# Question
Title: How can I place certain pieces on a 5x5 chess board without any of them attacking each other?
How can I place one queen, two bishops, two knights, and two rooks, on a 5×5 chessboard without any of them attacking other pieces?

After placing just queen and rooks, I can't make room for the other four pieces.

# Answer
For the sake of completeness, I used `chessboard`, a Python "CLI to solve combinatoric chess puzzles".

`chessboard solve --length=5 --height=5 --queen=1 --bishop=2 --rook=2 --knight=2`

outputs 24 boards, corresponding to 3 unique solutions, rotated or mirrored.

The queen must be on the edge of the board, but it can be anywhere along those edges (16 squares). There are 2 possible solutions if the queen is in the corner or in the middle square along the edge, for a total of 24 solutions.

Here's the output:

```
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└───┴───┴───┴───┴───┘

```
> 13 votes

# Answer
Qa3, Rb1, Rc4, Bd2, Nd5, Ne2, Be5
> 15 votes

# Answer
Another solution (not clearly equivalent to Glorfindel's)
> 9 votes

# Answer
Generated 12 positions using python-chess. Here are the links from lichess.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: puzzles
---


# Question
Title: What's PlayMagnus age 10 Magnus' true elo?
I do realise that a similar question might have been asked before; however, all intel about the topic that I have managed to gather to date seems to be outdated: almost everywhere I search, it is said that PlayMagnus age 10's estimated elo is 1500-1700, but I believe him to be much stronger than that. My Rapid elo on chess.com is 1850, but in order to beat him, I need to concentrate intensely, and even then I'm more likely to draw or lose than win. There is no doubt in my mind that the bot is stronger than me - I would estimate by about 200-300 elo points.

To this end, here is the question: am I simply significantly overrated, or is age 10 Magnus' true elo actually higher than what is commonly cited?

# Answer
> 7 votes
It's important to note the PlayMagnus app is running the Glaurung chess engine. The Glaurung chess engine is the forerunner of Stockfish. It's roughly about the same level as Shredder/Junior (link), both former winners in the computer chess championships. Very far away from the modern Stockfish but also far stronger than your chess.com's rating. You won't stand a chance unless the engine artificially plays bad chess. Unfortunately, there is no good way to make an engine play weaker while human-style chess. Lot's of different techniques, but nothing is satisfactory.

However, the PlayMagnus group has professional chess programmers working full-time to tune the engine for each age group. While I don't know their internal benchmark, the fact that they're pushing the app out means they're satisfied with the performance. Magnus Carlsen at age 10 was about ELO 2000 (from Wikipedia), so that'd be the target ELO. A tuned-down engine will not be playing consistently at human-level ELO 2000, but it should be closed given after so many years of professional development.

A very roughly ELO 2000+ (computer engines tend to biased up) is what you should expect. That's consistent with your observations.

# Answer
> 1 votes
The magnus 10 bot is so horribly coded I am not even joking. I have been playing chess for 4 years and I was able to beat age 9 within the first year but magnus age 10 I can only beat if I'm incredibly careful and play as if it's a tournament game.

The bot makes almost all perfect moves until it has a +5 advantage after which it plays inaccurately but still not bad enough for you to get a good lead. Sometimes it will have a mate in 3 but it will play crazy moves that do literally nothing but keep your king trapped. This is supposed to simulate a certain elo but it does it horribly.

I'll play a game with it rn and I'll send a link of the game's analysis.

Magnus age 10 bot is at least 2000 rated in terms of chess com elo.

# Answer
> 0 votes
It's impossible to answer. It doesn't have a true Elo.

There is hardly such a thing as "True Elo", because there are many different ratings and they can't be directly compared. But the most widely recognized, the FIDE rating, is based on *rated tournament games.* People are focused, have a lot of time, and they play other such people.

The rating you mentioned is your chess.com rapid rating. Chess.com uses a different rating system with different parameters, a different starting ratings, and a different pool of players. And it's for rapid, on an online site, where people usually aren't as focused as they are in a tournament game (and that differs a lot between players). It's not a "True Elo" either and it can't be directly compared to other ratings like FIDE.

Worse, computers, when they are tweaked to play at a lower strength than the default, *don't become weaker in the same way that humans do.* They are either given an extremely short amount of time, or they are sometimes forced to randomly play a worse move. Their resulting strength may still depend on your phone's CPU speed. It's very hard to say to what kind of human strength the resulting engine would correspond.

In short, if they manage to roughly come within a few hundred points of what they're aiming at, then I would consider that good.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Yeah I would say it's safe to say age 10 is pretty high rated. I'm winning somewhat consistently with no takebacks at age 8 (when he started tournaments) but age 9 it's extremely difficult even with takebacks. If I can get to consistently winning against age 10 I'd be happy.

I'd say age 8 = 1200-1500, 9 = 1600-1900 and he's a solid 2000 by age 10.

---
Tags: rating, elo
---


# Question
Title: Can a Chess Federation lower their NM title standard so people can get the benefits of it?
From what I read in the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess\_title#National\_titles it mentions

> Some national chess federations award titles such as "National Master" (NM). National chess federations are free to set whatever standards they want for such titles, which are not recognized by FIDE.

For example USA gives NM title for people who reached 2200 USCF rating which is quite strong and probably not so easy to achieve.

Can a national chess federation with a small chess community (people know each other including the officials) start giving NM titles to for example the top 100 players based on the fide ranking list. For a country like Nepal this would be a FIDE rating range of 2193-1667.

One of the advantages of the NM title is a free lifetime membership on chess.com.

Since there is no central governing body for NM title can it be abused in such a manner?

# Answer
It is worth looking at what chess.com say on the subject.

First, regarding free membership:

> First of all, if you hold a qualifying title (see list below), you get a lifetime Diamond membership for free. That gives you access to the best features available online for playing, sharpening your game, or finding students & doing online coaching!
>
> Qualifying Titles
>
> * GM - Grandmaster
> * WGM - Woman Grandmaster
> * IM - International Master
> * WIM - Woman International Master
> * FM - FIDE Master
> * **NM - National Master**
> * CM - FIDE Candidate Master
> * WFM - Woman FIDE Master
> * WCM - Woman FIDE Candidate Master

Next we should look at chess.com's definition of the national master title to see who is eligible for free membership like this:

> What Is The National Master Title?
>
> The national master title (abbreviated as NM) is a special title, as it is not recognized by the International Chess Federation. As the title suggests, it is a master title that is awarded by national federations.
>
> Not every chess federation awards this title, but several large federations do. In general, federations that award the NM title do so to players who achieve a national rating of 2200—although there are exceptions as well, which are discussed below.

So, basically chess.com are recognizing all NM titles awarded by federations. They are trusting the individual federations not to devalue their titles.

Can such a federation lower their NM title requirements thereby giving their players free chess.com membership?

Absolutely.

Would chess.com care if that happened?

Since the original decision to award free lifetime membership to titled players was a business decision it entirely depends how such a move would affect their business. If they see that it is positive for their business then they will welcome it. If it is negative then they will change the rule.
> 14 votes

---
Tags: fide, rating, etiquette, titles
---


title: What is the name of this mating motif?

text:
# Question
Title: What is the name of this mating motif?
Anyone know the name of this motif? I have seen it several times, but never knew the name. Source Polgar 5334 problems.

Can one classify this as a Legal's trap motif due to the *famous* Queen sacrifice(Bxd1)?

