the engine, seeing how it responds to our alternatives. We won't get some "deep" reasonning about why the suggested move is good, but we'll get answers to alternative lines we thought to be better. For example, most of the time you don't think a given move is good it's gonna be because you're thinking of some of your opponent's replies that would work well against it. If the engine suggests something else, play both lines out and compare.

It'll still depend on your overall chess skill though. A GM will always understand engine output better than a club player, and a club player will understand it better than a beginner even if the stronger players haven't worked with an engine in their lives. If you want to understand engines better, from a certain point onwards your only chance will be to get better at the game.

Engine assisted-analysis is a tool that can help you improve, but you need other sources like your own analysis, books, courses, coaches and most importantly tournament experience!
> 9 votes

# Answer
Kudos to @Billy Istiak for being the first person to mention a book. And anti-kudos for the implication that you can't ask questions of a book. Intelligent reading of a good book will answer many questions. If you still have questions that have not been answered, try a different book (and I said different, not necessarily better).

Long ago, I learned chess by borrowing all of Fred Reinfeld's books from my local library. In modern terms they probably took me past 1600 but were too simplistic. I came away with the impression that the Caro-Kann was a forced loss. I learned much more by joining a club, and especially by playing one particular opponent with a good defensive style. I don't think I ever asked him a question, but choosing to play him was as good as asking a question.

The analysis feature on chess.com is very good at spotting the tactics that you have missed but almost hopeless at criticising your plans. If you cannot find (or cannot afford) a good coach, then I think you should no longer be looking for anyone (or anything) to answer questions, but should instead be asking how else to find answers, and this may require some creativity on your part. Look in as many places as possible, and recognise that it will be a long process.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I'd second Hauke Reddmann's final suggestion, and add a bit to it. "Play out the variants until you understand where the advantage lies." To that I would point out an interesting variant of chess, Advanced Chess. In Advanced Chess, a human and computer play as a team. As it turns out, a human plus a computer is quite often *much* stronger than just a computer.

Let's say you played 5. ... Nf6. The computer suggests 5. ... a6, and you don't understand why. Play around with it! Flip the tables. Play white as you+computer, against the computer playing black solo. Explore white's options... not just what the computer thinks is best, but what you think is best. See where it goes. Maybe even flip the tables again and explore your options as black again.

Play through both 5. ... Nf6 and 5... a6. See how each one plays out, and how they feel.

If one is **much** better than the other in the AI's evaluation, there's a good chance that you're about to either capture a ton of free material or get a landslide attack. In those cases, the AI's result should become obvious as you play advanced chess. If the evaluations are closer together, the difference may be more subtle.

The difference may even be wrong. Remember, the AI evaluations are tuned around the style of play that an AI plays. They're not tuned to your style. You may find that a "slightly worse evaluated move" is actually better suited for your play style.

If you look into the famous games of Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, in the first game, Kasparov **slaughtered** Deep Blue. Just peeled its defenses open and claimed ownership of the computer's king. Deep Blue had been tuned against other grandmasters of the day, but nobody was quite as aggressive as Kasparov. The programmers had to quickly increase how much they valued king-safety in order to stay in the game!
> 3 votes

# Answer
I would suggest watching GM's speedruns where they go through different levels of opponents and describe their thought process for each level. Greatest example of this is Daniel Naroditsky's speedrun as other then being an exceptional chess player he is also an excellent teacher.
> 2 votes

# Answer
This forum is an excellent place to ask anything. One example of a question that asked the whys about a particular position is in the following link: Why is the chess.com analysis of this position -5? You can do the same with your doubts.

