# Question
Title: How to objectively explain a positional advantage is worth a sacrifice (re: a specific example)
I was given the below position in the US chess magazine. Author said this position is "hopeless for black". Lichess engine says 1.5 advantage for white.

Why? I understand "piece points" are only a rule of thumb, but I also don't have any other heuristics to judge why white side is better. I assume that even though white is down material, she has a "positional advantage," but I don't know how to objectively discern why that is.

Why would people say white has an advantage here?

```
[fen ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. c3 a6 5. Ba4 Bg7 6. d4 b5 7. Bb3 exd4 8. cxd4 Nge7 9. d5 Na5 10. Bd2 Bxb2 11. Bxa5 Bxa1 12. Nc3 Bxc3+ 13. Bxc3

```

EDIT

The real question I meant to ask is this: why are all "these positional things" (space, development, castling rights, etc) worth a *material sacrifice* of 3 pawn points!? I know these principles are good, but how am I supposed to personally know they're *that* good that I should be willing to sacrifice a major piece for a minor piece?

# Answer
White has a lot of compensation for the sacrificed exchange, specifically:

* **more space**: the white central pawns are perfectly placed to limit the movement of the black knight and bishop
* **play on the dark squares**: black has considerably weakened the dark squares on the king side and does not have a dark-squared bishop anymore; White can easily take advantage of that by operating on these squares with bishop, knight and queen.
* **lead in development**: Basically white only needs to activate the rook, while black really struggles to free himself. Also black will be forced to move the rook on h8 (castling seems too dangerous), losing another move for development and leaving the king in the center for some more time where it will be under attack.

This suggests that white can make use of these elements, before black can recover.

Somewhat concrete lines:

Black's rook h8 is under attack and has to move. Three options:

1. 1...0-0 looks very dangerous for black. White could just play something like Qd2, Qh6, Ng5 and if necessary h4, h5. I don't see what black could do to avoid getting mated soon. Note that black cannot play something like f6 soon because of the discovered check from the b3 bishop.
2. 1..Rg8 or 1..Rf8. Here white has basically two ideas, which can be combined in various ways. a) play d6 which prevents black from playing d6 himself (freeing the bishop on c8) and allows white to activate the queen (via d6-f6). Also, with the white queen on d6 and the white bishop on f6, white would basically bind four black pieces (Qd8, Ne7, Ke8, Rf8) to very passive positions. b) play Ng5, which hints at an attack on f7 and also on re-routing the knight via h7 to f6.

So overall, yes the position is pretty hopeless for black.

---

Regarding your general quesion (*Why are these things worth three pawn points? And how do I know when they are worth that much?*):

You should realize that material is only one of many factors relevant for judging a position. Admittedly, in many games, players have somewhat symmetric positions, are developed equally well, etc and in this case, material becomes a major factor. So yes, in quiet normal positions material is often very important.

However in highly unbalanced positions like the one in your example, material count becomes less important and is easily trumped by activity. There is no strict rule to know when this is the case. In fact this is among the more difficult aspects of chess and can basically only gained by experience. I would strongly discourage you from trying to assess such unbalanced positions by summing points for "piece activity", "weak king"... Chess just does not work this way.

Computers do something like this in their evaluation function, but they do this for *many* (lots) positions *many* moves down the line (not only the current position) and then it does make sense. Furthermore computers have a more fine-grained number for "space", "piece activity", etc.

Anyway, humans lack the power to do all this and basically need to rely on experience, intuition and (occasionally) calculating some more or less forced concrete lines.

As a very rough guideline (don't follow this strictly) you can sacrifice:

* **a pawn**: to gain a lead in development/piece activity or central control, for at least a short amount of time, often with a potential to regain the pawn easily if needed (see e.g. Queen's gambit). Sacrificing a pawn is not a major deal as many positions are still a draw +- a pawn.
* **up to three pawns or an exchange**: if you get a major long term positional advantage through it; often you end up with a very strong minor piece vs. a not-so strong rook (e.g. in somewhat closed positions). Here you really need to have something concrete.
* **more than three pawns or an exchange**: rarely, typically in direct mating attacks only
> 13 votes

# Answer
This answers your question by showing the pull White has. White's advantage is real. But I think it is important to notice how resilient a defender can be. This is a great example of how difficult it can be to win a "won" game. I am pretty sure Stockfish could beat me from either side of the board.

The following is Stockfish 6 playing each side of the board, 5 minutes per move.

```

[FEN "r1bqk2r/2ppnp1p/p5p1/1p1P4/4P3/1BB2N2/P4PPP/3QK2R b Kkq - 0 1"]

1...Rf8 2.Ng5 Ng8 3.h4 d6 4.Nxh7 Qe7 5.f3 Bd7 6.Nxf8 Qxf8 7.Qc1 f6 8.Bd2 Kd8 9.Ba5 Ke8 10.Qxc7 Nh6 11.O-O Qe7 12.Qb7 Rc8 13.Qxa6 Nf7 14.Qb6 Kf8 15.Re1 Qe5 16.Qf2 g5 17.Bd2 Kg8 18.hxg5 fxg5 19.f4 gxf4 20.Bxf4 Qg7 21.e5 dxe5 22.Bh2 Ng5 23.d6+ Kh7 24.Qh4+ Qh6 25.Qxh6+ Kxh6 26.Rxe5 Nh7 27.Bf4+ Kg6 28.Kf2 Bf5 29.Ke3 Nf6 30.Kd4 b4 31.Re7 Nd7 32.Bd2 Nb8 33.Kd5 Kf6 34.Bxb4 Nd7 35.a4 Nb6+ 36.Kd4 Nd7 37.Be1 Rc1 38.a5 Rc8 39.Bc4 Nb8 40.Bc3 Kg6 41.Kd5 Kg5 42.Rg7+ Kh5 43.Rc7 Rd8 44.Be2+

```

...and at this point Stockfish rated the position at +20. I wanted my computer back ;-)
> 6 votes

# Answer
By material, white is down three pawns. (R+P vs B) -3

White has the bishop pair, which is ~pawn 1

White has more space ~ 1/2 pawn 1/2

White has great lead in development ~pawn 1

Black's king stuck in the middle ~pawn 1

So the positional advantages outweigh the material deficit.

Black's best moves are f6 and Rg8. Both concede a pawn and, most likely an exchange due to the weakness of the dark squares(Ng5-h7-f6+). Black will need at least four moves to castle to the queenside, and that leaves him still facing pressure down the half-open files. The most important factor is that it's more difficult to defend than to attack, which increases white's value. These elements shows that white is easily up by at least the value of a pawn.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: analysis, material-balance
---


title: Analysing Crazyhouse Games

text:
# Question
Title: Analysing Crazyhouse Games
I have recently started playing crazyhouse on chess.com. For my normal chess games, I download my chess games in PGN format. Then open them up in chessbase 13 and from within chessbase load up the UCI-compatible stockfish engine to analyse the games. Ideally, I would like to store my crazyhouse games in chessbase too and call up an engine supporting crazyhouse. But for some reason, chessbase doesn't like crazyhouse PGN files. My first question is whether there is a way to analyze crazyhouse games in Chessbase? If not, is there a database program that can handle both normal chess and crazyhouse games? It should also allow loading of UCI-compatible chess engines. I do not need all the advanced database features of chessbase. More important to me is a single consolidated software to store and analyze my games in normal chess and crazyhouse.

# Answer
> 1 votes
XBoard/WinBoard and PyChess both work well with Stockfish for crazyhouse. I mostly use XBoard for analyzing crazyhouse games and positions (when I do not use lichess, e.g., to run Stockfish more efficiently locally instead of in the browser or to test experimental Stockfish versions).

Software for standard chess like ChessBase does not work with variants.

# Answer
> 2 votes
If you accept to give up the use of a graphical interface, you can analyze your games with python-chess-annotator:

https://github.com/rpdelaney/python-chess-annotator

It is a python script that uses an UCI engine to analyze a game in a pgn file. It will give you in output a pgn file with the annotations. It works with every chess variant supported by python-chess, and Crazyhouse is supported. You can use Stockfish Crazyhouse to analyze.

---
Tags: software, chess-variants, crazyhouse
---


# Question
Title: In the Dubois-Steinitz match (1862), at what point does the match become irreversibly lost for White? And why does the engine not pick it up early?
I am a beginner player (~1400 rating on lichess). I was studying a famous match between Dubois and Steinitz shown below (analysis done by Stockfish on lichess.org). My doubts are:

1) At what move does the game become "bad" for White? Is it the `9. Nxg5` move? Or is it some move further downstream? After Black plays `12...Nd4` was there any possible move that would have saved White?

2) Why doesn't the Stockfish engine pick up the fact that Black is winning until the very last moment when White plays `13.Nc3` ? According to engine analysis, `8...h5`is an inaccuracy for Black, `9.Nxg5` is a mistake for White, and `10...hxg3` is a mistake for Black! More surprisingly, till `12...Nd4` the engine considers White slightly better (or rather neutral) at +0.3, and in the White's next move it suddenly says checkmate is unavoidable and suggests `13.Ne6` to be better for White. But even with `13.Ne6`, black can still play `13...Nf3+` and so on, and win the game.

```
[fen ""]
[Site "https://lichess.org/OtJ2x5RY"]
[Date "London 1862"]
[White "Serafino Dubois"]
[Black "Wilhelm Steinitz"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C50"]
[Opening "Italian Game: Giuoco Pianissimo, Normal"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 { C50 Italian Game: Giuoco Pianissimo, Normal } 5. O-O d6 6. Bg5 h6 7. Bh4 g5 8. Bg3 h5?! { (-0.08 → 0.50) Inaccuracy. Best move was Na5. } (8... Na5 9. Bb3 Nxb3 10. axb3 a6 11. c3 O-O 12. Nbd2 Ba7 13. Nc4 Be6 14. Ne3 Kg7 15. b4) 9. Nxg5? { (0.50 → -1.08) Mistake. Best move was h4. } (9. h4 Na5 10. Nbd2 Bg4 11. Bb3 Nxb3 12. axb3 Bxf3 13. Nxf3 g4 14. Ng5 Qe7 15. c3 O-O-O) 9... h4 10. Nxf7 hxg3? { (-0.83 → 0.38) Mistake. Best move was Qe7. } (10... Qe7) 11. Nxd8 Bg4 12. Qd2 Nd4 13. Nc3?? { (0.31 → Mate in 7) Checkmate is now unavoidable. Best move was Ne6. } (13. Ne6 Ne2+ 14. Qxe2 Bxe2 15. Nxc7+ Kd7 16. Nxa8 Bxf1 17. Bb5+ Ke7 18. Nc3 Bxd3 19. Bxd3 gxf2+) 13... Nf3+ 14. gxf3 Bxf3 15. hxg3 Rh1# { Black wins by checkmate. } 0-1

```

# Answer
Playing the game on lichess.org, I only need to wait for a few dozens of seconds to reach the following analysis for White ninth move:

**9. Nxg5** is an interesting counter-attack move that ultimately fails to bring an advantage but white is not lost. After **12. ... Nd4 13. h3! Ne2+ 14. Qxe2 Bxe2 15. Ne6** White survives.