# Answer
The move Nxe5 echoes the famous game by Legal, because if black captures the queen, checkmate is then unavoidable. However, I would classify this motif as a `discovered attack`(which includes checkmate itself). There is some more useful information here

In the OP, the discovered attack is 1.Nf6+, which is followed by 2.Bxf7#
> 1 votes

---
Tags: checkmate, terminology, patterns
---


# Question
Title: Do FIDE and USCF require Writing Notation in Tournaments with Short Time Controls? When Writing Notation is Optional?
Do FIDE and USCF require Writing Notation in Tournaments with Short Time Controls? When is Writing Notation Not Required?

We are planning to organize a monthly 30+30 tournament (30 minutes for the entire game plus 30 seconds of increment per move), valid for the United States Chess Federation (USCF). One member of our club, who is a lawyer, suggested that if the tournament is 29+29, players can stop writing notation when they have 5 minutes in their clocks. Is that correct?

Additionally, in which time controls writing notation is optional in FIDE and USCF chess tournaments?

Can the tournament director use his/her discretion to make writing notation optional?

It has sense to enforce writing notation in 120+30, 90+30, or 45+45 games. However, in my perspective, without considering the official rules, it seems more logical that writing notation should be optional in short time controls.

Additionally, we are also considering 30+20 and 15+10 because those are time controls that are available and popular on lichess.org in the section ***"Quick pairing."*** The advantage of those time controls would be that potential players of our tournaments can play training games on lichess.org for free. I also noticed that the FIDE Rapid World Championship uses 15+10. ***What can you tell me about the differences, about writing notation, for FIDE and USCF between 30+20 and 15+10?***

# Answer
I can't answer this question with relation to FIDE rules, but I can tell you what the USCF rules are.

From the perspective of the USCF rules, neither of the time controls you propose (either 30+30, or 29+29) are really considered to be "short time controls", and the tournament will be dual-rated (rated in both the USCF Regular and Quick rating systems). As such, scorekeeping is required, and is not optional. Only in events that are solely Quick or Blitz rated is scorekeeping optional. For an event to be solely Quick rated, the sum of the number of minutes in the base time control, plus the number of seconds of increment or delay, must be greater than 10, but less than 30, and the number of minutes in the base time control must be at least 5.

If you use the 29+29 time control, then any time either player's remaining time is less than 5 minutes, neither player is required to keep score; in a time control with an increment of 30 seconds or more, both players are required to keep score at all times (USCF Rule 15C). If there was a secondary sudden death time control in your games (for example, in a time control that was something like 30/30, G/30 with a 30 second increment), a player who stopped keeping score in the first time control period because one or both players had less than 5 minutes remaining may be required to bring their scoresheet up to date once the players make the time control, but the tournament director may waive this (USCF Rule 15F4).

The tournament director's discretion to waive the scorekeeping requirement is limited to accommodation for players "unable to keep score" due to physical handicap or for religious reasons (when there is no assistance available to permit scorekeeping), and "beginners who have not learned to keep score may be excused from scorekeeping, at the director's discretion" (USCF Rule 15A1). The rule also notes that "Players who are excused from scorekeeping are not entitled to make claims that require scoresheets". Players who are excused from scorekeeping may have time deducted from their clocks, since the time they would have otherwise spent on keeping score would become thinking time for them - this is especially notable if one player is excused from keeping score but the other is not.

One of Tim Just's "Just The Rules" columns from a few years ago, on the USCF web site here, has a quiz on when keeping score is required, and when it is optional, that you may find informative.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Here is what the FIDE Laws of Chess taking effect from 1 January 2018 have to say. There are two relevant sections, one for the general rules and one for special rules for rapid and blitz time controls.

> **Article 8: The recording of the moves**
>
> Amendments regarding electronic scoresheets effective from August 1, 2022.
>
> 8.1.1 In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibly as possible, in one of the following ways:
>
> 8.1.1.1 by writing in the algebraic notation (Appendix C), on the paper ‘scoresheet’prescribed for the competition
>
> 8.1.1.2 by entering moves on the FIDE certified ‘electronic scoresheet’ prescribed for the competition.
>
> 8.4 If a player has less than five minutes left on his clock at some stage in a period and does not have additional time of 30 seconds or more added with each move, then for the remainder of the period he is not obliged to meet the requirements of Article 8.1.1.
>
> **Appendix A. Rapid chess**
>
> A.1 A ‘Rapid chess’ game is one where either all the moves must be completed in a fixed time of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player; or the time allotted plus 60 times any increment is of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player.
>
> A.2 Players do not need to record the moves, but do not lose their rights to claims normally based on a scoresheet. The player can, at any time, ask the arbiter to provide him with a scoresheet, in order to write the moves.

So, if the players get less than 60 minutes for the game including increment calculations then there is no need to record the moves and the first time the player's clock goes under 5 minutes they can stop recording if the increment is less than 30 seconds. I phrase it like this because after the player's clock goes under 5 minutes they can make a few quick moves leaving them with more than 5 minutes. In those circumstances they don't have to start writing again.

In a FIDE rated tournament where the players have 60 minutes or more, e.g. 30+30 there is still no guarantee that they have to write the moves down. This is because FIDE has "holes" in the time controls where it only rates the games of stronger players.

Here is what FIDE Rating Regulations effective from 1 January 2022 have to say:

> **1. Rate of Play**
>
> 1.1 For a game to be rated each player must at the start of the tournament have the following minimum periods in which to complete all the moves, assuming the game lasts 60 moves.
>
> Where at least one of the players in the game has a rating of 2400 or higher, each player must have a minimum of 120 minutes.
>
> Where at least one of the players in the game has a rating 1800 or higher, each player must have a minimum of 90 minutes.
>
> Where both of the players in the game are rated below 1800, each player must have a minimum of 60 minutes.

Hence for a FIDE rated competitions both 120+30 and 90+30 games would be FIDE rated and writing the moves required regardless of the strength of the players. However for 45+45 only games where both players were rated below 2400 would be rated and only those players required to write the moves.

The 2400 rating restriction is new this year. It used to be 2200. I kind of understood the 2200 restriction. It was because players above that level could compete for IM title norms and the restriction meant that the games they played that could qualify for a norm had to be at least 2 hours. Extending the range to 2400 means that IM norms could be gained by playing 90 minute games but GM norms would require 2 hour games.

For the lower restrictions for \>=1800 and \<1800 it doesn't make much sense to me. The USCF rules seem more logical.
> 7 votes

---
Tags: rules, fide, notation, time-control, uscf
---


title: Why are rooks better than knights?

text:
# Question
Title: Why are rooks better than knights?
Generally, rooks are considered to be much better than knights. Why is that? Is it a myth or are they really better? Are there situations where a knights may be better that a rook? I usually think that rooks enter the game a bit later and this reduces their value during the early stages of the game.

# Answer
Rooks are more suitable for open games where there are open lines. Knight are better for more closed games. Knights have the benefit of jumping over other pieces and rooks have the ability to move quickly whereas knights move very slowly.

Also, remember that you can't checkmate with just a Knight and King, so Rooks are probably more powerful in the endgame especially when the board is wide open.
> 25 votes

# Answer
There is always a situation where one piece can be better than another.

Rooks are superior to knights because they control more squares, and have more mobility. Also since they control whole ranks and files, they are able to bound the enemy pieces while knights and bishops are much more limited in that regard.
> 15 votes

# Answer
I agree with Xaisoft, and just want to add that in an open game, a rook can be very effective to reduce the opponent's pawns and keep the opponent's king "in place". While it is true that knights can be mobile in a close game, they are also very predictable. That being said, personally I'd be happy to see an opponent lose both of his/her knights.
> 9 votes

# Answer
## Piece Characteristics

Here are some things to consider when thinking about the strength of a knight vs. a rook (and much of this goes for other pieces in relation to the knight as well).