However, I have an idea that I would like you to consider. If a child is in first grade, and he/she asks about Einstein's Theory of Relativity, would the child understand the answer? Chess is as difficult as Physics. Just go step by step and ask questions explaining your level, "your grade," and your thoughts. Do not try to skip grades. The Soviet School had 2 big schools. One that suggested starting with openings, and another that suggested starting with endgames. Openings have always fascinated chess players. However, as the number of moves that are in openings is extremely big, I consider that the right path is to start with endgames. That will help to build a structure like LEGO pieces. You can start with a piece, then a second piece, etc. Soon you will have a house, then a building, and eventually a city. Chess is an extremely difficult game. We all have to learn. Somehow, we all are in the first grade. Good luck with your chess journey!
> 1 votes

# Answer
First question, I will ask a beginner, what's your rating in chess.com? below, 1200? Ok, now it's time to learn upto 2 openings as white as well as black. And stop blundering pieces.

You have crossed 1200? Let's deep dive into calculations, know what is weakness, how to win simple endgame (don't go deep like 3-4 pawns endgame or more). Then what comes is, strategic plans.

Let me tell you my story, how I easily started beating 1400s after stopped playing chess for a month, (and my blitz rating was 1300 that time). (I don't even know my current classical or rapid rating cause I can't focus on the computer screen to calculate deep variations). I took the book How to Reassess your chess to understand other player's game. I completely stopped playing that time. And read the lines Silman wrote carefully, if you understand a position then see what Silman says about that. When you can't get a coach, you just have to study books and some positions from other's game. Before studying middlegame, I suggest to study endgame upto 1700 level if you are over than 1200. In middlegame, you need plan in any kind of position. You gotta learn how to plan from others, if you are a fan of YouTube, visit Levy's video of 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKEXns2Ed\_0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtaEnxG2lbg&list=PLBRObSmbZluSo6h0AySyeZRdlQzEhr2XL, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm17mDpmBL0&list=PLBRObSmbZluSWzcTDn44GGo1wp4MDDnHb, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCsc24k-Q8M&list=PLBRObSmbZluTCoqlOg-3wEdlyRQLAJ2gs) These few steps are great to take your chess knowledge to next level. The playlist from chessnerd - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiEdPeXVPzzGtEyz5RmMFLC4hVPgFXpcQ

Why did I tell to study when you asked why this or that move is good? Let me go straightforward, when you learn how to analyze a position, you automatically knows what happened wrong (but don't tell me that, I am telling you that you can analyze at grandmaster level, also don't tell me, you are at 900 and analyzing them. In the beginning, I said if you are under 1200 just stop blundering nothing else). Suppose, you are an introvert (that's me) and you have a coach and you take group lesson. He generally will teach you what to do in "the position". As an Introvert, you are less likely to ask question, and deep-dive into the board. That's what you can learn from Silman's book, Silman always mentions human-like move. So when you take a position from his book and think what to do, he will tell- what you thought was good or bad (nah, he isn't going to mention 900 ELO move). Silman said, "after completing his book, you can review- what did you understand of a position (this time read answer later)". After completing all these things, you can understand your positions (or even computer sometimes. Sometimes, they are intelligent nonsense).
> 0 votes

# Answer
There is a striking similarity with some agreed draws between GMs that leave the amateur baffled. To figure out why a position was agreed draw upon, we need to go through what we perceive to be critical lines and establish all drawing motives at their ends. These might differ; some end in stalemate, some in repetition, some in insufficient material; but all of them will speak for themselves, so to say.

Such procedure is the general heuristic, but of course that's highly impractical if you're not in an overseeable endgame position, because there will likely be a whole tree of WHYs.

The puristic answer thus must be to **start by studying endgames**. Start establishing the WHYs at the tail and work yourself backwards, motive-wise. Once you understand such a game-ending concept, say Lucena, you shorten your chain of whys by one, so when facing a position where the engine gives you a certain best move that leads into Lucena, you'll get the WHY simply based on your recognition and memory. Rince and repeat, and build your THEREFOREs from that.

Later, when evaluating, also during a game, you'll usually be satisfied with answers like *activates my rook* (development), *clears a square* (tactical threat), *fixes a pawn* (positional gain) or the like, and you'll not be after the ultimate WHY, just the closest one. This is the application phase; during build-up, I recommend you study game-ending motives and work backwards.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: learning
---


# Question
Title: Why doesn't Stockfish announce when it solved a position as a book draw similar to how it announces a forced mate?
I notice that when Stockfish has solved a position to mate it announces that checkmate is unavoidable in some number of moves so it's impossible to mistaken a position Stockfish has solved as a win for one player for a position that Stockfish has merely evaluated as being a position, for which one player has a huge advantage but not solved to the end yet.