Since **13. h3!** saves White, **13. Nc3??** is indeed a fatal blunder. **13. Ne6??** also yields a mate in 7 for black.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: engines, analysis, grandmaster
---


# Question
Title: Why did FIDE allow some random guy to open for white in Chess Candidates tournament 2018?
As seen in Aronian vs Kramnik on day 3, the opening was e4 which Levon Aronian rarely plays. It later turned into the Berlin variation.

The article from FIDE says

> Francesco Tristano, a classical and experimental pianist from Luxembourg, made the ceremonial first move for the round. By chance, it was in the game between Aronian and Kramnik, and he started with 1 e4, a move that Aronian almost never plays.

**Why did FIDE allow Francesco Tristano to open for white in Chess Candidates tournament 2018?** What if the person chooses a "relatively" bad opening like f3 or h3?

---

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f86OTmsnI1c

# Answer
> 16 votes
It is very common in top tournament that a local celebrity or other people who like attention such as politicains, people from FIDE, etc, make the *ceremonial first move*. This is purely for the photographers, and of course it is perfectly fine to take back this move and make your own move.

In the game you mention however Aronian chose to stick with 1. e4 which is of course also an option. I don't think that Aronian was in any way influenced by the choice of Francesco Tristano, i.e. he would have played 1. e4 anyway.

# Answer
> 13 votes
Having a celebrity make the ceremonial first move of a chess match is a PR thing, similar to a ceremonial first pitch in baseball. It got interesting when Mikhail Gorbachev made the ceremonial first move in an exhibition match between Anatoly Karpov and Judith Polgar in Lindsborg, Kansas, in 2005, and then insisted that Karpov leave the move 1.g4 on the board:

> President Gorbachev arrived at 4 p.m. and they were ready to start. Anatoly had white in the first game. Therefore, President Gorbachev would make the first move for Anatoly. As he arrived at the board, he told the audience that this is a wonderful match between two great champions. “I am going to cause some difficulties for the older player”, he said, then proceeded to play 1.g4 without asking Anatoly. Both Anatoly and Susan looked up at President Gorbachev in shock. Anatoly thought that the President was joking as Anatoly mentioned that he would like to make another first move. But the President was firm in saying there is no take back in chess. Then the players started their first game.

This was probably the only time Karpov ever played Grob's Attack.

---
Tags: candidates
---


# Question
Title: Why underpromote in this KNNP-KR endgame?
In the position below, I'm promoting my pawn. The app says promoting to a Queen is incorrect, but a Rook *is* correct? In this setup it doesn't make sense.

```
[FEN "8/1P6/3N4/8/8/3k4/r7/4KN2 w - - 0 1"]

1.b8=R 1-0

```

# Answer
> 46 votes
If you promote to a queen with 1. b8Q, black has:

> 1...Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2

attacking the queen and hinting at mate with Rb1++. If white takes the rook 3. Qxb2 it is stalemate.

Because of the mate threat white does not have any other good square for the queen either (no good check and no square that would defend b1).

If you promote to a rook, black does not have this defense, because after 3. Rxb2 it would not be stalemate. The resulting endgame (King, rook and two knights vs king and rook) should be a reasonably easy win.

Also you need to know that if the queen gets exchanged for the rook (e.g. after 1. b8Q Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2 3. Qb5+ Rxb5 4. Nxb5) , the endgame (king and tow knights vs king) is draw.

For the same reason white cannot postpone the promotion because black has (at least) a draw if he can give his rook for the pawn (e.g. after 1. \[random non-pawn move by white\] Rb2 2. \[random move\] Rxb7).

Lastly, any other underpromotion (to knight or bishop) does not work either, because black will win the piece on b8 in the above line after 2. ... Rb2 because of the mate threat on b1.

So the only way to play for a win is by promoting to a rook.

# Answer
> 15 votes
The Lomonosov 7-man Endgame Tablebase show that after promotion to a queen, Black can play 1. ... Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2! (sacrificing the rook) Qxb2, the Black king is stalemated. If White doesn’t take the rook, then Black will take the queen and draw the game.

```
[FEN "8/1P6/3N4/8/8/3k4/r7/4KN2 w - - 0 1"]

1. b8=Q? Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2! 3. Qxb2 (3. Kc1 Rxb8)

```

However, promoting to a rook avoids the stalemate and wins the game.

```
[FEN "8/1P6/3N4/8/8/3k4/r7/4KN2 w - - 0 1"]

1. b8=R! Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2 3. Rxb2 Kc3

```

---
Tags: analysis, endgame, problems, pawn-promotion, rooks
---


# Question
Title: Browser based FICS client: exists or may I build one?
I am planning to build an open source web based client for FICS. I enjoy playing at http://chess.com, but don't like the fact that it is a closed service. So, I need something similar, but for FICS.

What I am wondering about is, if something already exists for this. Wouldn't want to end up with duplicated effort.

Also, is it something that the chess community would use? What is the most popular way that people connect to FICS?

# Answer
There are already open-source clients for FICS. The default web client that you see when you open the FICS website is the Jin Chess Client. Jin is an open source Java implementation, so you can use it via Java Applet. There might be other open-source web platforms that I'm not aware of, but Jin is enough for you to get started.

I'm not so sure what you want to do with Jin. It's working and it's fully functional. However, it's not a web application and feel a bit old-school. If you're committed, you should consider creating a JavaScript/CSS/HTML5 FICS web application. It'll be more beautiful and modern. Look at lichess.org, it's absolutely stunning. It would've been better if it connects to the FICS server. Maybe you can do the job?

While I don't have statistics for FICS client usage, I believe web application is the way to go.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Mobialia is a decent modern FICS client that works on the browser.
> 3 votes

# Answer
A nice looking FICS client can be accessed from the browser at : https://www.freechess.club/

You can also download a desktop application.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: software
---


# Question
Title: Online or Print Sources for Historical Games
What are the best online or print sources for historical games? I am generally looking for pre-1930s games NOT by world champions, and, in particular, looking for games by some of the prominent women chess players of the time (Mary Rudge, Nellie Showalter, Harriet Worrell, etc.).

# Answer
> 2 votes
In addition to a handful of games at chessgames.com, you may find the following links useful:

About 35 games played in first international women's chess tournament held in 1897 can be found here. Games are in digitized form, in algebraic notation. The sources of each game (chess magazines of the time) are mentioned at the end of each game. You might be able to find these chess magazine pages at the Chess archeology website or by searching for the name of the chess magazines on archive.org. Using a similar approach, if you know the year in which the women players you are interested in played the tournaments, you can dig the games out from the archived magazines. These games will be in old notation, though.

A nice series of articles on women in chess published in a chess.com blog; contains a few annotated pgn games by women players (including the players you asked in the question).

Also, in reply to a comment you mentioned above (where do chessgames.com get their games from?), you will find the following answer in the FAQ page of chessgames.com:

```
The database has been constructed over a period of many years from PGN files obtained from free, public domain sources. Primary among these sources are:
* University of Pittsburgh FTP - one of the oldest and most complete archives of chessgames online.
* La Regence - archive of recent chess games, organized by ECO code.
* Britbase - archive of British chess games from the 1920's to present.
* Rusbase - the Russian cousin to Britbase.
* The Week in Chess (TWIC) - Mark Crowther's world famous source for brand new chess games.
* Lars Balzer's Homepage - A very well maintained list of places on the internet where you can download chess games.

```

# Answer
> 1 votes
The website http://www.chessgames.com is usually good for historical games. In particular, it has many games from the players you mention.

---
Tags: history, database, women
---


title: How is this stalemate?

text:
# Question
Title: How is this stalemate?
My friend played this game as white and wants to know how this is a stalemate. I do not know much about chess and both of us would like to know more about this rule.

```
k7/2Q5/8/P2P4/1R6/8/2P3PP/6K1 w - - 0 1

1.Rb6 1/2-1/2

```

# Answer
> 11 votes
**Stalemate** is defined as the player's whose turn it is to not be in check, & cannot make a legal move (black's only piece, the king, can only move to squares where it will be in check, which is illegal).

By playing **`Rb6`** (or possibly **`Rxb6`**), your friend walked into that exact situation. Essentially, she blocked off all the squares the King could move to, which is stalemate (& the result is a draw). It might have been a mistake, or it could have been the best move given the situation.

**Additional discussion beyond the original question**

If there was a black queen on b6, your friend capturing (**`Rxb6`**) was the best move, because they would have to get out of check. They can capture with the queen, the rook, or the pawn, but all three lead to stalemate (a draw is all they can hope for here). If they try to move the king out of check, black takes their queen and has a tiny advantage going into the endgame.

Interestingly, if there was a black bishop on b6 threatening the king, the best move would be to move the king and give up the queen. A rook plus several pawns will eventually overpower a lone bishop in the endgame.

If your friend captured anything other than a queen or bishop on b6, that was a blunder that forced stalemate from a winning position.

If there was no black piece on b6, your friend also had the game basically won. They could have finished it with:

**`1.Rb8#`** (Rook moves to the dark square up and to the left of the Queen, and checkmate)

Another option:

**`1.Qb8#`** (Queen moves to the same square, and checkmate) among other moves.

The last two cases are perfect examples of how chess can punish or reward you in one move; you can be totally winning and then end up with what is essentially a tie because you messed up.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Stalemate is a checkmate without check. The king is not being attacked but it cannot go anywhere. It is a draw.

If Black had other pieces (or pawns), he may move them - passing the move to you - and then checkmate is surely imminent by 1. Qb7#. If all of Black's pieces cannot move anywhere, the game is a draw.

# Answer
> -2 votes
Well, Black's king only has the squares a7, b7, and b8 available to it. Since the queen is guarding all three squares and black doesn't have any other pieces, it's stalemate.

If you don't know what stalemate means, either read desertdogv's comment or go to here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate

---
Tags: endgame, beginner, stalemate
---


title: What to do in between chess matches?

text:
# Question
Title: What to do in between chess matches?
At a 2-day tournament, rounds can have two hours - sometimes three - before the next match.

What is a good way to spend this time? Should it involve chess? Carlsen, for example, spends his off-days during the WCC by playing tennis.