1. At the height of their power a knight can only ever attack 8 squares. On an open board, if placed in the a1 square, the worst placement for a rook, a rook can attack 14. Due to its movement pattern it can take up to six moves to get from a corner square to a specific square on the other side of the board.
2. A knight has a special condition that if it retreats from one square, it cannot continue to attack or defend the squares it was attacking or defending before its retreat. For instance, if a rook is defending e6 from e3 and is forced to retreat to e1 it still performs the job of defending e6. The same cannot be said for a knight.
3. Knights do not cooperate as well as other pieces. There are many exceptions to this, though. This relates directly to point number 2. Two rooks can be a powerful force on an open file but the case is far more common that two knights can become "redundant" and get in each others way as a knight supporting a knight reduces the number of potential retreat squares of a fellow knight much more than two rooks supporting each other in most practical cases.

## Exceptions

A major exceptions is the board positions with limited numbers of open files where one side will sacrifice the exchange (rook for knight) in order to gain a positional advantage, keep a knight from being strongly placed, or destroy the kings pawn cover and remove a defender. A common example of this occurs in the Sicilian when Black exchanges a rook for knight in order to continue his attack on the queen side.

`FEN=2r1k2r/1b1b1ppp/p2p1n2/qp2pP2/1N2P1P1/P1NB4/1PP1Q2P/2KR3R b k - 0 1`

`16... Rxc3` `17. bxc3 d5` `18. exd5 O-O` `19. Qxe5 Qxa3+` `20. Kb1 Bxb4` `21. cxb4 Nxd5` `22. Qb2 Nc3+` `23. Kc1 Na2+` `24. Kb1 Nc3+` `1/2-1/2`

Boris Spassky vs Lev Polugaevsky, USSR Ch 1960

## Knight Endgames

In general knight endgame theory is very similar to king and pawn endings. Normally if an attacker has a knight and pawn against a lone king the attacking side can easily win. But there is a special case of `K+N+P` v `K` where the knight is unable to assist the attacking king because it suffers from an inability to lose a tempo.

Here Black's king is badly placed and cannot win even with the additional material.

```
FEN=7n/8/8/8/8/8/p2K4/k7 w - - 0 1

```

`1. Kc1!` `(1. Kc2? Ng6 2. Kc1 Ne5 3. Kc2 Nd3` White is in zugzwang `4. Kxd3 Kb2 -+)` `1... Ng6` `2. Kc2` `Ne5` `3. Kc1` `Nd3+` `4. Kc2 Ne1+` `5. Kc1` `1/2-1/2`

## Endgame Positions where a Knight Defends against a Rook

Most positions where it is `K+N` v `K+R` are draws. The only exceptions being when the knight is separated from his king and when the defending king is at the edge of the board and subject to mating threats.

```
FEN=3KN3/7r/8/3k4/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 5

```

`5... Ke6` `6. Nc7+` `Kd6` `7. Ne8+` `Kc6` `8. Kc8` `Rh8` `9. Kd8` `Rh7` `10.Kc8` `Ra7` `11.Kd8`

Rook vs Knight Endgames

ChessGames.com - Examples from Games

As you should see the reason why a rook is considered stronger is due to the way the knight moves which means that it can never attack or defend as many squares as easily as a rook can. A rook can have power in long range or close range battles and is effective on both sides of the board, knights are only strong when well positioned on or near the 6th rank (for white). Rooks can be less effective in close positions and require on open file to be effective. Knights can thus be stronger in scenarios where there is only a single open or half open file and the game can be decided quickly by dynamic factors. These situations, however, are far rarer to the ones where the rook is stronger.
> 9 votes

# Answer
Ditto to most of what is being said. However let me add my 10 cents worth.

Knights are the coolest piece on the chess board. They can jump around and are unpredictable not predictable. Which way will the L be?

Yes you are right they are less effective on an open chess board with few pieces or on the edges of the chess board but how many times did you get the beautiful knight fork with check and ended up loosing your rook for nothing?

While a knight and king can not force mate, a night and a rook or a knight and queen are a different story altogether. What about the choking mate on the corner of the chess board with knight and queen? And please watch out for that knight check with a revealed attack on your queen or some other dignitary or else you will lose it!! King and queen forks? How many times have you had those in your Chess playing career? How did they effect the outcome of the game? Thanks to that elegant yet sneaky character called a knight.

What about the defensive strength of the knight if used properly? I've had games against amateurs when my knight held their queen at bay and protected my king. What about those tight games where you cant move? The knights are worth their weight in gold then aren't they?
> 6 votes

# Answer
Place a rook on a center square (on an open board). It can move to 14 other squares.

Place a knight on the same center square. It can move to only 8 other squares.

The ratio of a rook's value to a knights is 5 to 3, roughly that 14 to 8 ratio.

A rook is considered to be worth a knight and two pawns. Each pawn has two potential captures, plus an extra move (total of three). Two pawns plus a knight = 3+3+8=14, the movement factor of a rook.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Whether rooks are "better" than knights depends on the current position pieces on the board. One could say that a centralized knight that cannot be dislodged by enemy pawns may be "better" than a rook that is on it's original square and has no mobility. It may however, decrease in relative value if pieces and pawns are exchanged and the enemy rook moves to an open file for example. So in a few words, it depends on other factors like time, mobility, and which side has the initiative.
> 3 votes

# Answer
A rook can potentially land on every square on the board and protect/attack unencumbered stretches on two planes at once; more squares, more power. Knights are great but rooks are more strategically muscular.
> 2 votes

# Answer
I forget the source, but a Knight on the 6th rank supported by a pawn (i.e. on an outpost) is worth a rook and a pawn or two. Although my personal evaluation for such a piece is "magnificent beast". It makes good sense, in certain situations, to trade such a knight for a rook in a closed endgame position, where another piece can then capture the pawn that was supporting the knight.
> 2 votes

# Answer
To add a further point:

Doubled rooks are exceptionally powerful as well as flexible, one can reposition them while maintaining the cover for each other which you cannot do with two knights.
Also the single to eventual doubling up rooks on the seventh file is typically a game winning technique which forks the pawn structure while serving as a solid base to assault the enemy king.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Rooks are better than knights because they have more mobility than knights. Also you can checkmate with a king and a single rook while you can't checkmate with a king and a single knight even two knights cannot force checkmate in endgames
> 0 votes

---
Tags: knights, rooks, point-value, pieces
---


# Question
Title: Questions about USCF Tournaments Requirements to Get the U.S. Chess Master Title
We want to organize USCF chess tournaments valid to get the U.S. chess master title. Please answer the following questions:

1. Do we need a minimum of 4 rounds, if we are organizing a swiss system?
2. Do the following time controls work for that purpose?

* a) 15+10
* b) 15+15
* c) 30+0
* d) 30+20
* e) 10+20
* f) 5+25

3. Are online tournaments valid to get the U.S. chess master title?

# Answer
> 5 votes
The USCF has three different titles that are all colloquially referred to as "national master".

First and most commonly, any player that achieves a rating of 2200 or higher receives the title of "national master".

If a player maintains a rating of at least 2200 for 300 games (which do not have to be consecutive), they receive the title of "original life master". This used to be called simply "life master", but the new title system introduced titles named "life master" and "senior master", so this lifetime achievement was renamed for clarification.

Finally, the USCF's title system, introduced in 2008, has performance based titles. A player can achieve these titles by having strong performances in five separate events. For the life master title and the senior master title, there is also a rating requirement of 2200 and 2400 respectively. The full title system is described by Mark Glickman on his website: http://www.glicko.net/ratings/titles.pdf

---

All of the time controls you listed are valid for regular rating. However, the most common time control in the US for games lasting approximately one hour is G/25 d5.