On the other hand if Stockfish solves a position as being a draw with best play it just shows the position as being evaluated as 0.0 instead of announcing that it's a draw with best play, however an evaluation of 0.0 can also just indicate that Stockfish can't find an advantage for either player and doesn't necessarily mean it solved it to the end and found it to be a draw with best play from both players.

So my question is when Stockfish can solve a position as being a draw with best play from both players why doesn't the evaluation start saying "Draw" instead of "0.0" to show that the engine has solved it?

# Answer
Unless the Stockfish creators have documented this question, any answer will basically be based on speculation, more or less well-founded.

It should (theoretically) be possible to separate an evaluated draw and a draw due to endgame table hits: the first is an approximation to truth, based on the scoring function, and the second is truth (assuming suitable endgame tables).

However, this would require that the score of a search would have two components: the score itself, and a flag that says if that score is absolute or approximate. (EGTB mates would probably need to show a 'mate in n moves' and so be adjusted for each depth level of the score, while evaluated scores would not have the same relation to the level on which the score was evaluated, and so be handled differently.) This probably has additional effects on the code, when that composite score is used or passed on, and such effects are likely to have impact on search efficiency.

In general, engine makers focus on play engines rather than analysis engines, and so optimize their code in a particular direction, such as number of nodes per second. Stockfish seems to be a play engine, and so changes that improve non-play aspects are unlikely to be considered as important.

I suspect any definite answer is related to such considerations. But for a definitive answer, the Stockfish team should be the ultimate source, presumably through the forums indicated on their https://stockfishchess.org/get-involved/ web page.
> 7 votes

# Answer
> Why doesn't Stockfish announce when it solved a position as a book draw similar to how it announces a forced mate?

Very simple. Checkmate ends the game. Once checkmate has been delivered there are no more moves in the game. That is a defined endpoint.

A book draw does not end the game. For instance there are several RKP vs RK which are book draws. If the player without the pawn knows how to draw the game, i.e. stop the opponent from queening the pawn, then they can stop their opponent from winning and the game will eventually be a draw.

There are various ways this can happen. The player with the pawn can realize that they are wasting their time and agree a draw. The position might repeat 3 times allowing the other player to claim a draw or there might be 50 moves without any captures or pawn moves when, again, the other player can claim a draw. However there is no clear point where the game ends. When exactly it ends depends of the choices of the players.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Stockfish doesn't know what a book draw is, and it would be difficult to code because of endless variations.

For example, this position is a book draw:

```
[fen "3k4/1r2p3/r2pPp2/b1pP1Pp1/1pP3Pp/pP5P/P2K4/8 w - - 0 6"]

```

But it is also a book draw if the rook is on a7, a8, b8, c8, etc. How would you code it so that all of them are recognized as book draws? You can't realistically hard code all such positions.