# Answer
The most important advice in this situation is probably that you should avoid straining yourself mentally whatever you do. Try to rest inbetween rounds and clear your head, and if you want to spend your free time on chess it should absolutely not be you trying to challenge yourself with difficult positions before the next round; solving difficult chess exercises inbetween rounds will only serve to give you mental fatigue, which will seriously impair your chances in the next round.

It is up to each individual to decide what to do between rounds, but good activities may include casual walks, listening to some nice music, talking to friends, etc. Even some chess activities can be done if they're not mentally straining; for instance one may play some casual blitz/bughouse games, or solve some **extraordinarily easy** tactical exercises before the next round as a warm-up.

Some things that should be avoided between games is stressful activities, difficult chess exercises, and over-eating (if there is a lunch break between rounds, for instance). Stressful activities and difficult chess exercises will wear you down before the next game, while over-eating will also result in your body taking unnecessary strain from digesting food, which could potentially throw your body off balance before the game.

So, in essence, between rounds you should focus on letting yourself recover from the previous game so that you are in as good a shape as possible for the coming rounds, maximizing your chances of success.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: tournament
---


# Question
Title: How to teach (intermediary) chess to small groups with little time
I'm a chess teacher/coach for a couple of children (age 14-18) at my local (not very big) chess club (we're all member of this club). Due to various constraints on my and their part, all the time I get to see them regularly is a single session of 30 minutes per week. (I do watch and comment on their games or jointly analyze them once in a while, but this isn't exactly regular)

## Some background on my current teaching methods

I'm teaching them 'Stap 4' (step 4) using the 'Stappenmethode' (step method) by Rob Brunia and Cor van Wijgerden, de-facto *the* teaching method in the Netherlands for quite some time.

For people unfamiliar with the method, 'Stap 4' corresponds to advanced tactics (Double attacks on fields that are again some double attack, advanced 'luring', particular sacrifice mates, etc.) and introductory strategy (a bit of intermediate end-games, pawn structure and attacking the king). The method provides lesson outlines and other advice for the teacher and a book with diagram problems (puzzles) for the students to practice the material from the lessons. The problems are 5 ply deep on average. Every 'step' can be concluded by a written exam and a diploma that consists of solving a set of diagram problems under a time-limit (as usual for exams). (The diplomas aren't a requirement for anything, but they're nice for the kids to have)

## ...and on my teaching skills

I think I'm decent at teaching small groups of (sufficiently) motivated students, which my students are. Most of my teaching experience (in addition to teaching chess for about 5 years at my chess club) is from being a student assistant helping in tutorial sessions at my university and tutoring fellow students in high-school.

I think I'm decent at explaining things related to topics at which I have expertise (perhaps my activity on Computer Science can convince you of this) I'm not very good at maintaining 'order in the classroom' and related educational skills, but these are fortunately almost never needed with my current group of students.

I'd like to think I'm a honest (perhaps too honest at times) and enthousiatic teacher, but I also think that I'm the least qualified person to judge me! (unfortunately, I'm the only person on this site who *can* judge me, so it'll have to do)

All in all, I don't think my teaching skills are a problem, but do let me know if you disagree.

## The problem

The kids I'm teaching aren't chess geniuses, but I think most of them are bright enough to pass the exam, given they're properly prepared. I'm not a chess genius either, but capable enough to teach them. (My actual ELO is pretty low as I mostly play at the club instead of rated tournaments, but you may put me around ~1900 ELO with decent knowledge of strategical elements)

My problem is that 30 minutes is pretty short, in fact a lot shorter than the authors of the method advice. In particular, the authors stress the importance in the teacher's manual of letting the students practice 'special games' related to the lesson's topic (e.g. endgames starting at a certain position) against each-other. I simply don't have the time to do this. (I do manage to squeeze in a simultaneous game of an endgame or such of them versus me once in a while)

Most of the time is spent with me explaining the material of the lesson, covering about half the examples provided in the teacher's manual and commenting on the (incorrectly solved) problems they handed in as homework. Sometimes, I put the method aside for a lesson to discuss their recent games instead.

## What I tried

I've stressed to my students that the limited time means that they should take their homework very seriously (which most appear to do), but I'm still worried they fail the exam due to insufficient preparation.

I've tried to offer additional online practice using lichess (the 'study' feature in particular), but this has turned out to be too time intensive for me. I've considered letting them play each-other online, but the difficulties this gives me for me to comment and 'control' their match (such as halting their play, letting them take back moves or look at variations, or just talking to them) made me think this wouldn't work.

---

So, what additional material/practice for outside the class or more effective teaching methods for our limited time in class can you suggest to me?

# Answer
If the course authors give guidelines regarding the amount of time (number of hours) the course should take or that each lesson should take then you would be unwise to drastically reduce this. For instance if the recommendation is that a particular lesson should take 2 hours and your lessons are 30 minutes then you should cover that lesson in 4 of yours.

That means that you should not have an identical structure for each of your 30 minute lessons. Some weeks most of the 30 minutes will be taken with teaching and demonstration and other weeks most may be given over to practicing their 'special games' based on the current lesson.

This approach really shouldn't be a problem for either your target age range or for you.

One further point. You mention your chess strength but don't say anything about your teaching abilities. When it comes to teaching children chess teaching ability is far more important than chess ability.

A master (national, international, grand or otherwise) who is an incompetent teacher will be useless as a chess teacher whereas an excellent teacher who is a weak chess player will still do a very good job.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: learning, online-chess, teaching
---


# Question
Title: What are some chess books on openings which include computer analysis?
I once had a book on the sharp Wilkes-Barre variation of the Two Knights Defense written in the 1970s in which there were a few moves which were said to be clearly winning for one side in which a computer analysis of the position said otherwise. The situations were unusual, for example the last position in the analysis would have three threats in it and the conclusion would be that one side is clearly winning. Then the computer would find a move responding to all three threats and say that the other side has the advantage.

So my question is 'What are some books on chess openings that show how a computer rates the top move choices after analyzing each for a certain amount of time?'

# Answer
> 1 votes
If I recall correctly, The Wilkes-Barre is Traxler (correct me).

I once analyzed it quite deeply, and the only way white can hope for a win after 5. Nxf7 is 5...Bxf2+ 6. Kxf2 (6.Kf1 is also a tricky draw.) Nxe4+ 7. Ke3.

Or he can simply play 5. Bxf7+ and be a healthy pawn up.

You can do this analysis yourself.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Many of the newer endgame books will make use of at least the tablebases.

Nunn was the first to use computers to assist in analysis in writing one of his endgame books.

---
Tags: books
---


title: Advantage of Diagonal Opposition

text:
# Question
Title: Advantage of Diagonal Opposition
Suppose there are only two pieces on the board, black king and white king. Black king is at g7 and white king is at e5. It's Black's turn to move. So in this case white has the opposition. Black now plays Kg6.
Can white reach any of the last three squares f8 or g8 or h8. If the answer is "no", then what's the advantage of having diagonal opposition ?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Diagonal opposition can be thought of as a means to an end. No matter where your opponent's King moves, you can get direct opposition sooner or later. Examples from your position:

1...Kf7 2. Kf5 (White gets the direct opposition).

1..Kg6 2. Ke6 (White gets the direct opposition).

1...Kg8 2. Ke6 Kh8 3. Kf6 Kh7 4. Kf7 (White gets the direct opposition).

As per your question regarding f8, g8, and h8, White could not reach the squares even if he had direct opposition in a similar position. Put White's King on e6, and Black's King on g6 (Black to move). You'll find that Black can defend the 3 squares, despite White having the opposition.

The purpose of opposition is that it forces your opponent to move his King out of the way, letting you pass in one way or the other. Note that the way your opponent moves his King out of the way is **up to him**, so he could protect f8, g8, h8 indefinitely by keeping his King there. However, that would let your King pass his by playing Kf5, Kg4, Kh4 (and reaching the h-file, if that was your goal).

# Answer
> 1 votes
The advantage of opposition can be seen when there is a pawn on the board.

And the point is that Diagonal Opposition can be easily converted to Horizontal or Vertical Opposition which is quite useful.

---
Tags: endgame, kings
---


# Question
Title: How often does each side win in Rook, Bishop and Knight versus Queen?
How often does each side win in Rook, Bishop and Knight versus Queen endings? It is a 6-piece endgame so the evaluation of each position is known but I could not find statistics on this endgame after searching for a while.

```
[FEN "8/8/8/3k4/3N4/2q5/5K2/R5B1 w - - 0 46"]

```

# Answer
The best resource I know for endgame statistics is the ICGA spreadsheet at https://ilk.uvt.nl/icga/games/chess/endgames.php. The spreadsheet posted there contains pretty much all 6-man endgames. So for example KRBNKQ is found in row 277 (assuming White has RBN), with the following percentages:

```
       wtm    btm
W win 51.35  9.45
 draw 45.13 49.27
B win  3.52 41.28

```

So the result is highly dependent on who has the move.

**EDIT**: Clarifications (1) This is a *tablebase* based on computer analysis of all possible positions with these 6 pieces. It does not refer to actual games played over the board. (2) The spreadsheet refers to "non-broken positions" which approximates to "legal positions".
> 4 votes

# Answer
The endgame with just those 6 pieces is pretty rare, so I doubt there would be enough games in any database to make good stats. Just judging from the material imbalance though, White is in no danger of losing (unless he blunders his Rook).

Without any blunders, White just has to make sure Black cannot sacrifice his Queen for White's Rook and one minor piece (since K+B vs K is a draw). Then, White can maneuver his pieces and set up one trap after another (pins and forks against the Black King and Queen) until eventually winning the Queen.

The problem Black faces is that he has to watch out for tactics from all 3 of White's pieces, which just so happen to move in all different directions (Rook = vertical, Bishop = diagonal, Knight = L-shape). Meanwhile, Black can only really attack with his Queen, and the Queen alone is not enough to cause serious tactical threats (White just has to watch out for skewers and a few pins from one piece).
> 1 votes

---
Tags: endgame
---


# Question
Title: If I have only a king left and two blocked pawns, how many moves does my opponent have to mate?
I have only king left with two pawns but they are blocked. By how many moves an opponent has to checkmate me?

# Answer
There is no such limit. In the official rules, §9.3, it is stated that there's a limit of **50 moves** during which a pawn must move or a piece/pawn must be captured. If that doesn't happen, you can claim a draw.

I have heard that there are some circles a stronger limit is imposed when the weaker side has only a **lone king** (so, not two pawns), but those are unofficial rules and we can't say much about that.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: rules, checkmate
---


# Question
Title: Data set of board representations at checkmate?
I would like to do a simple project by looking at the pieces at play when checkmate occurs.

I have been scouring the internet for a dataset of standard chess games from which I can retrieve the final board representation, where a checkmate has been played to it's conclusion.