Only over the board games that affect standard rating are considered for norms and the rating that is used for the master title. If your goal is to achieve norms, one consideration is that players must score at least one full point above the expected score for a player rated exactly 2200. For that reason, tournaments with more rounds make it easier to achieve these norms. Depending on the ratings of the participants, 5 or 6 rounds might make more sense. Players trying to achieve norms must complete at least 4 games, so a shorter tournament will not help with norms.

To answer your final question, online games do not affect regular rating and so do not help in the quest for titles.

# Answer
> 3 votes
The USCF awards a "National Master" title upon reaching a Regular over-the-board rating of 2200, as mentioned in another answer to this question. This doesn't require earning norms or anything like that, but it does only apply to a player's USCF Regular rating as earned via over-the-board play.

There are two ways to earn the USCF Life Master title (which is also recognized as "National Master", and lets you put the "NM" in front of your name):

1. Under the current title system, you need to have (or have had at some point) an established USCF Regular rating of 2200 or higher, and 5 Master-level norms. You can earn the norms before your rating reaches 2200, but even if you earn 5 Master-level norms before reaching the 2200 rating, the title is not awarded until your established rating reaches 2200.
2. It's still possible to earn the "Original Life Master" title, which is awarded after you start 300 games with an established USCF Regular rating of 2200 or higher. The 300 games need not be consecutive - if your established Regular rating drops below 2200 at any point, the count is "paused", and picks up again where it left off once your rating increases to 2200 again.

Norms are only awarded in events of 4 rounds or more. So if you expect your tournament participants to be able to earn Master-level norms, your tournaments must be at least 4 rounds.

USCF titles are only awarded for USCF Regular rated over-the-board play. Time controls of 30+0, 30+20, and 15+15 would be dual-rated (rated in both the USCF Regular and Quick rating systems - see USCF Rule 5C), so players in events with these time controls would be able to earn norms. The 15+10 time control would be USCF Quick rated only, and players in events with this time control would not earn any norms. For an event to be dual-rated, if the time control is G/*mm* with an increment of *ss* seconds, the event is dual-rated if 30 \<= *mm+ss* \<= 65; in all cases, the base number of minutes *mm* in the time control must be at least 5. Plus, of course, if *mm+ss* \> 65, the event is Regular rated only, and players in Regular-rated events can earn norms too.

Since USCF titles are only awarded for over-the-board play, online tournaments will not count towards either the Life Master nor the Original Life Master titles.

You can find a description of the USCF title system here, which describes all of this.

---
Tags: rules, tournament, notation, time-control, uscf
---


# Question
Title: Do strong players move their pieces with different relative frequencies than weak players?
This question is an offshoot of Ramon Snir's earlier one about how often different types of pieces get moved, on average, in a game of chess. My question:

> Do the relative numbers of moves for the given types of pieces differ when one looks at the games of stronger players as opposed to the games of weaker players? (For example, maybe the weaker players tend to make more pawn moves at the expense of piece moves, or they make too many queen moves. I don't know.)

I was able to give an answer to the earlier question using raw data that had been extracted from a large database by someone else. That data came from a sample of 4M+ games, ranging from grandmaster play down to weak amateur play, and the aggregate numbers for move totals that are given there don't discriminate on the basis of player strength. Answering my question will require getting separate data for games between strong players and games between weak players, and *I am looking for answers backed up by data rather than anecdotes*.

Here's a more specific form of my question:

> Is there some Elo rating threshold N such that, when one looks at the average numbers of moves in a game broken down by type of piece, there's a significant difference between what one finds in games featuring players above N, and what one finds in games featuring players below N.

It would be interesting if more of this sort of thing could be found too, i.e. concrete differences between stronger and weaker players that can be detected by data mining. Such findings could point to specific behaviors that hold players back, or conversely ones that propel them forward. Now, maybe there aren't any such differences to be found just by looking at this kind of data, but I'd be interested to know that too.

# Answer
> 41 votes
Here is a quick an dirty analysis based on the "Million Base" PGN database. I did this in a bit of a rush, so there may well be errors in my programming or logic. Please don't use it for anything too serious. **Update - Note:** Actually, I've just noticed I made a mistake with the data set, and limited it to the first 1 million records. I'll post an update when I get some free time to run it again on the full thing. In the meantime, these numbers should be interesting, nevertheless.

# Obtaining the data:

I obtained the Million Base 1.74 file from this URL, since the top-5000.nl site seems to 404 when you actually try to download it. The file contains just over 1 million games in PGN export format (that is to say, easy to parse).

Unfortunately, more than 60% of the games lacked any rating information (I was looking for "WhiteELO" and "BlackELO" tags), and even fewer had ratings for both players. In the end, I decided to get as large a sample size as I could, and counted a player's moves if his or her rating was known, regardless of the other player's rating.

# Process:

The games were parsed one by one, and if a player's rating was known, all of *their* moves for that game would be added to the aggregate for the player's rating group. I chose to divide the ratings into groups of 100, so e.g. 1600 to 1699 was a single group.

Since the actual movetext in PGN is SAN, I used the following shortcut to count the moves: Knight (N), Bishop (B), Rook (R), Queen (Q) and King (K) moves all begin with their piece's letter. Castling (O-O and O-O-O) was counted separately, as a special case. All remaining moves were counted as pawn moves without further examination.

No data cleanup was done. There was no attempt to identify outliers and remove them (e.g. exceedingly short and long games, etc). I kept, but did not include in the following analysis, the results from ratings below 1600 - the sample size for these games was well below 100, leading to large variations in results. The raw data is provided at the end of this post.

Some shortcomings of the information: at the moment, I've only collected very basic totals, and provided averages. I am pretty sure that in general, the data is NOT normally distributed, but won't be able to say more without actually outputting the raw counts and running them through a statistical program. I may do so, if there's interest. For the moment, this means no confidence intervals, or other information about the distribution of the numbers that those averages represent. I also haven't checked how many years the data set spans - if it represents many years, it may be beneficial to attempt to correct for the overall strength of the field.

# Some Trends:

A word on player ratings - the most frequent rating groups encountered were, in order: 2400 to 2500, 2500 to 2600, and 2300 to 2400. These rating groups provided 72% of the games counted.

Looking at the actual results, average game length was a bit of a surprise:

The sub-2000 rating groups all had significantly shorter games than the higher groups. This may well be explained by the possibility that they were playing stronger opponents (see the average rating, above), and that they were defeated in fewer moves. This seems to go against the slightly shorter games played by the top rating group, although that may be contributed to a smaller sample size.

The relatively large differences in average game length meant that providing the frequency of moving a certain piece, rather than the total number of times a piece is moved, is perhaps the more fair comparison. Calculating the frequencies results in the following graph:

The following trends seem to be present:

* The frequency of knight moves seems to trend slightly downwards with rating.
* Bishop moves trend downwards until about 2000, then slowly trend upwards.
* Rook moves trend sharply upward at roughly the same point, and stay more frequent than Bishop moves in high-level play.
* Pawn moves seem to trend slightly downwards with increased rating. A large exception is the top category, 2800 to 2900. This brings us to the next point:
* The top rating category provides outliers or counter-trends in quite a number of measurements. This may be explained in a variety of ways - 1) the sample size is fairly low at 363, not tiny, but 10% of the next smallest sample size included. 2) Since they are at the top of the ratings groups, they never play "stronger" opponents than themselves. 3) Or simply at this level, their play style has transcended the levels below them. My guess would be a combination of 1) and 2).
* The differences in queen moves and castling moves is very small without any real trends, other than a tiny trend downwards in both cases.
* The frequency of king moves has some of the largest differences. No clear trend is visible, and it seems to change direction 3 or 4 times.