Another issue with book draws is that they assume perfect play from the opponent. Sometimes the defense is difficult or even impossible for humans. The KR vs. KRB endgame is one such example. Here is another one from the most recent World Chess Championship.

```
[fen "4k3/8/8/4PR2/5P2/6NK/q7/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

This position with Black to play is also a book draw, as one can see from endgame tablebases, but it's complex enough that no human would be able to hold the Black position, and even Stockfish doesn't provide 0.00 eval when denied tablebases.
> 0 votes

# Answer
Chess engines have evaluations **so that they can choose the best move**. It assumes that whenever white has the move, it picks the move with the highest number, and black will choose the one with the lowest (at any point in the tree).

And the numerical value of a draw is the same as that of an equal position - 0.00. Because any better position is better than a draw, and a worse position is worse than a draw.

Now you *could* have two different "0" values. Perhaps (it'd make the engine a tiny bit slower, and thus weaker, but OK).

But the evaluation of the position is the result of comparing *tens of thousands* of such numbers -- the value of the current position, if white is to move, is the maximum of the values for each of the moves white can do; which is the minimum of the values of all the replies black has; which is the maximum of the values of all the second moves white could reply to *those*, et cetera.

Stockfish builds a whole tree of variations, at the end of each branch is a number. Many of them will be equal, and also many of them will be draws.

So what is the value if there are two moves, one evaluating to an equal position and one to a drawn position? There's no reasonable way to choose.

And as they're both 0.00 so it doesn't actually matter, and make the engine a bit slower, nobody does this.

This problem doesn't happen with checkmate -- no matter how good the evaluation, forced checkmate is better. And checkmate in 8 moves is better than in 9 moves.
> 0 votes

# Answer
Most forced outcomes are only forced in scenarios where both sides can be presumed to play optimally. In cases where Stockfish identifies and announces a forced mate in N for White, its announcement means that if Stockfish were given and allowed to keep control of White's pieces, then both sides would be guaranteed to play optimally so as to yield a score of 1-0:

1. If Black resigns, the score would be 1-0 (no worse for Black than any other course of action).
2. If Black runs out of time, the score would be 1-0 (again, no worse than any other course of action).
3. If Black makes a move, either White will be able to checkamte, or make a move that forces a mate in at most N-1 moves (again, no worse...)
4. If there's a power failure, that would violate the requirement that Stockfish be allowed to keep control of the White pieces, rendering that scenario irrelevant.

Unless there is a forced win by a side that's guaranteed to play optimally, however, the outcome of a match wouldn't really be forced. Even in the scenario where White has a king on a1, Black has a king on h8, and White has just moved Qg7+?? with no other pieces on the board, it would still be possible for either side to play sub-optimally by resigning at any point prior to Black either making the only legal move or running out of time \[the latter resulting in a draw because no legal sequence of moves could result in checkmate\].
> 0 votes

---
Tags: stockfish, draw, evaluation
---


title: Piece Peace Puzzle

text:
# Question
Title: Piece Peace Puzzle
Place the whole army of White and the black king on the board, such that no piece is attacked or defended. (Obviously you must use double pawns.) That's fairly easy, so tie breaker will be how many black pawns you can additionally smuggle in (again no piece being attacked or defended).

Working example (I placed stuff random):

```
[FEN "1K6/6NB/p7/3Q4/5R2/2R5/4P3/k3N1B1 w KQkq - 0 1"]

```

As you can see, no more remaining White piece fits on the board (pawns on 1st/8th are illegal - please only legal positions, otherwise 32 knights would be the way to maximally "fill" a board). You *could* place a third knight on h8 but first try to get all White 8 pawns aboard...

# Answer
My final suggestion is this:

```
[Title "5 Black Pawns"]
[FEN "1Q6/5PNP/P1P2ppp/3R4/P1p4P/P1p2P1B/4R3/K1k3BN w - - 0 1"]

```

After letting my first program run for 20 hours and checking around 1.5 billion positions without finding another pawn I added a small improvement by defining the Queen's position explicitly and resigning on branches a bit quicker and - et voilà - after like three minutes of searching it found this solution:
> 4 votes

# Answer
Improving on Christian's answer:

```
    [Title "2 Black Pawns"]
    [FEN "1R6/p1p1P2N/P1P1P3/2P4B/P1P1P2N/6R1/3Q4/B4k1K w - - 0 1"]

```
> 3 votes

---
Tags: problems
---


# Question
Title: What does "end with an empty board" mean?
I got this statement from *Fundamental Chess Openings* by Paul van der Sterren, and I don't understand what it means to end up with an empty board:

> However, since the human brain and even the computer is still not capable of completely seeing through (and thereby destroying) chess as a whole, in practice opening theory does not end with an empty board but in positions where there is a certain consensus about how they should be assessed, for instance 'chances are equal' or 'White (or Black) has the advantage'.

# Answer
> 14 votes
> in practice opening theory does not end with **an empty board** but in positions where there is a certain consensus about how they should be assessed,

If chess had been solved then the logical conclusion of opening theory would be the end of the game, i.e. "an empty board" where only kings are left or only kings plus material insufficient to deliver mate. Note that there is an implied assumption here that chess is a draw since a checkmate position would very much not be "an empty board".

Since we don't have that complete knowledge the opening phase is generally regarded as having ended when development is complete.

# Answer
> 1 votes
(I can't make out which book you are referring to: I find two or three books with that or a very similar title. So I can't decide myself.)

The author/authors seem likely to be trying to give an impression of a'chess position spectrum', from one end ('full board') to the other ('empty board'). As metaphors go, it is probably not an attempt to express a definite, detailed and unassailable truth, but rather an impression of a continuum.

In art terms, it would be 'impressionistic' language, not 'realistic' language. Don't over-interpret. Don't get stuck. Read on. When you have read as much of the book as you can stand, go back and look again at that and other passage that you may have marked with a '?' in the margin. (And don't get stuck on that word 'margin' either -- you mark it any way you like, of course.)

---
Tags: opening, terminology, quotations
---


# Question
Title: Why do I need to notate the file when capturing with a pawn?
As we all know, in algebraic notation, we usually suppress the notation for pawns. That is, unless they are capturing something. Then, for some reason, we must notate the file of that pawn. For all other moves, you only need to notate the file (or rank, or both) if multiple pieces of the same kind could move to the field in question, so that this extra information is necessary to avoid ambiguities.

For instance, the Scandinavian defense usually goes something like `1. e4 d5 2. exd5`. Why not just `2. xd5`?

# Answer
> 18 votes
There is no real reason, it's not technically necessary.

Equally, you don't generally have to write the 'x'. Knowing where the piece is going is enough to know that it's a capture.

People must have thought this notation hit the sweet spot between maximum terseness and readability.

# Answer
> 21 votes
You seem to want the notation to be as efficient as possible, disregarding ease of use. Let's take this to extremes:

* If White only has a single move or capture that ends on c4, then instead of Bc4 or Bxc4 should we just write c4?
* If White only has a single legal Rook move, then instead of Re5 should we just write R?
* If White only has a single legal move, then...what? Just notate it as "" ?

The conventions in use are a compromise between efficiency and ease of use. And they work very well.

# Answer
> 8 votes
Imagine a situation where there is also a white pawn on `c4`, for example `1. e4 d5 2. c4 e6 3.xd5`. You would have no way of knowing which pawn took on `d5`, was it the one on `e4` or the one on `c4`.

# Answer
> 8 votes
I'd suggest a different reason: to make it sound natural.

How would you pronounce `Nxe5`? I would say "knight takes e5". In that case, the putative pawn move "takes d5" would not sound natural, because it has a verb with no subject.

Once you decide to add a "subject", you may as well do so in a way that gives extra information, since this may be useful. So rather than "pawn takes d5", it makes sense to say e.g. "e takes d5".

There is no grammatical reason to add this information to other captures (which already have a subject) or normal moves (which have no verb).

# Answer
> 3 votes
> Why not just `2. xd5`?

Because we always indicate the piece being moved. The notation `2. xd5` doesn't tell us which piece is doing the capturing. We have to work that out for ourselves. We don't need to write `1. e2-e4`, although we can, because `1. e4` tells us the e pawn is the one being moved.

For instance, in Petrov's Defence we don't write `1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. xe5`. Instead we indicate the piece being moved by `3. Nxe5`.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Just realized one other good reason: When using this notation, it’s easier to get an overview of the pawn skeleton of the field solely from looking at the algebraic notation. For instance, to find out where the `e`-pawn is, you can look for the move starting with an `e`. That would be `e4` in this case. Next, you find the next one, which is `exd5`. Then you make a mental note that the `e`-pawn has moved to the `f`-file. Now you can keep following it as it advances along this file, until it maybe changes file again. And so on.

It doesn’t offer much help in figuring out which pawns have been captured, but at least it helps.

---
Tags: pawns, notation
---


# Question
Title: Is pawns supporting pawns a good opening strategy?
For my opening strategy in most chess games I play, I usually move my pawns forward two, then one in an alternating strategy, until I have a sort of WWW shape with my pawns. That way, if anyone takes a pawn at the top, a pawn at the bottom can avenge the pawn by destroying it. I've only ever used this strategy when opening, with mixed effectiveness. Is there any better way to execute this strategy, without diverging from its core too far?

**EDIT**: An attempt at algebraic notation: `1. a3`*`(a4)`*`2. b4`*`(b3)`* etc. If A is 3, then B is 4, and C is 3 again. However if A is 4 then B is 3, and C is 4. This effectively renders one of my bishops useless.

# Answer
> 13 votes
Using pawns to support pawns is a common practice. However, it seems you're taking it too far; in the beginning of the game you probably want to focus on controlling the center and getting some pieces into the game.

Moving pawns without reason can cause holes and reduce at least one bishop to uselessness. It can make your king hard to defend.

Play through some master games and see how they do it; they don't move a lot of pawns.

# Answer
> 10 votes
Maybe. From what I know, in opening theory the closest thing to what you describe is The Stonewall. A few things to note:

* chess computers have been vulnerable to the Stonewall because the positions are usually without clear tactical lines
* this could give you an easy early game because inexperienced players don't know how to stop it
* if your WWW pawns are on white squares, your black bishop is more valuable than your white bishop (and vice versa) so you shouldn't trade your most valuable bishop early, this will leave you with holes in your position and your opponent can place pieces that won't be dislodged easily from those holes

Instead of recommending books on the subject(I don't play the stonewall myself) I'll recommend this youtube playlist on the stonewall.

Since you don't know algebraic notation yet, this might be more useful for starters than a book.

# Answer
> 6 votes
Your opening strategy does not make the most out of your pieces, and I am not only speaking about the one bishop you're caging in (the "**bad bishop**").

**Your pawns** are not used very cleverly, too. Consider three pawns next to each other at the same rank. They control up to 5 squares in front of them. As they are your cheapest pieces, they effectively deny those squares to the fast minor and mayor pieces of your opponent. They create forbidden territory. Next move the pawn in the middle one rank up. Now you have produced holes through which the enemy might enter the ranks closest to your king. It is a much weaker construction, even though some pawns cover each other. But you have produced weak, uncontrolled squares which the enemy can use to penetrate. It's like having a strong castle wall, but leaving the front door wide open. So even if it might look sturdier, it isn't.

The abilities of **your other pieces** get suppressed, too. They are not moved when you move pawns instead, although they are stronger than pawns. You can do more damage with minor and major pieces. Most of the time the goal of the opening is to develop your pieces as fast as possible. If you can attack full force while your opponent has still all his weapons in the storage area, you will win. Your heavy restriction on pawn moves means you will be the defender, because chances are your opponent is faster than you in launching an attack.

If you really like closed positions where action is somewhat delayed, pick Colle, Stonewall or something similar, but do not rely totally on pawns. As you do not make the most of the potential of your pieces, you will lose against someone who does.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Remember that your pawns can never move backwards! Every pawn move you make creates squares that you can never cover with that pawn again. If you play 1.a2-a3, then the square b3 is weakened because there is one less pawn that can defend it for the rest of the game. Avoiding such weakness is especially important in front of your king -- once you've made a few pawn moves on one wing, you don't really want to castle that way anymore.

So you should only move a pawn if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Obviously you can't do without pawn moves, but they should have a purpose.

# Answer
> 3 votes
This sort of thing is covered in the very first game of Euwe & Meiden's "Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur". After White's third move resulting in the following position:

```
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
1. f4 d5  2. a4 e6  3. b3

```

They write: "Very likely the beginner made this move because he was fascinated with the pawn configuration a4-b3-c2 (converting to algebraic from descriptive), rather than because he understood its basic significance in relation to the requirements of the position"

# Answer
> 2 votes
I think you are taking it too far, at least in the beginning. You should move 1 or 2 pawns at most in the beginning, but get some major pieces out for control of the center such as your knights and bishops. If you move your pawns first while your opponent has brought their major artillery out, you will soon be severely behind in development.

# Answer
> 2 votes
The trouble with a "hedgehog" PAWN strategy, is that you cramp your pieces. Also, spending moves on pawns means that your pieces don't get to move until later.

If your opponent has a good mix of pawn and piece moves, he might be able to sacrifice a minor piece for say, two pawns, and then overwhelm you with superior piece activity.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Look at the French Defense. So I think if it's part of Opening theory to get pawn chains and maintain them, they can't be all bad. :)

The comment about the Hedgehog really caught my eye. To say it cramps pieces simply is a comment from someone who doesn't understand it.

> Traditional chess strategy would have frowned upon Black's setup, since his pieces have little room in which to manoeuvre. In the early 1970s, "'hedgehog' was a generic term for any setup that was cramped, defensive and difficult to attack", but today refers specifically to this formation. The Hedgehog first became extensively analysed in the 1970s, when players began to appreciate the rich variety of strategic ideas that arose from it. While Black's position is cramped, it is also relatively free of weaknesses. There is no obvious way for White to attack Black's pawn structure, but as outlined above, Black has several methods at his disposal for creating counterplay. Thus the Hedgehog has retained its popularity as a system of development in modern praxis. Link

# Answer
> 0 votes
###### The question was asked so long ago, but writing an answer for future visitors

The question is interesting for opening slight advantage. But I don't understand what did you mean with the following notation? `1. a3(a4)2. b4(b3)`

Did you mean in first move if I play a3 then I have to play b4? And if I play a4 then I have to play b3 to support the forwarded pawn? If that's what you meant then you have to keep in mind that at first, you have to take control of the center with pawns, that's why e4, d4, c4 and f4 is most played move (Let's look at an example so that we can see why should we take center with the pawns).