At this point, any board representation would have to be fine, although I'm not trying to generate moves or anything, thus array based would be ideal.

I'd need to have the graphical representation (i.e., like a screenshot a way to load up the games to view them), so I could organize by hand. Well, by sight, actually.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd be grateful.

Monica

# Answer
To get you started, here's one way you could do this on your own in Python with the python-chess module:

* In the example we're loading a simple pgn-file for illustration (which you generalize to reading pgns from a loaded database using the same module) and extracting its final position as a bitboard.
* Then we check if it's a checkmate position, if true, you can extract the pieces on the board as a Square Set.
* From that, you can then transform the data in any form, e.g. as lists or arrays of the piece symbols and corresponding squares (shown below), or however else it suits your follow-up purposes best.

Here's the snippet for that:

```
import chess
import chess.pgn
import sys

arguments = sys.argv
pgnfilename = str(arguments[1])

#Read pgn file:
with open(pgnfilename) as f:
    game = chess.pgn.read_game(f)

#Go to the end of the game and create a chess.Board() from it:
game = game.end()
board = game.board()

if board.is_checkmate():
    print "checkmate found: "
    print board

    white_pieces = [(board.piece_at(sq),sq) for sq in chess.SquareSet(board.occupied_co[1])]
    black_pieces = [(board.piece_at(sq),sq) for sq in chess.SquareSet(board.occupied_co[0])]

    print "white pieces: "
    for el in white_pieces:
        print el[0].symbol(), " on ", chess.SQUARE_NAMES[el[1]]

    print "---------------------"
    print "black pieces: "
    for el in black_pieces:
        print el[0].symbol(), " on ", chess.SQUARE_NAMES[el[1]]

```

Which gives the following output for the downloaded PGN of this game between Alexander Alekhine vs Oscar Tenner:

```
r . . q . . . r
p p p . . B p p
. . . . . . . .
. . B . k R . n
. . . . P . . .
. . . P . . . .
P P P . . . P P
R . . b . . K .
white pieces:
R  on  a1
K  on  g1
P  on  a2
P  on  b2
P  on  c2
P  on  g2
P  on  h2
P  on  d3
P  on  e4
B  on  c5
R  on  f5
B  on  f7
---------------------
black pieces:
b  on  d1
k  on  e5
n  on  h5
p  on  a7
p  on  b7
p  on  c7
p  on  g7
p  on  h7
r  on  a8
q  on  d8
r  on  h8

```

**Additional details and ways of extension:**

* Conventionally, capital and small symbols are used for white and black pieces respectively. For a better display of the board, you can use the Unicode symbols for chess pieces and encode them appropriately (depending on your python installation or possibly OS) for printing. In our example above, you could have immediately retained the Unicode of each piece instead of its symbol, `board.piece_at(sq).unicode_symbol()`
* Given a PGN-formatted database (e.g., using TWIC PGNS), you can easily load it by reading it in python and extracting the starting/ending line indices of each game\[\*\] in the database, and in a loop over all games, you pass each game as a PGN file to `chess.pgn.read_game` and the rest follows similarly as in the snippet above.

Feel free to ask in comments if you have any questions about the snippet and other ways of extending it.

\[\*\]: All this depends on the database you're trying to work with, but once the formatting known, then you can e.g., parse games based on a keyword that occurs at the start of each game in the database, for instance in the TWIC ones, there's always a line with `Event ..` in the headers of the PGN, or even the empty lines between the games. However you go about it, once you know the starting and ending line indices of a game within the file, you can pass it to `chess.pgn.read_game` as a file-like object with `cStringIO.StringIO` in python. It's not the most efficient way necessarily, but it does the trick.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: software, checkmate, programming, database
---


# Question
Title: What term is used to describe the following situation?
A situation where the movement of the opponent's pieces gets more and more restricted as the attack develops. The opponent can't make moves easily without losing something.

# Answer
> 12 votes
As @Ywapom notes, Zugzwang is often used to the describe the *end* of this situation, like the Immortal Zugzwang Game where Sämisch suffers this fate against Nimzowitsch.

For the progress itself, it's perfectly normal to use non-chess specific terminology here, e.g. you could say White was *slowly getting strangled* by Black in the game above.

# Answer
> 9 votes
It sounds like you are describing near "zugzwang". "Zugzwang: a situation in which the obligation to make a move in one's turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang

"Bind" is another term often used to describe restriction.

# Answer
> 5 votes
If *every single one* of the opponent's moves loses something, then he is considered to be in zugzwang. However, if he has a position where it's simply difficult to find a satisfactory move, then he would be considered *suffocated*, *cramped*, or even *squeezed*.

There's no official/accepted term for general restriction of your opponent's pieces, but any of the 3 I mentioned above are expressions which are commonly used. However, zugzwang is the official/accepted term for a position where all moves lose.

---
Tags: terminology
---


title: How can I continue in this situation?

text:
# Question
Title: How can I continue in this situation?
I am stuck for a move as White. Is there any way to go for a check-mate? I would take the black rook with my rook at d1 but would that be a bad decision?

# Answer
It's too early to be thinking about forcing a checkmate. Instead, you should focus on centralizing your pieces and getting them to work together. Your Rook on h1 and Knight on b5 are out of play, and aren't constructively helping your Rook on d1 fight in the center (and attack against Black's King).

You could exchange on d8, but keep in mind that with less pieces on the board, it will be more difficult to attack the Black King. I think a better move would be to play Nc3. This gets your Knight out of danger, and on c3 the Knight does the following: 1) It protects your King, 2) It protects the a4-pawn, 3) It blocks the c-file so Black's Rooks can't invade on it, 4) The Knight on c3 can leap to the e4-square at any moment.

After moving your Knight to c3, I would suggest getting Rh1 into the game. At this point your 3 pieces will be working together, and you have good chances to mount an attack against the Black King (assuming that remains your goal).
> 2 votes

# Answer
You don't have a checkmate plan. Let's talk about it when you are able to queen a pawn. 1.Rxd8 is a reasonable move here.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: analysis
---


# Question
Title: How is notation done for similar pieces capturing the same piece?
When a capture can be made by two rooks, or two knights, etc., how does the notation clarify which piece makes the capture?

For example, if two pawns, one at e4 and one at c4, capture a pawn at d3, the notation will say exd3 or cxd3, sure. But if two knights capture the same piece, how is that notated? Or for two rooks, or queens? In the case of the knight, it would only say Nxd3, but that doesn't clarify which knight took the piece.

# Answer
> 15 votes
Your two knights are on d2 and f2.

```
Ndxe4, Nfxe4,

```

Your two knights are on f2 and f6.

```
N2xe4, N6xe4

```

Your three knights are on d2, f2 and f6 (you promoted a pawn)

```
Ndxe4, Nf2xe4, N6xe4

```

# Answer
> 1 votes
Assume you have Knights on e5 and c5. If Nc5 captured on d3, you would write:

1...Ncxd3

If Ne5 captured on d3:

1...Nexd3

The key is using the column letter to distinguish pieces.

If the pieces are on the same column, such as Knights on e4 and e6, then you would distinguish via their row numbers. Example:

If Ne4 captured on g5, you would write:

1. N4xg5

If Ne6 captured on g5, you would write:

1. N6xg5

If you have the choice of distinguishing between column letter and row number, choose column letter. This isn't required by any means, but it tends to be the convention. Example -- Rooks on e6 and g4.

If Re6 captured on g6, you should write:

1. Rexg6 (not R6xg6).

---
Tags: notation
---


title: Is this a trap?

text:
# Question
Title: Is this a trap?
So I have a game board as follows where my opponent moved their bishop to be openly captured by my queen.

Is there any reason for me to not take the bishop? I can’t foresee any immediate counter moves but I don’t know if there is a trap a few moves ahead.

# Answer
It's not a trap, just a blunder. There's no way for White to take advantage of your slightly exposed queen or the unprotected knight on d4.
> 6 votes

# Answer
Imagine the position with the move `Qxg5` already played. Is there anything White can do to you that you would not like?

Look for checks, captures and threats. The only check is `Bb5+`, which can be met by `...Nxb5`, so no need to worry about that. White doesn't really have any dangerous captures or threats either, since if anything you can take on g2 next.

Since there's no reason not the take the bishop, take it and be a piece up!
> 5 votes

# Answer
No traps here, just a free piece. I'm guessing your opponent missed your Queen could take the Bishop.

A good way to figure out if something is a trap is to ask "What will have changed if my Queen is on g5 instead of d8"? Is there some kind of tactic against the Queen on that square (perhaps a discovered attack on it)? Was the Queen doing something important on d8 that it will not do anymore (such as defending the c7-pawn)?

The answers to both of these questions is no -- White has no tactics against a Queen on g5, and there is no way for White to take advantage of the Queen being missed on d8.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: learning
---


# Question
Title: Understanding the Tarrasch defence to the Queen's gambit
I do not understand the diagrammed position. Do you?

```
[fen ""]
[title "A. Grischuk vs. V. Kramnik, FIDE Candidates 2018"]
[startply "8"]

1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nf3 c5 5. e3 dxc4 6. Bxc4 a6 7. Bb3 b5 8. e4 cxd4 9. Nxd4 Bb7 10. e5 Ne4 11. O-O Nxc3 12. bxc3 Nc6 13. a4 Bc5 14. axb5 axb5 15. Rxa8 Bxa8 16. Nxb5 O-O 17. Qxd8 Rxd8 18. Bf4 h6 19. h4 Ne7 20. Rd1 Rb8 21. Bc4 Bc6 22. Nd4 Be4 23. h5 Nd5 24. Bxd5 Bxd5 25. Be3 Rc8 26. Re1 Bc4 27. Nf3 Ba3 28. Bd4 Bd3 29. Nd2 Bb2 30. Nf1 Rc4 31. Re3 Bf5 32. Ng3 Bh7 33. Kh2 Bc1 34. Re2 Bf4 35. Kh3 Ra4 36. Kg4 Bc1 37. Kf3 Bd3 38. Re1 Bb2 39. Ke3 Bc2 40. Kd2 Bb3 41. Rb1 Ra2 42. Kd3 Ba4 43. Ne4 Ba3 44. Ke3 Bc2 45. Re1 Bb3 46. g4 Bd5 47. Kd3 Be7 48. Rb1 Ra8 49. f4 Bh4 50. Rh1 Bd8 51. Rb1 Bc7 52. Ke3 Kh7 53. Nd6 Kg8 54. Rb5 Bc6 55. Rb4 Bd8 56. Bb6 Bh4 57. Bd4 Bg2 58. Rb2 Bc6 59. Rb6 Bg2 60. Rb2 Bc6 61. Rb3 Bg3 62. c4 Bh2 63. f5 exf5 64. Nxf5 Kh7 65. Bb2 Re8 66. Nd6 Re7 67. Rb8 f6 68. Rc8 Bh1 69. Nf5 Rb7 70. exf6 Rb3+ 71. Bc3 gxf6 72. Kd2 Bf4+ 73. Kc2 Rb8 74. Rxb8 Bxb8 75. Ne7 Be4+ 76. Kd2 Bf4+ 77. Ke2 Kg7 78. Nf5+ Kf7 79. Bd2 Be5 80. Bxh6 Ke6 81. Be3 Bxf5 82. gxf5+ Kxf5 83. h6 Kg6 84. c5 f5 85. Kf3 Kf7 86. Bf4 Bd4 87. c6 Ke7 88. c7 Kd7 89. h7 Kc8 90. Ke2 Kd7 91. Kd3 1-0

```

What is the idea behind 4... c5? Why form a hostile bloc of two black against two white pawns on the c and d files? Once the bloc is formed, how does one decide whether

* to capture toward the c file (as Black soon does),
* to capture toward the d file (which, inscrutably, neither player wishes to do), or
* not to capture at all?