# Further Analysis

Some ideas for future analysis:

* Basic statistical fixes: I feel that extremely short and long games should probably be excluded. Also, the distribution of the actual counts might be very telling.
* Splitting the analysis further up may also yield interesting results. For example, I would be interested to know how the frequencies for black and white match up (Are they the same, or different? Why?).
* Categorisation by difference in rating might also be interesting, do players playing a much stronger opponent (say, 200 ratings above them) play with different move frequencies? Unfortunately this requires both players' ELO to be known, which is rare in this data set.
* Tendency to short vs. long-castle might also vary by rating.
* Piece promotion statistics, some light structural analysis (e.g. incidence of doubled pawns, en passant, pins, forks, shown by rating) might be insightful.
* "Heat-maps" of piece placement on the actual board, shown by rating might also be quite intersting.

# Aggregate data in CSV format

For those who want to play with the data, feel free.

Rating Range,Sample Size,Average Game Length,Average Pawn Moves,Average Knight Moves,Average Bishop Moves,Average Rook Moves,Average Queen Moves,Average King Moves,Average Castling

```
1100 to 1200,4,28.500,7.000,4.000,4.000,6.500,3.750,2.750,0.500
1300 to 1400,16,34.125,9.250,6.813,5.000,4.438,4.563,3.188,0.875
1400 to 1500,35,33.800,9.400,6.114,5.514,4.514,4.057,3.400,0.800
1500 to 1600,61,33.607,8.705,7.459,4.984,4.443,4.033,3.148,0.836
1600 to 1700,163,33.153,9.227,6.485,5.110,4.699,3.969,2.816,0.847
1700 to 1800,301,31.811,8.894,6.223,5.402,4.468,3.734,2.296,0.794
1800 to 1900,307,34.251,9.537,6.642,5.577,4.889,4.039,2.759,0.808
1900 to 2000,450,35.551,9.731,6.778,5.451,5.444,4.442,2.871,0.833
2000 to 2100,3958,38.731,10.302,7.095,6.072,6.242,4.668,3.481,0.871
2100 to 2200,11217,38.905,10.501,7.116,6.086,6.245,4.629,3.445,0.884
2200 to 2300,50848,39.446,10.595,7.167,6.174,6.420,4.717,3.484,0.889
2300 to 2400,79322,39.248,10.551,7.141,6.141,6.469,4.653,3.402,0.891
2400 to 2500,111867,38.394,10.398,7.013,6.086,6.294,4.542,3.168,0.893
2500 to 2600,92225,38.308,10.396,6.972,6.082,6.344,4.515,3.104,0.896
2600 to 2700,33193,39.340,10.565,7.061,6.295,6.579,4.630,3.318,0.891
2700 to 2800,4805,40.938,10.945,7.221,6.725,6.930,4.726,3.494,0.895
2800 to 2900,363,38.865,11.311,6.879,6.284,6.160,4.391,2.983,0.857

```

# Answer
> 1 votes
I wanted to remove effects of the early opening and the endgame from the analysis. So, I did a similar analysis as Daniel B, but I only used moves 10 to 29 (inclusively). Here are the results.

Many trends are visible in this chart.

* King moves get less frequent the better the player.
* Queen moves get less frequent the better the player.
* Rook moves are more frequent for bad players, but plateau around Elo 2000 and the trend upwards again.
* Bishop moves are less frequent for bad players, but plateau from 1500 to 2000 and then tend to trend downwards again.
* Knight moves get more frequent for better players.
* Pawn moves get more frequent for better players.
* As for castling, there seems to be a trend for good players to castle more, plateauing at Elo 2700, and then a sharp downwards trend for the elite players with Elo bigger than 2700.

Some technical notes:

I did my analysis on the Rebel 13 Dataset which contains 3456762 games. Some data cleanup was needed for me to parse everything (in particular, I had to remove non-ASCII characters). I only analyzed games where the Elo of both players was given. This resulted in 2375013 games with a total of 84909433 plies used.

---
Tags: learning, statistics, pieces
---


# Question
Title: Does 3-check help you in any way for normal chess?
Does a variant called 3-check, where you have to check the opponent 3 times to win, actually improve your train of thought and analysis of normal chess, or is it close enough to normal chess to actually help you?

# Answer
According to me yes, 3-check does help you improve your normal chess to some extent.

Here's why:

* You need to look for some long variations to see and prevent any further checks by the opponents.
* Second is that you learn about king safety which is very important in normal chess. You learn not to expose your king in the game.
* You learn some specific variations which might help you in gaining an advantage over your opponent in the opening. This is again similar to the normal variant of chess.
* In order, to defeat your opponent you need to give 3 checks. To do that, you need to develop your pieces. This way, you learn to develop your pieces.
* Plus, you need to defend very tightly if your king is open. This improves the defending skills of a player.

But playing a lot of 3-checks is usually not good for normal chess. *By playing a lot*, I mean you are not giving time to normal chess.

* Normal variant requires studying endgames which is usually not seen in the 3-checks variant.
* Normal chess requires studying/analyzing a lot of variations with the help of engines.
* Normal chess usually doesn't end *quickly* if I talk about some high-level games.

The main reason why it probably improves your normal chess is that it's format is similar to that of normal chess unlike other variants like atomic.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: chess-variants, check
---


title: How does Black win this position?

text:
# Question
Title: How does Black win this position?
I recently ran across notes I made from a book on endgames (I don't remember the book). According to my notes, Black wins this position regardless of whose move it is. I don't see it, and Stockfish doesn't see it. What am I missing?

```
[FEN "8/p7/2k1p1pp/1p1pPp2/1P3P2/3K2P1/P6P/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

---

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful answers. I haven't had time to go through all of them yet. However, I had Stockfish analyze every move (both black & white) for at least 30 moves. And, it found a winning line. I will now go through the comments to see how and why Stockfish differed from the answers given. Note, White's two pawn pushes (a3 & h3) didn't show up until Stockfish was at least 56 ply deep.

```
[FEN "8/p7/2k1p1pp/1p1pPp2/1P3P2/3K2P1/P6P/8 b - - 0 1"]