```
[fen ""]
1. e4 {e4 is top played move even engines like the move as first move. Cause it
opens up diagonal of the Queen and light-squared bishop. d4 is also good but e4
is slightly better than d4.} 1... Nf6 {Black planned to take center with knight
instead of pawn} 2. e5 {huh $2 black now acknowledged the knight is under attack.
And it has only two squares. g8 and d5} 2... Nd5 {Black didn't want to
un-develop their knight, so he pushed} 3. c4 {Look white has got huge center}
3... Nb6 {Nb4 was also possible but that's bad move cause it will be again
kicked by a3} 4. d4 {trying to paralyze the knight} 4... d6 {It opens a place
for the knight and looking for pawn break. In this position top engine move is
f4 obviously. cause white doesn't want to give up the center advantage. If he
plays something like Qe2 then black will just take the e pawn and 5. Qxe5 $2 Nd6
kicks out the queen. White has central space advantage but not as much as
earlier} *

```

The above defense is called Alekhine defense named after GM Alekhine. But it gives white slightly central-space advantage so it doesn't favor black that much.

```
[fen ""]
1. d4 {normal opening to take the center} 1... d5 {symmetrical response} 2. c4
{challenging to give the center} 2... Nf6 $6 {not good move} 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. e4
{White has got center advantage again. So the common move is 2... c6 (Slav
defense) or 2... e6 (Queen's gambit declined)} *

```

```
[fen ""]
1. b4 {Polish opening. This doesn't favor white so it's not played that much. It
can be played when a higher rated player is playing lower rated player.} 1... e5
{Just taking center and attacking the b4 pawn} 2. Bb2 {totally giving up the b4
pawn and attacking e5 pawn} 2... Bxb4 {It actually favors black even after Bxe5
cause the bishop can never be removed from a5. and It can used as an attacking
weapon.} 3. Bxe5 {Attacking g7 pawn and followed by Bxh8 so black has to stop it
with the move Nf6.} 3... Nf6 {It's kind of equal and if white do general
development like Nc3 Nf6 e3 or e4 followed by Bishop anywhere. Then there's a
line where the dark square bishop will be trapped. (I actually don't remember it
but it's available in YouTube). Though engine says the position is equal but in
my eyes black has slight advantage cause the black's dark-squared will be great
piece for attacking and it is pinning d pawn so white has two central pawn (e
and d) but he can't use one of his pawn for about 7-8 moves. And rook won't get
a the e file to control so it will have to be on f1 for so long.} *

```

Kingside or Queenside space advantage (if you have kindside and queenside then that's another case) \< Taking center \< Attack

I have got another example where pawn supporting pawn is not the best thing (cause attack is greater than anything).