This kind of position is opaque to me. I do not understand it. I am aware of no principles by which one can treat it. I perceive no relevant pattern in a bloc of four pawns. Please advise.

I would gladly read an answer at any level but would find most useful an answer pitched at about Elo 1350 or USCF class C.

(Source for the game: Chess.com.)

# Answer
> 3 votes
Black's idea is to try to neutralize White's center pressure by making the situation appear equal. One idea for both sides is to take the c-pawn after their opponent has moved the King's Bishop. For example, if White plays Bd3, Black may play ...dxc4, causing White to lose a tempo by having to move the Bishop again.

This mutual dilemma makes development tricky, as both sides need to develop the King's Bishop in order to castle. What often happens is that White resolves the tension with his c-pawn and Black's d-pawn, and then both sides continue with normal development. The main line from the diagrammed position (after 4...c5) is as follows:

5. cxd5 (resolving the tension) exd5 6. g3 Nc6 7. Bg2 Be7 8. 0-0 0-0

At this point, Black's c-pawn and White's d-pawn tend to be exchanged soon. This results in a position where Black has an isolated pawn, but in return gets slightly more active pieces.

One of the main goals (for Black) of the Tarrasch is to reach such an isolated d-pawn position, since in return for an isolated pawn Black gets good activity.

In the game you posted, Kramnik decided to take on c4 before White moved his King's Bishop. If he wanted to play a pure Tarrasch setup, he would have waited with ...Nc6 or ...a6. The reason he took on c4 immediately is that he wanted to transpose to a QGA setup.

# Answer
> 10 votes
> What is the idea behind 4... c5?

Basically the same ideas as behind playing c4 in the Queen's gambit:

* challenging the center,
* potentially exchanging the c-pawn for a valuable central pawn,
* opening the c file for a rook,
* giving the knight a square on c6 (which is often a better square for the knight if the pawn has moved to c5 already)
* potentially threatening to leave white with an isolated queen pawn (see below)

> Why form a hostile bloc of two black against two white pawns on the c and d files?

Why not? "Hostility" is not something you should be afraid of when playing chess.

> Once the bloc is formed, how does one decide whether ...

There is no strict rule here and various captures and no-captures have been tried and tested by good players. A typical motive you need to be aware of in these positions is the isolated queen pawn (IQP), i.e. a player might be left with a pawn on the d-file and without any pawns on the c and e files which could support it.

An IQP leads to somewhat asymmetric play, with one player trying to block and put pressure on this potentially weak pawn, while the other player (the one with the IQP) is trying to take advantage of his better piece play that is a result of the pawn structure and also has ideas related to advancing the IQP.

If there is no IQP on either side, the positions resulting from this opening are often very symmetric, potentially boring, and it is difficult to find a good plan in them.

So I'd say the decision on how to capture is basically determined by what kind of game you want:

1. with an IQP; asymmetric, unbalanced game with clear plans for both sides
2. without an IQP; symmetric, equal position, with unclear plans

---
Tags: opening, pawn-structure, candidates
---


title: Was this Kramnik's mistake?

text:
# Question
Title: Was this Kramnik's mistake?
```
[fen ""]
[title "A. Grischuk vs. V. Kramnik, FIDE Candidates 2018 (Mar 19, 2018)"]
[startply "140"]

1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nf3 c5 5. e3 dxc4 6. Bxc4 a6 7. Bb3 b5 8. e4 cxd4 9. Nxd4 Bb7 10. e5 Ne4 11. O-O Nxc3 12. bxc3 Nc6 13. a4 Bc5 14. axb5 axb5 15. Rxa8 Bxa8 16. Nxb5 O-O 17. Qxd8 Rxd8 18. Bf4 h6 19. h4 Ne7 20. Rd1 Rb8 21. Bc4 Bc6 22. Nd4 Be4 23. h5 Nd5 24. Bxd5 Bxd5 25. Be3 Rc8 26. Re1 Bc4 27. Nf3 Ba3 28. Bd4 Bd3 29. Nd2 Bb2 30. Nf1 Rc4 31. Re3 Bf5 32. Ng3 Bh7 33. Kh2 Bc1 34. Re2 Bf4 35. Kh3 Ra4 36. Kg4 Bc1 37. Kf3 Bd3 38. Re1 Bb2 39. Ke3 Bc2 40. Kd2 Bb3 41. Rb1 Ra2 42. Kd3 Ba4 43. Ne4 Ba3 44. Ke3 Bc2 45. Re1 Bb3 46. g4 Bd5 47. Kd3 Be7 48. Rb1 Ra8 49. f4 Bh4 50. Rh1 Bd8 51. Rb1 Bc7 52. Ke3 Kh7 53. Nd6 Kg8 54. Rb5 Bc6 55. Rb4 Bd8 56. Bb6 Bh4 57. Bd4 Bg2 58. Rb2 Bc6 59. Rb6 Bg2 60. Rb2 Bc6 61. Rb3 Bg3 62. c4 Bh2 63. f5 exf5 64. Nxf5 Kh7 65. Bb2 Re8 66. Nd6 Re7 67. Rb8 f6 68. Rc8 Bh1 69. Nf5 Rb7 70. exf6 Rb3+ 71. Bc3 gxf6 72. Kd2 Bf4+ 73. Kc2 Rb8 74. Rxb8 Bxb8 75. Ne7 Be4+ 76. Kd2 Bf4+ 77. Ke2 Kg7 78. Nf5+ Kf7 79. Bd2 Be5 80. Bxh6 Ke6 81. Be3 Bxf5 82. gxf5+ Kxf5 83. h6 Kg6 84. c5 f5 85. Kf3 Kf7 86. Bf4 Bd4 87. c6 Ke7 88. c7 Kd7 89. h7 Kc8 90. Ke2 Kd7 91. Kd3 1-0

```

I'm looking at yesterday's game between Grischuk and Kramnik, and I'm trying to understand (disclaimer: I'm a weak recreational player) where did Grischuk make the difference. Is it right to say that Kramnik blundered on move 70? Or was the game lost earlier?

(Game from Chess.com)

# Answer
I entered the position in ChessBase and got Komodo 9 to analyze it -- it says 70...Rb3+ was Black's best move by far, only giving White a +0.64 advantage (which means the engine thinks White is "64% of a pawn" better). The reason Rb3+ is a good move is that Black needs counterplay -- if he sits and does nothing, White will win easily (due to being up 2 pawns).

So, at that point the game was close to drawn, but White still had good chances to press and win (which he did).

Black's mistake was playing 76...Bf4+, giving White a winning advantage. Instead, he should have played 76...Bf3, attacking White's g4-pawn. Playing 76...Bf4+ allowed White to play 77. Ke2, stopping Black from playing Bf3.

It's important to note though that Kramnik's mistake isn't close to a blunder -- rather's it's a small inaccuracy that lost the game (at GM level this can happen). It's easy to analyze a game with an engine and criticize the play of even the top players in the world.

EDIT - I checked again on the engine, and Black should play 75...Bf3 instead of 75...Be4+ 76. Kd2 Bf3, since that just brings White's King one square closer.
> 6 votes

---
Tags: blunder, candidates
---


# Question
Title: What kind of semi-open file is better for your rook?
What kind of semi-open file is better for your rook?

One where your pawn is on it, or one where the opponents pawn is on?

# Answer
Generally when you read/hear something like "to put the rook on a semi-open file" it means a file where the opponent's pawn is on. The reasoning behind this is just *piece activity*, i.e. to maximize the available squares for the rook and also to attack something (the opponent's pawn on that file).

The only time where it makes sense (on general principles) to put a rook on a semi-open file where your own pawn is on, is if you want to support a passed pawn, typically with the rook from behind the pawn. However this situation would not be referred to as "putting the rook on a semi-open file".

PS: Of course there are situations (like the latter example above), where it could make sense to put the rook on a semi open file where your own pawn is located. However I understood your question as asking about the **general principle** that *rooks are supposed to be good on semi-open files*. In that case it would always be the semi-open file with your opponent's pawn.
> 8 votes

---
Tags: rooks
---


# Question
Title: Quintuple pawns / Interesting pawn structures
I played a game with an amateur that resulted in my opponent having tripled pawns right beside my doubled pawns.

I'm wondered if there were any games with quadruple pawns. After finding such games, I started thinking of the possibility of quintuple pawns (high level preferably). Are there any games with such pawn structures, or generally any interesting pawn structures as seen in the above picture? Also, as a side question, what are your picks on the weirdest and most interesting pawn structures in a game you've played/found?

# Answer
> 13 votes
According to Tim Krabbé, Kovacs - Barth, Balatonbereny 1994 was the game with the longest living quadrupled pawns (23 moves). That would imply that he (an authority when it comes to chess records) doesn't know of any games with quintupled pawns.

# Answer
> 12 votes
Wikipedia mentions Alekhine-Nenarokov 1907 and van der Wiel-Hort 1981 as two (and by no means the only) games with quadrupled pawns. I can find no mention of quintupled pawns.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I once had this position in one of my games as White:

```
r3qrk1/1bp3np/p3p3/1p1pPpp1/3b1P2/2PBP2P/PP4PB/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 20

1. exd4 (1. cxd4)

```

I played exd4, undoubling my pawns, but also considered cxd4, which would have resulted in a picturesque "pawn diamond". Stockfish gives nearly the same evaluation to both moves, so maybe I should have gone with the diamond just so I could said I really played it instead of almost played it! :-)

---
Tags: history, pawn-structure, famous-games
---


# Question
Title: What should I play in this BvN endgame position?
```
[Black "DrZ214"]
[fen "8/5p2/6k1/3KP3/6Np/8/8/b7 b - - 0 1"]

1... f5 2.Nh2 f4 3.e6 Kf6 4.Kd6 Be5 5.Kd7

```

Note: The board is from black's perspective. Black to move.