1... Kb6 2. Kc3 a6 3. a3 Kc7 4. h3 Kd7 5. Kd4 Ke7 6. Ke3 Kf7 7.
h4 Ke8 8. Kd3 Kd8 9. Kc3 Kc7 10. Kd2 Kd7 11. Ke3 d4+ 12. Kxd4 Kc6
13. h5 gxh5 14. Kc3 Kd5 15. Kd3 h4 16. gxh4 h5 17. Ke3 Kc4 *

```

# Answer
> 10 votes
How can you be certain that your notes are correct? This position is a bit complicated to work out at a glance, but as I see it there is only one possible winning plan for black here, consisting of the following:

> play a well-timed ...d4, and after White plays Kxd4 Black will play ...Kc6 and force White's king back.

However, White has pawns that they can use to manipulate tempi, and in order to actually break through in the center with the plan I outlined above Black actually needs to force zugzwang TWICE! This is because even if White has to move their king from d4 after ...Kc6, White can still move their king to e3 and counter Black's ...Kd5 with Kd3.

And so, the question becomes rather simple: can Black engineer this position so that they have TWO more spare tempi than White instead of one? We note immediately that at most one spare tempo can come from the queenside pawns with ...a7-a6 (if White is careless and plays, say, a2-a3 prematurely), meaning that Black needs at least one spare tempo from the kingside as well.

If White is to move, then White will just pass the move over to Black with 1.Kc3, Ke3 or Kd4. This does not really affect the evaluation of the underlying position, since the only real winning plan is still a successful ...d4 push. Thus, we may consider ways for black to force the issue.

Black has, in total, four pawn moves and a bunch of king moves. The king moves clearly don't lead to any substantial progress, so let us consider the available pawn moves.

1...a6 and 1...h5 are immediately off the table, since they waste Black's precious opportunity to create an extra tempo, and thus we may consider the other pawn moves as the only possibly winning moves.

If Black plays 1...g5, then White can respond with 2.h4 with the threat of playing 3.h5! This would force Black into going for the draw, since otherwise White could easily create a passed pawn. Thus, we get that after 1...g5 2.h4 Black needs to play either 3...g4 or 3...gxf4. Out of these, 3...gxf4 is the only move that can actually work. But even this move fails, since after 3...gxf4 4.gxf4 we see that Black has only managed to create ONE spare tempo; after 4...d4 5.Kxd4 h5 6.a3! a6 7.Ke3, the position is indeed drawn. From this, I make the conclusion that the position is drawn after 1...g5.

Left to consider is 1...a5!? This move looks quite odd at first glance, but it's actually not completely harmless. If White plays 2.bxa5?, then black responds with 2...b4 followed by ...Kb5 and ...Kxa5. This would indeed be winning, so White needs to play 2.a3 here (2.Kc3 axb4+ 3.Kxb4 d4! wins for black). Thus, we may conclude that the line has to go 1...a5 2.a3, and here we run into some issues as Black. Now the pawn on b5 can never be protected by a pawn on a6, so Black has to be careful about allowing Kc5. Moreover, as long as Black's pawn on a5 remains undefended Black cannot play the ...d4 push and get the desired zugzwang with ...Kc6, since this would let White just take on a5 and win. Thus, we can conclude that Black NEEDS to play either ...axb4 or ...a4 before the ...d4 push. But this means that Black has zero spare tempi on the queenside. Because of this, I conclude that the position is drawn after 1...a5.

To summarize: your notes are definitely wrong, and the position is a draw no matter who makes the first move.

**Edit:** As indicated by other answers, there is one serious attempt involving a king march to provoke h4, followed by engineering an ...a5 push to gain the extra tempo needed in order to make the ...d4 break work. I did not consider this option when I posted my answer, and although my conclusions are still correct (the position is still a draw after some precise moves from White, see Carlo Wood's answer to get an idea of the lines that need to be considered), this answer is definitely incomplete. I guess it just goes to show how tricky pawn endgames really can be. Take care, and remember: don't make any hasty assumptions about pawn endgames!

# Answer
> 9 votes
This is a draw because white has enough tempo's to keep black out. For example after

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/p7/2k1p1pp/1p1pPp2/1P3P2/3K2P1/P6P/8 b - - 0 1"]

1... Kd7 2. Kd4 Ke7 3. Kc5 a6 4. Kd4 Kf7

```

White *must* play 5. h4

And if black tries to break with 5... g5 white must play 6. h5! and the king's side of the board is closed.

Also after

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/p7/2k1p1pp/1p1pPp2/1P3P2/3K2P1/P6P/8 b - - 0 1"]

1... g5 2. h3 gxf4 3. gxf4

```

white can keep the King's side closed. White could also have played 2. h4 by the way. But those are the only moves.

The queen side is already closed but very importantly, white has the tempo a2-a3 here. With the pawn already on a3 this would be winning for black simply by giving away the d pawn and putting the king on d5. White then plays Kd3 but black has a pawn tempo more and will enter the position.

For example,

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/p7/2k1p1pp/1p1pPp2/1P3P2/P2K2P1/7P/8 b - - 0 4"]

4... a6 5. Ke3 Kd7 6. Kd4 Ke7 7. h4 Kd7 8. Kd3 d4 9. Kxd4 Kc6 10. Kc3 Kd5 11. Kd3 h5 0-1

```

where I even started with 4... a6 because we have to walk to the Kings side to force white to close it there (play the h-pawn) and white can enforce a6 anyway by going to c5 with their king.

Note that in this case playing h3, in order to get an extra "tempo" doesn't work for white. For example,

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/p7/2k1p1pp/1p1pPp2/1P3P2/P2K2P1/7P/8 b - - 0 4"]

4... Kd7 5. Kd4 Ke7 6. Kc5 a6 7. Kd4 Kf7 8. h3 g5 9. Ke3 Kg6 10. Kd4 gxf4 11. gxf4 Kh5 12. Kc5 Kh4 13. Kd6 d4 14. Kxe6 d3 15. Kf7 d2 16. e6 d1=Q 17. e7 Qd7 18. Kf8 Kxh3 19. e8=Q Qxe8+ 20. Kxe8 Kg4 21. Kf7 h5

```

EDIT:

All credits go to EigenTime (see their answer) for the attempt of black to gain a tempo with a5! I wouldn't be surprised that this is how the endgame book thought black would win - it is only a draw because of a *very* narrow path that white has to keep it a draw that you can only find with an engine:

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/p7/2k1p1pp/1p1pPp2/1P3P2/3K2P1/P6P/8 b - - 2 21"]

1... Kd7 2. Kd4 Ke7 3. Kc5 a6 4. h4 Kd7 5. Kd4 Kc6 6. Kc3 Kb6 7. Kd2 a5 8. g4 fxg4 9. h5 gxh5 10. f5 g3 11. Ke1 d4 12. bxa5+ Kc7 13. f6 d3 14. f7 g2 15. Kf2 d2 16. f8=Q g1=Q+ 17. Kxg1 d1=Q+ 18. Kf2 Qd4+ 19. Kf1 Qa1+ 20. Kf2 Qxa2+ 21. Kg3 h4+ 22. Kh3 Qb3+ 23. Kxh4 Qc4+ 24. Kh5 Qe2+ 25. Kxh6 Qe3+ 26. Kg6 Qg3+ 27. Kh6 Qe3+ 28. Kg6 Qg3+ 29. Kh6 Qh2+ 30. Kg6 Qxe5 31. Qe7+ Kc6 32. a6 Qf5+ 33. Kh6 Qf4+ 34. Kg6 Qg4+ 35. Kh7 Qh5+ 36. Kg7 Qg4+ 37. Kh6 Qf4+ 38. Kh5 Qf5+ 39. Kh6 Qh3+ 40. Kg5 Qg2+ 41. Kh5 Kb6 42. a7 Qh1+ 43. Kg6 Qg2+ 44. Kf6 Qf3+ 45. Kg6 Qe4+ 46. Kh6 Qe3+ 47. Kg6 Qd3+ 48. Kg7 Qg3+ 49. Kh6 Qh2+ 50. Kg5 Qg2+ 51. Kf6 Qa8 52. Qxe6+ Kxa7 53. Qe3+ Ka6 54. Qa3+ Kb7 55. Qxa8+ Kxa8 56. Ke5 Ka7 57. Kd4 Ka6 58. Kc3 Ka5 59. Kb3

```

Note that almost all moves from 6 through 17 are forced for white!

# Answer
> 8 votes
I have not fully analyzed this position, but contrary to the other answers, I see a possible win for black. Here is a possible series of moves:

```
[FEN "8/p7/2k1p1pp/1p1pPp2/1P3P2/3K2P1/P6P/8 b - - 0 1"]

1... Kd7 2. Kd4 Ke7 3. Kc5 a6 4. Kd4 Kf7 5. h4 Ke7 6. Kc5 Kd7 7. Kd4 Kc6 8. Kd3 Kb6 9. Kd4 a5 10. a3 axb4 11. axb4 Kc7 12. Kd3 d4 13. Kxd4 Kc6 14. Kc3 Kd5 15. Kd3 h5

```

After black reaches f7 with the king, white is forced to play h4 because otherwise black would infiltrate the king's side. This hands the crucial tempo to black.

Edit: Carlo Wood found a nice refutation of this line (for details see his answer). In summary, the position is a draw, but only through a very complicated line involving a queen and pawn endgame.