```
[FEN ""]

1.e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. f3 dxe4 4. fxe4 e5

```

In the above position, I was thinking that if I take the e5 pawn then I will get doubled isolated pawn (though isolated pawn is not the bad thing always, but I don't like it more often, in this case 5... Qa4+ so my king be under attack and wide open in the center). Another idea was 5. c3 cause 5... exd4 6. cxd4 for a moment I totally forgot the fact that Qa4+ exists. So I blindly moved that pawn and I lost that game. After the check I thought, I will be manage to artificial castle on the Queenside. But opponent was so higher rated (around 2000) and for the less opening knowledge I lost. But the main line was

```
[FEN ""]

1.e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. f3 dxe4 4. fxe4 e5 5. Nf3 {Qa4+ is more dangerous than losing a pawn.} exd4 {you don't have to capture that pawn for the same reason} 6. Bc4 {you developed faster and Ng5 is threatened. And you are ready to castle. Rook will be happy to be on an semi-open file}

```

---
Tags: opening, strategy, pawns
---


# Question
Title: Is it safe to read a chess book whose author's rating is 1319?
I was interested in starting to read David Rudel's book Zuke 'Em-The Colle Zukertort Revolutionized but I found that the author's rating is 1319. Should I avoid reading the book since his rating is among the lower end of most chess authors?

In general, should we let the author's rating be one determining factor of the book's value? Are there examples of high-valued chess books written by low-rated players? Or low-valued books written by high-rated players (or even world champions)?

# Answer
Sure.

A book's content stands on its own. Great players have written lousy books, not so great players have written decent books. Given the availability of engines and other online resources, I don't know that it is necessary to be an exceptionally strong player to write a good book on an opening line. Of course, if you're out to write a piece of crap, being a weak player is an awfully good start.

The concern I would have is not so much the author's rating, it's his complete lack of a biography on his Amazon pages. Generally speaking, the rule of "If I don't have anything good to say about myself, then say nothing at all" applies.

The reviews of the book all praise the writing style, which might be reason enough to take a look. There seems to be a consensus that this is a system which is effective up through 2000 or so, after that, not so much.

For this book, the price tag seems a little steep. It might be worthwhile to check out abebooks.com or powells.com to find a used copy.
> 6 votes

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Tags: rating, books, colle-zukertort
---


# Question
Title: Can playing blindfold improve playing non-blindfold?
If I play blindfolded or don't look at the board and just visualize the board, pieces and position in my head, can this improve my regular style of play (physically looking at a board). Is there any proof to improving regular play via blindfold play?

# Answer
> 9 votes
I don't think there's any proof (nor do I think you'll find any), but I think playing blindfold definitely helps as regular chess practice. The better you can play blindfold, the more you can visualize the board and calculate ahead, in my opinion.

Better yet, try playing blindfold against someone who's not.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Did not help me. I used my OTB skills to be able to play blindfold.

I have seen no data that blindfold play helps your OTB skills.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Playing blindfold (or even trying to do so) can help intermediate players in another aspect: focus on pawns. To keep track of the position in blindfold play, it is essential to notice the position of the pawns. For players who do not give importance to pawn structure, this could (in theory) persuade them to take position of pawns more seriously.

In blindfold play, it is nearly impossible to ignore the factor of pawns getting in the way of your pieces. In OTB play, a beginner/intermediate player can ignore this factor (unintentionally, of course).

---
Tags: learning, blindfold-chess
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