**I was black and lost this endgame, starting with 1...f5.** I thought it would be good to push the pawn and gain a tempo against his knight. I calculated that if he played en-passant (2.exf6), I would take his pawn with my bishop (2...Bxf6), 3. Nxf6 Kxf6, then his king would get up ahead of my pawn and it would be a draw.

He played 2.Nh2 instead, blocking my edge pawn. Then I played 2...f4 3. e6 Kf6 4. Kd6 Be5+ 5. Kd7, and I could tell I couldn't stop his pawn anymore. My darn bishop did not have enough room to get on a diagonal attacking e7.

Sorry I don't have full game record. We just take photos at the end of the game, and at interesting positions that we feel are pivotal, like this one.

So in hindsight, I could have tried a few other things like Kg5 or even Kf5, or else Bc3 to make some room for it. Even f6 might work? I feel like I should have at least been able to draw. Is there a winning move?

I tried entering this into some on-line tablebases, but it's a 7-piece endgame and they apparently aren't freely available.

# Answer
The 7 man tablebase (for which there is a free android app) says that the position is won for black and it says it is mate in 21 moves (with perfect play from both sides) after 1... Kg5 which is the only winning move.

To me this seems like the most logical move in the position. There is no danger of the white pawn queening anytime soon and Kg5 will attack the knight which will be forced to retreat to h2 or f2 trying to stop the h pawn. Knights are particularly bad at preventing h/a file pawns from advancing as the knights can easily run out of space on the side of the board. And with the white king far away you should have good chances to achieve this. Note that 1... Kf5 or Kh5 which would also attack the knight are not immediately as attractive as they run into potential checks by the knight (in a real game you should still consider these options of course).

After 1... Kg5 2. Nh2 or Nf2, black plays 2....Kf5 which (i) blocks the white king from helping the knight, (ii) prevents white from playing e6, (iii) eventually wins the pawn on e5 (e.g. if white play 2. Nh2 Kf5 3. Nf3 h3 and black has the tactics of Bxe5, Nxe5, h2).

Your approach (1...f5) does not make much sense from a practical point of view. Either you are playing for a draw, in which you could easily force it by 1...Bxe5; and white does not have sufficient mating material. Or you play for a win, but then 1...f5 does not make sense either as white can (at least) capture the pawn en passant which will basically force you to exchange bishop for knight on f6 after which the white king is just in time to catch the h pawn (i.e. to reach the square h1). So it would be a poor winning attempt with added risk of losing. Generally if you want to win such endgames it is better to keep as many pawns on the board as possible. This is even more important in this example where you have the wrong bishop for the h-pawn: i.e. you could not win king + bishop + h-pawn against the bare king as long as the white king makes it to h1 in time.
> 10 votes

# Answer
Bxe5 guarantees at least a draw for you. He doesn't have mating material and so he will have to fight for the draw. Although after NxB+ for white followed by Nxf7 his king will easily reach h1 to guarantee the draw.
> 2 votes

# Answer
I think there's no need to sacrifice the bishop immediately. You can always sacrifice it on e7 so you get the same endgame but the white king will not be so close to your pawns. Of course Be5+ loses but you could have tried Bb2( or Bc3). Now e7 loses the pawn to Ba3+(or Bb4+) and Bxe7 next move.6. Ng4+ Kg5 7. Kxe7 Kxg4 is of course winning. If White chooses Kd7 instead of e7 then again Ba3 transposing after e7. If the Knight moves Kf5 preparing Ke4 and f3 winning. Another way to achieve a similar setup is Bishop instead of King to f6. Now Ng4 is simply met by Bg5 and the critical test is e7 Bxe7 Kxe7 Kf5 to prevent Ke6. If Kf7 h3 seems dangerous with the idea of making a route for the King to g3 via h4. If Kd6 then Ke4 with the same idea as above.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Your account of your thinking tells that you were already anxious when you reached this position, but there was no need to be. There were at least three reasons to be optimistic, and with more experience you would have seen all of them immediately.

1. Although you saw the Pe5 as a strength and a threat, it is really a weakness. As others have said, you could just capture it to get a draw, but you ought to be trying for a win. If White ever allows you to play Kf5 you will attack that Pawn twice, and tie down both of his pieces.You played the only move on the board that turned that Pawn into a strength.
2. As has again been said, Knights have great difficulty stopping Rook pawns. This a helpful bit of endgame trivia that deserves to be tucked away.
3. An advantage of having the Bishop is that you can make waiting moves, and use zugzwang

Im rather surprised that the tablebase gives only one winning move, but that sort of thing is a bit irrelevant to amateur games. The important thing is that only Black has any objective chance to win. An important practical point is not to let the WN capture the h-pawn, because even if you get the e-pawn in return, being one solitary pawn ahead would be a difficult win at best.
> 2 votes

# Answer
The pawn is White's only winning chance, so if you eliminate it by the suggested bishop capture, he has to try to hold the draw against your pawns. His lone knight isn't mating material. Your ..., f5 move just gave him a dangerous passer. Unfortunately our opponents don't always go along with our plans. I'm not a rated Expert, but the subsequent White Nxf7 line seems to give Black chances to promote the h pawn, since the White king doesn't seem to be able to reach h1 if Black doesn't recapture the knight and instead maneuvers his king correctly, say initially to f5, followed by pawn to h3. It looks like White's then going to be too late to stop the pawn.
> 1 votes

# Answer
This looks like a win for black. After 1.\__ Kg5, black is already threatening Kf5 picking up the pawn.

2.Ne3 is a bad reply because of 2.\__ h3 3.Nf1 {forced already} 4.Kf4 e6 5.fxe6+ Kxe6 6.Bb2 . Now, the moves Bc1-Kf3-Kg2 is unstoppable. eg: 6.Kf7 Bc1 7.Kg6 Kf3 8.Nh2+ Kg3 9.Nf1 Kg2 . But white has a trump here. (I agree it is more complicated than what I thought first). Black will need better tactics to win! 6.Kf7 Bc1 7.Kg6 Kf3 8.Kh5 Kg2 9.Kg4 (or Kh4). Now black has to lose a tempo if necessary in order to win.

a) 9.Kg4 Bd2 10.Kh4 Be1+ 11.Kg4 Bf2 {The path taken by the bishop is interesting. A nice zig-zag. This position can be reached in other ways. This sequence looks more beautiful to me.}

b) 9.Kh4 Bh6 {lose of tempo} 10.Kg4 Bd2 and continue as in variation a.

The remaining move that deserves consideration is 2.Nh7 .

2.Nh7 Kf5 3.Nf3 h3 and the pawn on e5 is gone. eg: 4.Kd6 Bxe5+ 5.Nxe5 h2 . Note that 4.Nh4+ Kg4 drops the knight.

Thank you for the question.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: analysis, endgame
---


# Question
Title: Why is White's "25. Bh4" considered a great move in Karjakin vs Kramnik at FIDE Candidates Tournament 2018?
I was watching Karjakin vs Kramnik at the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2018, Round 9, and simultaneously observing the chat feed at chess24.com, where people unanimously glorified the move `25. Bh4`. Why was it considered such a good move?

```
[FEN ""]
[Event "FIDE Candidates Tournament 2018"]
[Date "2018.03.20"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Sergey Karjakin"]
[Black "Vladimir Kramnik"]
[StartPly "49"]

1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3
c5 7. Rb1 Be7 8. Nf3 O-O 9. h4 cxd4 10. cxd4 Nc6 11. h5 f5
12. exf5 Qa5+ 13. Bd2 Qxf5 14. Bc3 h6 15. Bd3 Qg4 16. Kf1 e5
17. d5 e4 18. dxc6 exf3 19. gxf3 Rxf3 20. Be2 Rxf2+ 21. Kxf2
Bc5+ 22. Kf1 Qf4+ 23. Bf3 bxc6 24. Be1 Be6 25. Bh4 Rf8 26. Kg2
Kh8 27. Rc1 Rf5 28. Rc3 Rd5 29. Bxd5 Bxd5+ 30. Rf3 Qg4+
31. Bg3 Bd6 32. Rh3 Be7 33. Qe2 Be4 34. Qf2 a5 35. a4 c5
36. Rh1 Bf6 37. Re1 Bc6 38. Ree3 c4 39. Qe2 Qxh5 40. Qxc4 Bd7
41. Rd3 1-0

```

# Answer
The reason behind `25. Bh4` is very concrete, namely: With `Rf8` coming next for black, white's bound to play `Kg2` to unpin and cover `f3` but without preparing it with `Bh4` it leads to the following forcing variation:

```
 [title "25. Kg2 without Bh4"]
 [fen "r5k1/p5p1/2p1b2p/2b4P/5q2/5B2/P7/1R1QBK1R w - - 0 1"]

 1. Kg2 Qg5+ 2. Bg3 Rd8 3. Qxd8+ Qxd8 4. Rb8 Bc8 5. Bg4 Qd5+ 6. Kh2 Bd6 7.Rxc8+ Kh7

```

This line forces white to give up the queen for the two pieces, and it is definitely still among the winning variations for white but for practical reasons I reckon Karjakin intended to keep his queen on the board and avoid that variation for good, which he perfectly achieves with `25. Bh4` as it stops both `Qg5+` and `Rd8` and sets up `Kg2.`
> 7 votes

# Answer
White wants to move his King to g2, but if he does so right away then Black can play ...Qg5+. By playing Bh4, White covers the g5-square, allowing his King to seek haven on g2.

Also, playing Bh4 activates the Bishop (it was extremely passive on e1), and allows White to connect his 3 major pieces after playing Kg2. Overall, just a great multi-purpose move in a position that seems chaotic to handle.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: analysis, candidates, kramnik, karjakin
---


# Question
Title: Are connected doubled (4 pawns on 2 files) a weak structure?
It seems to me to be a very solid structure that can play very good in the endgame.

Example: pawns on c2, c3, d2, d3.

# Answer
It is a solid structure indeed, avoiding one of the most important weaknesses of doubled pawns, which is that they're generally hard to protect. Also, they're less easy to block than just a c- and d-pawn, since the backward pawns can attack enemy pieces on the blocking squares.

However, this structure only influences the b-, c-, d- and e-files, while a 'regular' connected pawn structure influences 6 files. Such a structure is also more likely to be able to force breakthroughs. Everything depends on context, as user1583209 notes, but in general it's better *not* to have doubled pawns.
> 6 votes

# Answer
The structure itself isn't weak, since as you mentioned all of the pawns are solid and protecting each other. The problem is that you can't do much offensively with these pawns. Take the following example:

Black has his c-, d-, e-, f- pawns.