# Answer
> 3 votes
> According to my notes, Black wins this position regardless of whose move it is.

Your notes are wrong. Black has no entry squares and never will have. For the most part white moves the king between d3 and d4 unless white makes a pawn break with a4 in which case white just protects the b pawn with a3. In general on both sides of the board white declines to capture pawns when offered but does recapture.

Meanwhile black's king can never move away from protecting the c5 square since if white is allowed to play Kc5 then it is black who is in danger of losing.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Black has D5-D4 to create an opening for entry onto white's position. Needs analysis to determine if black can then force the opposition and win.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I beat stockfish with Eigentime method. It was still tricky - I messed it the first time by going for b4 and stockfish was able to push quicker on the queen side. Nice lesson for me. Here's the full winning sequence:

```
[Event "Casual Standard game"]
[Date "2022.03.24"]
[White "lichess AI level 8"]
[Result "0-1"]
[UTCDate "2022.03.24"]
[UTCTime "11:21:50"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "1500"]
[Variant "From Position"]
[TimeControl "-"]
[ECO "?"]
[Opening "?"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[FEN "8/p1k5/4p1pp/1p1pPp2/1P3P2/3K2P1/P6P/8 w - - 0 1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. Kc3 Kd7 2. Kd4 Ke7 3. Kc5 a6 4. h4 Kd7 5. Kd4 Kc6 6. Kc3 Kb6 7. Kd4 a5 8. a3 axb4 9. axb4 Kc7 10. Kc5 d4 11. Kxd4 Kc6 12. Kd3 Kd5 13. Ke2 Ke4 14. Kf2 Kd3 15. g4 Ke4 16. h5 gxh5 17. gxf5 Kxf5 18. Ke3 h4 19. Kf3 h5 20. Ke3 h3 21. Kf3 h4 22. Kf2 Kxf4 23. Kg1 Kxe5 24. Kh2 Kd4 25. Kxh3 Kd3 26. Kxh4 e5 27. Kg3 e4 28. Kf4 e3 29. Ke5 e2 30. Kf4 e1=Q 31. Kf5 Qe4+ 32. Kf6 Kd4 33. Kf7 Qe5 34. Kg6 Kd5 35. Kf7 Qe6+ 36. Kg7 Ke5 37. Kf8 Qd7 38. Kg8 Kf6 39. Kh8 Qg7# { Black wins by checkmate. } 0-1

```

---
Tags: endgame, puzzles
---


# Question
Title: What is a flanking maneuver in K+P endgame?
When is a move defined as a flanking maneuver? Are there certain rules that define it as that?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Jonathan Hawkins excellent endgame book, "*Amateur to IM*" gives an example of a flanking maneuver in his first main topic, "Capablanca's pawn endgame". This is a simple looking endgame where white has pawns on g2 and h2 versus black's single pawn on h7. You would think it would be a straightforward win for white but the win is anything but straightforward if black knows the endgame and the available drawing tricks.

Black has two possible approaches. The first is to sit and wait with the pawn remaining on h7 and the king shuffling around g7. If white doesn't know the endgame there is a 50% chance of blundering the draw. White has two chances to count correctly and either move h2-3-4 or h4 or g2-3-4 or g4. Once the pawns reach h4 and g4 the result of the game is determined. You have to calculate early.

The second involves moving the h pawn up one square to h6 and keeping the king around f6. Again there is a key position which white must reach with black to move if white is to win using a flanking maneuver. If white reaches the key position with white to move then it is drawn.

Here is the key position and the flanking maneuver:

```
[fen "8/8/5k1p/8/5KPP/8/8/8 b - - 0 1"]
[Startflipped "1"]

1...Ke6 2. Ke4 Kf6 (2...Kd6 3. Kf5) 3. Kd5 {outflanking} Ke7 4. Ke5 Kf7 5. Kf5 Kg7 6. Ke6 {second outflanking} Kg6 7. h5+ {breaking black's side opposition} Kg7 8. Ke7 Kg8 9. Kf6 Kh7 10. Kf7 Kh8 11. Kg6

```

The white moves 3. Kd5 and 6. Ke6 are both examples of outflanking black.

---
Tags: endgame, pawn-endgame
---


# Question
Title: Is the Danish Gambit viable for Class D tournament play?
I've been recently playing the Danish Gambit online in blitz. It started as a dare from one of my friends, but I've had ludicrous success with it due to common mistakes from my opponents.

Also, I don't mean the wimp-out Danish Gambit with 4. Nxc3. I mean *this* Danish Gambit:

```
 [FEN " "]
1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Bc4 cxb2 5. Bxb2

```

It's been doing *so* much better online for me that I may want to try it in tournament play.

However, I'm worried that the slower time control will cause my opponents to make better calculations.

I'm currently a Class D (1200-1399) player.

So, my big question is:

**Is the Danish Gambit viable at longer (tournament-length) time controls for a Class D player?**

If you don't think so, can you give me some similar openings to try out (for White) that may perform better?

# Answer
My old chess tutor answered a similar question of mine quite decisively: "Just don't worry about it: Below 2000 (FIDE) you can succeed with every opening."

Lower rated (or non-prepared) players do not know how to punish the weaknesses an opening like the Danish Gambit opens - and they make mistakes. Lots of them. Playing against as sharp of an opening as the DG requires your opponent to make really precise moves and prompts them to make even more mistakes on which you can capitalize on.

**To conclude: I think you are perfectly fine playing the Danish Gambit in Class D tournament chess, as your opponents are not likely to know the theory and will probably blunder sooner or later, especially if the opening fits your style. Even in longer time controls. (Also playing sharp openings is just a lot of fun!)**

Another opening that comes to mind is the Grob (1.g4). It is no less dubious at master-level, but if you put the effort into it and learn some theory behind it, you can absolutely obliterate a careless player.

Finally a word of warning: The higher you rise in the chess rankings (approaching 1800+), the harder it will get to win with "one-trick-pony" tactics. So put some time aside to improve your general Chess, not just one opening.
> 10 votes

# Answer
Anything is viable at that level. there's a famous quote from Kasparov saying basically the same thing. You don't need to start studying openings until you're around 2000. Below 2000 just focus on opening principles.

You can probably get to around 2000 playing it. Maybe 22-2300 if you really analyzed out the lines. At your level you probably need lines like this to get better. Based on what I've seen the biggest difference between beginners and intermediate players is their understanding of dynamic play. In other words, you'll stay stuck at class D UNTIL you understand an opening like this.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: opening
---


# Question
Title: What is the most sound, yet still sharp, gambit?
I have played chess seriously for a little over a year and my style is an aggressive one. I started off playing really dubious gambits (at least in my opinion) like the King's Gambit and the Latvian Gambit, immediately looking to give away material for active play right from the opening. I have since toned down my aggressiveness, preferring much more quiet openings like the Ruy Lopez and the Pirc. I really want to re-ignite my gambit play and I need some suggestions on sound gambits I could go for and why.

# Answer
> 9 votes
The Evans Gambit is probably one of the most sound. It's still occasionally played at GM level and most of the critical lines are rarely if ever tested.

The Vienna Gambit and Blackmar–Diemer are probably playable. The Scotch gambit is playable although I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a forced draw.

With black the Benko is probably sound and the Budapest is playable. Black has fewer sound gambit options since black starts out a half tempo down. Giving up a pawn for a move just gives you an equal position but you're down a pawn.

I'll add though that virtually any opening is playable below 2000 level and certainly in rapid or blitz. In fact, you could probably get to around 2300 with any normal openings.

# Answer
> 7 votes
Two sound gambits for Black:

The Marshall Attack in the Spanish:

```
[fen ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. c3 d5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Nxe5 Nxe5 11. Rxe5 c6 12. d4 Bd6 13. Re1 Qh4 14. g3 Qh3

```

This is the main line. Be aware that you need to know lots of theory to play this opening, as most lines are analysed well into endgames and play is concrete enough to grant an advantage to the one who knows more. Also White can avoid it and play Anti-Marshall lines.