White has the pawn structure you mentioned.

Notice how White is unable to block Black's f-pawn. Also, how is White supposed to do anything in the center? He can only really use his front 2 pawns in an attack, while the back 2 have to sit and wait.

It depends on the position though. Maybe you don't want to move any of your pawns, and controlling the squares around that 4-pawn block is more important.
> 5 votes

# Answer
The structure lacks mobility and is therefore inherently weak. The c2 and d2 pawns can not advance if attacked.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: endgame, pawns, pawn-structure, doubled-pawn
---


# Question
Title: Why is the Ruy Lopez such a common opening?
The Ruy Lopez opening is characterized by the moves:

```
[fen ""]

1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5

```

Why is this opening so popular? It does not appear to be particularly special/unique for white or black, so why is it a popular opening?

# Answer
The Ruy Lopez is pretty much the epitome of opening principles. White opens with the king pawn to claim the center, and black counters in the same way. Then white develops a knight (knights before bishops!) to attack black's pawn. Black defends the pawn with a knight. Finally, white develops a bishop to b5 where it works in harmony with the knight to attack e5. White prepares to castle at the same time.

So looking at the Ruy Lopez from that perspective, any other moves would violate some opening principle. Obviously there are plenty of openings that are played, but the Spanish Game is one of the oldest and one of the best.
> 35 votes

# Answer
There is a more subtle issue here. Why is `3.Bb5` more popular / better / more interesting than the Italian game `3.Bc4`?

In the Ruy Lopez, white isn't really going to win the `e5` pawn, and the bishop is anyway going to be kicked back to the `b3-f7` diagonal giving black the free moves `a6` and `b5`, so why not play `Bc4` in the first place?

The answer is that the bishop is tactically more vulnerable on `c4`, often making an equalizing move sequence `Nxe4` followed by `d5` feasible for black. In fact, due to this important difference, in the Ruy Lopez white always has time to build an ideal pawn centre with `c3` and `d4`, while in the Italian game this is more likely to lead to equality. So in the Italian game, white often has to be content with placing the d-pawn on `d3`.

More mysteriously, Carlsen has recently started to play the move `d3` in standard Ruy Lopez lines. You have to ask a 2700+ player to explain that one :)
> 21 votes

# Answer
I use the Spanish system on a daily basis. During my early years, I have been told that the Spanish system is one of the most complicated systems and should be learned at a later stage of the chess development ladder. Yes, technically, the white light squared bishop has four squares to choose from after 1.e2-e4, namely e2, d3, c4 and b5. Bf1-e2 is not so popular because it is passive. Bf1-d3 hinders the d-pawn to advance. Bf1-c4 is popular but you have to be an expert to avoid certain variations that give black comfortable play. Hence, we arrive at Bf1-b5.

```
[FEN ""]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5

```

So, what is the major difference between Bf1-c4 and Bf1-b5? That is the real question. First off, black cannot challenge early on using d7-d5, since the bishop is not on c4. Second of all, the bishop on b5 will pin the Nc6 to black's king as soon as black's d-pawn steps forward. Next, black can chase away the bishop using a7-a6 and b7-b5. Yet, this will place the black b-pawn on b5 and allow white the resource a2-a4 and axb5 to open up the a-file and create a target on b5.

The general plan for white in the Spanish system is to keep all the pieces on the board and slowly build up for an attack on the kingside or queenside or both. A typical idea is Nb1-d2-f1-g3 or -e3 to get the knight ready for attack. Another typical idea is c2-c3 to park the bishop on c2 with Bb5-a4-c2, which allows white to keep the light squared bishop from being exchanged off. In summary, the Spanish system is popular because it allows white to have a prolonged and complex battle for the initiative.
> 11 votes

# Answer
The Ruy Lopez is a "basic" opening. It was among the first to be invented and "standardized," first by Sr. Lopez himself, then by Morphy, Steinitz, Alekhine, and others, who discovered variations.

It involves both sides moving out their e pawns, then knights, in accordance with opening principles. Then white attacks Black's c knight with his bishop, Black parries with `...a6`, etc., and the battle is on in a natural flow.

Of course, you can use other openings involving other center pawns (e.g. the d pawns), other knights (White plays `2. Nc3`, or Black plays `2... Nf6`), but those are actually more complicated than the Ruy.
> 5 votes

# Answer
The very first time I played chess, I didn't know any openings and chose the Ruy Lopez due to mental intimidation then later found out its name and I play the scotch more often. It doubles up the pawns and removes the defender of the e pawn plus developing so it's very logical.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: opening, ruy-lopez
---


# Question
Title: LEAP PQ9912 Chess Timer - count up option
The advertisements for this clock say that it has a pre-set count up feature, but I cannot find it, nor does the instruction manual say anything about it. Does anyone know if this clock has a count up feature and if so, how to use it?

Thank you.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I honestly don't know either, but as far as I can tell (and if someone else can verify this for me that would be great), this is essentially the same clock as the Wholesale Chess Advanced Digital Timer, except in blue. If you google that clock and look at pictures, they seem identical, including having the same description of the various modes on the bottom of the clock, laid out in an identical format. The on/off switch is located in the same place, both clocks have the same shape and the same buttons, and the same modes as far as I can tell (I did not do a mode-by-mode comparison, but they both have 38 pre-defined modes, one user-defined mode numbered 00, and they both allow you to save changes to a single pre-defined mode, labeled F). Anyway, the Wholesale clock does not seem to have a count-up timer, so I strongly suspect this one does not either.

---
Tags: chess-clocks
---


# Question
Title: Best practical chances after g5 forking knight and bishop
I am a beginner playing white and it's my turn to move. What is the best possible move in response to this fork?

```
 [title "Game position after fork:"]
 [fen "r1bqr1k1/ppp2p2/2n1pn1p/3p2p1/1b1P1N1B/2N1P3/PPPQBPPP/R3K2R w KQ - 0 1"]

```

# Answer
> 5 votes
*Disclaimer* : in any case you are lost if your opponent plays reasonnably enough.

Assuming that you don't want to resign at move 10, my suggestion would be to continue with 10.Bg3 gf4 11.Bf4. Black's king is slightly weakened, you hit h6 and plan to continue with 0-0-0,f3,g4,h4,g5 to try and open his kingside as much as possible. In positions with opposite castles, material is not the single most important criteria, king security and initiative matter too.

If Black plays passively or conservatively, say 11...Kg7, then 12.f3 prevents Ne4, and with Bd3 and g4-g5 you may be able to muddy waters enough to induce later mistakes by Black.

If he plays actively and purposefully, with 11...Ne4 (or even 10...Ne4) 12.Qd3 e5!, not worrying about the Ph6 and intending ...Bf5, well, you hardly have anything to hope for...

# Answer
> 3 votes
The position is lost since you lose a piece for at most a pawn and no real compensation if black knows what to do.

For the *best possible move* in such situation you could consult a computer which would give you a move that it thinks is best based on its evaluation function. Likely it would still evaluate your position as -3 or so.

Anyway, if you are playing against a human, you don't want the objectively best move here, but the move (or line) that gives you **the most practical chances** or a move/line that gives your **opponent more chances to go wrong**. Some people call this "hope chess" which should normally be avoided, but in emergency situations could be your only hope.

Generally speaking this often means that in lost positions like this you:

* avoid simplification of the position, i.e. avoid the exchange of pieces
* try to complicate the position for instance by having more than one center of action
* try to set tactical traps
* go for a direct mating attack
* aim for getting stalemated (only works rarely and only in endgames)

For the position at hand, I believe the most practical chances would give you an attack on the black king. A few factors help you here: Black has weakened the pawn structure in front of his king, a large part of black's forces are concentrated on the queenside far away from the king. Your plan should be to move as many forces as possible to the kingside and to open a file or two for your rooks. Also acting quickly would be essential before black can make use of his extra piece.

Apart from winning a piece, black also has Ne4 which is very unpleasant because of the pin of the knight on c3; and e5 which frees black bishop on c8 and threatens to open the center against the uncastled white king. There is not much white can do to prevent these, or any attempt would basically mean passive play which is not what is needed here.

With this in mind you can think of how to achieve your goals and analyze concrete lines. Keep in mind that there is no (objective) right or wrong here, so I just give a few thoughts without saying that one line is better than the other.

* 1. Bxg5 hxg5 You win a pawn, but material is not important in this situation. Also your knight ends up being attacked and you lose another move having to move the knight. Also you don't have any good square for the knight: on h5 it gets exchanged, on d3 you run into Ne4 and on h3 it is on the rim and stands in the way for your attack.
* 1. g3 with the idea that if black takes on h4 or f4 you can retake gxf4 or hxh4 getting an open g file for your rook and potential attacks on the king.
* 1. Nh5 hoping for Nxh5 2. Bxh5 gxh4 which would have removed one black defender from the kingside and created a half-open g file. Potentally you could transfer your queen via e2-f3 (or g4) to the kingside.
* 1. Bd3 hoping that some tactics might turn up along this diagonal.
* 1. g4 aiming for eventually playing g5, either supported by a rook from g1 or (if black takes gxf4 2. exf4) by a pawn from f4.
* 1. Bg3 and the continuation given by Evargalo

Disclaimer: All of the above is for a position where your opponent still has to convert the advantage not for a position where you are lost because of a mating attack.

# Answer
> 2 votes
The position is completely lost. Computers don't evaluate swindle potential. I would try Nd3, because a half-open g-file has some value and the pawn (after ...gxh4) is quite weak. Meanwhile you hit the annoying bishop that is pinning your Knight. ...Bxc3; bc3 gh4; f3 (immediate e4 embarrassed by ...Nxe4) and hope your opponent makes a serious error.

# Answer
> 1 votes
My Elo: 1900 on Lichess. My vote would be to take the pawn with the bishop here. That way at least you would have damaged the king side pawn structure and get an semi-open h-file, which might be useful going forward. Because of the fork, you cannot avoid losing one of your pieces anyway.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Seeing the position, it seems like you are lost, as you certainly lose a piece to the fork. Assuming you do not want to resign at this point, I recommend playing Bxg5 hxg5 Nd3, followed by h4 to try and open the position and incite your opponent to make a mistake.

# Answer
> 0 votes
There are three elements to chess. Space, time and forces. Since you are a man down, you can compensate with trying to gain more space and control and try to run their time down. Capturing the pawn grabs a pawn and messes up his space meaning it is extremely logical. 1.Bxg5 hxg5 2 Nh5 trying to gain initiative and rip open his position. White is also not so good because he isn't castled and the bishop will mess the pawn structure up. Try to complicate the position, create traps and avoid exchanges.

---
Tags: analysis, beginner
---


# Question
Title: What is the maximum number of passed pawns in a position?
Something I have wondered about recently is the maximum number of passed pawns that is theoretically possible. What is the answer, and the fastest way to achieve that result?

# Answer
EDIT: record is now 20.0 moves! (See below.)

If we like pawns undoubled...

```

[title "16 non-doubled passed pawns in 21.0 moves"]
[fen ""]
[startply "42"]

1. g4 h5 2. g5 Rh6 3. gxh6 g5 4. h4 g4 5. b4 e5 6. f4 e4 7. Nf3 exf3 8. e4 f5 9. e5 Qg5 10. Nc3 a5 11. Ne4 fxe4 12. c4 a4 13. Qb3 axb3 14. a4 b5 15. a5 d5 16. c5 Bd6 17. cxd6 c5 18. Ra4 c4 19. d4 Na6 20. hxg5 Nc5 21. dxc5 bxa4 *

```

If we like all our pawns doubled, there's just a small improvement possible...

```

[title "16 passed pawns (all doubled) in 20.5 moves"]
[fen ""]
[startply "41"]

1. a4 b5 2. a5 d5 3. c4 h5 4. Ra4 bxa4 5. c5 e5 6. g4 Bd6 7. cxd6 c5 8. e4 f5 9. Ne2 h4 10. Ng3 hxg3 11. h4 Rh5 12. gxh5 g5 13. Bc4 dxc4 14. d4 f4 15. Be3 Bf5 16. exf5 fxe3 17. f4 e4 18. d5 Qb6 19. axb6 a5 20. b4 g4 21. b5 *

```

But best of all, curiously, is if we mix doubled and undoubled...

```

[title "16 passed pawns in 20.0 moves!"]
[fen ""]
[startply "40"]

1. d4 c5 2. f4 e5 3. f5 d5 4. Bf4 Be6
5. fxe6 exf4 6. e4 f5 7. e5 c4 8. Bd3 Bc5
9. dxc5 cxd3 10. c4 a5 11. b4 a4 12. Qb3 axb3
13. a4 b5 14. a5 h5 15. g4 Rh6 16. g5 d4
17. gxh6 g5 18. h4 g4 19. Ra4 Qg5 20. hxg5 bxa4 *

```

I don't think this can be beaten, and the other 20-move positions are quite narrowly defined: the captures from a file to h file must be R,Q,B,B,B,B,Q,R/N.
> 16 votes

# Answer
16 passed pawns in 26 moves.

```

[fen ""]
[startply "52"]

1. b4 a5 2. b5 Na6 3. bxa6 b6 4. Ba3 c6 5. Bb4 axb4 6. a4 b5 7. a5 c5 8. d3 c4
9. Nd2 Qc7 10. Nb3 cxb3 11. c4 d5 12. c5 d4 13. Qd2 e5 14. Qc3 dxc3 15. d4 e4
16. e3 Bh3 17. Bd3 exd3 18. gxh3 h5 19. Ne2 h4 20. Ng3 hxg3 21. h4 g5 22. h5 g4
23. h4 g2 24. f4 Qe5 25. fxe5 f5 26. e4 f4 *

```
> 11 votes

---
Tags: theory, problems, pawns, records, passed-pawn
---


title: World Cup: passed pawns vs extra piece

text:
# Question
Title: World Cup: passed pawns vs extra piece
```
[fen "N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34"]
[white "Max Illingworth"]
[black "Pentala Harikrishna"]

```

White to move.

In this World Cup game, Black demonstrated the power of pawns and won the game despite being a piece down. I think White's defense in the game was very weak (possibly due to time pressure). I think this is the critical position, White needs to decide what to do with the extra piece. Despite a piece down, I think this is close to winning for Black, but the computer thinks it's only slightly better for Black.

Is there a defense for White? Is there a better line than the continuation played in the game?

# Answer
> 4 votes
Despite this post being over 2 years old, the position seems to be very interesting and caught my attention. So here are my two-cents on it:

I'm rather surprised by white's follow-up moves in that game, I just don't see what is being gained! Instead, first thought that comes to my mind is to bring the `h3` bishop into the game, which in fact in the actual game is left on `h3` for at least 10 moves, then moved to `f1` and eventually `e3-Be2` is played, but in all that the light square bishop has played no role whatsoever to justify white for being up a piece.

So let's simply focus on that and try to revive the bishop with `Kf1` and `Bg2.` Once our bishop is in play, the trade of black's bishop for our knight will likely be in our favour as we'd still have our two pawns, and two active pieces against the single rook, whereas in the game itself, once the bishop is brought into the game, white has already lost the `h2` pawn and black's pawns are already storming down the board.

Here's an annotated diagram to study `Kf1-Bg2` idea:

```
 [title "A different approach for white: reviving the bishop"]
 [fen "N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34"]

 1.Kf1 Rxa7 2.Bg2 g5 {the early g-pawn push is mainly aimed at stopping white's h-pawn from advancing and attempting to undermine black's pawn chain. If black is allowed, g4 is next.} 3.Bc6 {Important move here: stops the Ra4 - Rf4+ - Rg4 maneuver, and leaves g2 as Luft for the king thus freeing the rook from the first row, more active prospects compared to g2, and temporarily untouchable on c6 as Ra6 can be answered by Be8+ and Nc7, all while maintaining control over the important long diagonal. } g4 (3...e6 4.Rb7+ Rxb7 5.Bxb7 {and if anything the draw is well in hand, as we've kept the knight next to the opposite color bishop situation.})  4.Nb6 {hard to find an immediate plan for black} Bd4 {prophylactic vs Nd5} (4...Bxb6 5.Rxb6 {and unlike the actual game we still have the h-pawn, our bishop is in play, and our rook in time to go behind the pawns} h5 6.Kf2 h4 7.Rb8 Ra3 8.Bd7 e6 9.Rh8 {forcing h3 with all the pawns on light squares, then we just have to stop f4 and black cannot make progress.} h3 10.Rh6 f4 11.Kg1 {side-stepping g3 with check, as that would probably be losing on the spot} Ra1+ 12.Kf2 Rh1 13.Bxe6+ Kg7 14.Rh4 Rxh2+ 15.Kg1 Rxe2 16.Bxg4 h2+ 17.Kh1 Rf2 18.Rxh2 {it's worth exploring some of these lines as they're very sharp and concrete therefore highly non-trivial.}) 5.Nd5 e6 6.Nf4 Rc7 7.Ba4 {Even Rb7 looks sufficient for a draw, but requires more calculation to make sure.} d5 8.h3 {if Be3, Ng2 works which is lucky. As for the rest: we've brought all pieces into play, pinned most black pawns to light squares, and managed to trade our h pawn, and big prospects of holding this position, and even winning it if black goes wrong.}

```

So in summary, it seems that by bringing the bishop into play immediately, we've managed to muster up an actual defense against the pawn storm, and even create active play, thus in fact making a case for being a piece up! This seems to be far more playable than the version of the endgame that transpired in the actual game.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Its clearly very difficult for White, surely if the computer thinks otherwise it can show you why.
To me the position after 23..Nd5 was more critical. White then allowed Nxe3 grabbing a good bishop and smashing his pawns.

# Answer
> -1 votes
For white, it's hard. At any cost, white should try to keep the king on white (as the bishop is on black). King to F3 could be a decent move. Also moving the pawn to E3 when the Bishop moved away to prevent being taken by the king. White should be focusing on making space for the king to move away. But black has many pawns which kind of makes it obvious that he will win.

Also, trying to take as many pawns as possible without losing an own piece could help a lot, but this is also hard.

Don't hate me but I think king to F3 is a good move, since the bishop has to move away and the pawn can move

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Tags: endgame, pawns, sacrifice
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# Question
Title: Guidelines for chess tournament prize distribution
Does FIDE or any national organization offer any guidelines on prize distribution for chess tournaments?

Are there specific patterns on how top-heavy the payout should be, or the balance between place and class prizes which have wide adoption?

# Answer
The *US Chess Federation Official Rules of Chess 5th Edition* has a section (section 33, if you have a copy) that has some guidelines about prizes. These are specifically described as recommendations and not rules.

A ratio of 10 to 1 between the top prize and the entry fee for serious tournaments is suggested (and perhaps even more if you want to attract top players.)

It suggests that class prizes be at least the amount of the entry fee, and also suggests that the place prizes all be higher than the class prizes.
> 2 votes

# Answer
There are no official guidelines for how big the prizes should be or even if they should even be money.

As an example our club winter swiss starting in January is offering $500, $375, $250, $175, $100 in the open section and $150, $100, $50 in under 1850 section.

The amounts of the prizes for the different places is not something you should obsess about. Of far greater importance is how prizes are going to be awarded in case of ties. This must be decided in advance and announced before the tournament starts. Ideally it should appear in promotional literature produced before the event.

For reference our club offers cash prizes and trophies (not wishing to be too insulting, it's the thought that counts, but typically these cost \< $5 down the local trophy making shop).

Cash prizes are split evenly between equal place finishers with no attempt at tie-breaks. This is the intelligent approach which avoids too much worrying or fighting over the calculation of numbers after the decimal point. Trophies *are* split using a tie-break system (Solomon-like solutions cutting up a trophy don't make sense) and are also spelt out in the pre-tournament conditions, usually median Buchholz followed by various flavours of Sonneborn-Berger.
> 1 votes

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Tags: tournament-directors
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title: Why did Kung Fu Chess shut down?

text:
# Question
Title: Why did Kung Fu Chess shut down?
Kung Fu Chess, a chess variant in which there are no turns (everyone can move at once with a time delay for each piece), began in 2002 by Shizmoo games, and the website suddenly went offline in 2008 despite a large following and many proficient players.

Is the reason for their sudden demise known and are there present day alternatives to kung fu chess?

# Answer
> 11 votes
No reason for Shizmoo's site closure in 2008 has been published online that I could find. There is a forum for former Kung Fu Chess enthusiasts here, but it's not particularly busy at the moment: http://www.zenchess.com/forum/

A few turnless/live chess variations inspired by Kung Fu Chess have sprung up, though, notably:

### Ninja Chess for iPad

http://www.nordlysa.com/ninjachess/

Two players, iOS.

### Real Time Chess

http://play.svenardo.com/chess/

One-player vs computer, in-browser, iPad, Mac and Windows, where the first player to capture the king wins. Moved pieces cannot be moved again until their timer completes.

### JebChess

http://jebchess.com/

A four-player live version.

# Answer
> 5 votes
I just launched a remake of Kung Fu Chess at https://www.kfchess.com/. Check it out and let me know what you think!

# Answer
> 4 votes
judochess.com is the new tempest chess website, there are some highly skilled players but servers sometimes lag

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Tags: chess-variants
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