Another gambit for Black stems from the Ng5 Italian

```
[fen ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Be2 (8. Bd3 Nd5) h6 9. Nf3 (9. Nh3) e4 10. Ne5 Bd6

```

Where Black gives a pawn and accepts an inferior pawn structure for a lead in development and a strong initiative. I have to admit I did not believe this can be sound, especially given how chaotic Black's position is, but then I looked at theory and was very amazed how much Black gets and how little the structure matters in what is to come. Both sides need to know what they are doing or the game will be decided very fast.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Many answers have already shown good examples, but I'd say that if you're looking for a sharp opening, you don't necessarily have to look for a gambit. In many occasions your opponent could refuse the gambit, or maybe give back the material and get a quieter position.

For example, as Black, you'll probably reach sharper positions by playing the Dragon Sicilian against e4 and the Benoni or Grünfeld against d4 than by playing gambits.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I wouldn't recommend a gambit unless you are really dedicated to learning the lines, otherwise, any person, with at least some knowledge, will deconstruct you very easily.

I recommend the Queen's Gambit for white. Technically it's not a Gambit, however, it's still played very much at the GM level, and even at the low-level tiers, it's very powerful, as there are a couple of nasty traps you can learn.

FOr Black, I would recommend the Sicilian Opening. I know its not a Gambit, but the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon is a very lethal weapon in the hands of an experienced player, and it is very aggressive, leading to very open positions, and often relying upon lethal forks and pins to shut down whites chances early

# Answer
> 0 votes
The Evans gambit is mostly sound. Kasparov played it. As someone who's played it for decades, I think black is probably equal if he plays perfectly but black needs to play perfectly to reach those positions.

# Answer
> -6 votes
You can have 'gambit', you can have 'sound', but you can't have both.... the Benko is the closest you're going to get. Take heart in the fact that gambits are perfectly OK in practice, if unsound in theory.

---
Tags: opening, learning, gambits
---


# Question
Title: What do you think is the best first move in chess?
I'm new to chess and I want to ask you, what do you think is the best first move in chess? I know there is no fixed answer, I just wanted to ask for an opinion.

I will be very grateful for any answers.

# Answer
If you're new to chess, the best opening to help you learn and improve is 1.e4. There's nothing wrong with 1.d4 but it's a lot harder to learn for beginners.

Other moves like 1. c4, 1. Nf3 And 1. g3 are fine for experienced players but there are a lot of transpositions and beginners will miss most of what's going on.

When I teach chess, I recommend openings like the Bishop's and Vienna. These openings give white playable games and lead to the types of positions that make you better.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Either 1. d4 or 1. e4. We don't know.

These two moves dominate elite human chess, and are also the choice of engines. For example, left to her own devices, Leela Chess Zero (in all her incarnations, with different nets, binaries, and such) will play one of these two moves. Same goes for all versions of Stockfish if you don't give Stockfish an opening book.

Do note that if chess is a draw (almost everyone thinks it is) then there is no "best move" because they all lead to at best draws anyway.
> 1 votes

# Answer
"first best move" is a very vague question, but e4 is the most common move and probably the best depending on your idea of how you want to develop your pieces

If your question is "which opening is best", in which probably the Vienna or London system are both good and strong openings
> 0 votes

---
Tags: opening, online-chess, famous-moves
---


# Question
Title: Can a player in check win, by checkmating the opponent, while not getting themselves out of check?
Consider a player who is in check. Suppose they can make a move that would checkmate the opponent, but would not stop themselves from being in check. Would that be a legal move?

For example, in the position below, if Black plays ...`Rf8`, it will put the White king in checkmate, but the Black king will still be in check. Is this move legal?

```
[FEN "K7/8/2n5/1r6/8/8/3k3R/5r2 b - - 1 0"]
[StartFlipped "0"]

```

Note that this position is displayed from White’s point of view, even though it is Black’s move.

# Answer
For this kind of question, if you have doubts, just play chess with the goal of capturing the enemy king. The first player to capture the enemy king wins. This isn't the official rule, but it's effectively the same in almost all situations I'm aware of (it doesn't work for stalemate).

So after 1...Rf8+, White wins with 2. Rxd2. It doesn't matter that Black also threatens to capture White's king with 2...Rxa8, since White has already won.
> 39 votes

# Answer
According the FIDE LAWS of CHESS:

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

So as @djnavas points out, if you are in check you have to do at least one of three things (without placing the king in another check) to get out of check and continue the game:

* move the king out of check,
* capture the piece checking you, or
* block the check (by putting one of your pieces in between the king and the piece checking you).
> 37 votes

# Answer
No, this is not legal. The fact that the black king is still in check from the white rook overrides every other consideration. It doesn't matter that (were it not for the white rook) Black's move would be checkmate, it fails to get Black out of check, so it's not legal.
> 16 votes

# Answer
**No, this move (...Rf8#) is not legal.** According to the FIDE Laws of Chess effective 1 January 2018:

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

(This improves on pre-July 2014 rules by specifically defining “illegal” as well as “legal”.)

In this case, the relevant requirement is in Article 3.9.2:

> No piece can be moved that will … leave \[the king of the same colour\] in check.

The consequence of this is that **the checkmate does not count**:

> 5.1.1 The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the checkmate position was in accordance with Article 3 …

Instead, the game shall continue with a legal move (after reverting the illegal move):

> 7.5.1 An illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock. If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be reinstated. … Article\[\] 4.3 … appl\[ies\] to the move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from this reinstated position.

Article 4.3 is the so-called “touch-move” rule and, in this case, would require Black to play ...Rf2 (probably losing the rook on the next move).

Actually, the key point here is also covered in the introductory Article 1:

> Leaving one’s own king under attack … is not allowed .

As an aside, ...Rb8# would also be checkmate, but would also be illegal. This rook has no legal moves, so “touch-move” would not be relevant here and Black would be able to make any legal move after the illegal move was reverted.
> 6 votes

# Answer
In the case of the 'primitive' form of chess, where leaving your king in check is not an 'illegal' move, your king would then be taken by an intelligent player, causing you to lose.

The fact that be you could take his king the next turn would not change this.

However, in 'modern' chess, having your king captured is illegal(The game ends at checkmate, where you have no way to get out of check). Since your king could be taken the next turn, you remain in check, and your only available move is one which gets you out of check, i.e., makes sure your king cannot be taken the next turn.

You might think that putting the other player in check(or checkmate) would make it so he could not take your king, but the same rule which binds him also binds you, so *you* also cannot place his king in check while your king is in check, unless you place his king in check(or checkmate) while getting your king out of check at the same time, which is not the case here.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I mean, I'm no avid chess player, take what I say with a grain of salt, as I'm only trying to apply logic here. The point of check is that in the next turn, if you don't solve that situation, you lose. So, if you ignore check, and produce checkmate while you're still in check, it only means that YOUR next turn the enemy loses 100%. But you lose before that, as it's the enemy's turn and they take your king before proceeding with your play.
> 0 votes

# Answer
No, that's not a legal move. When you are in check, you have to do anything that will stop you being in check, so any of:

* Move king to a field not attackable by opponent pieces.
* Move one of your non-king pieces in between to block the attack path. Not possible against the horse because it jumps.
* Capture the opponent's piece that is threatening your king.

The real world analogy to your situation is that you are the leader and you are in the enemy sniper's scope and you know it. Your reaction is to move your men into position to kill the enemy leader. While your men are moving into position to surround the enemy leader, their sniper kills you. So even if hypothetically your men manage to later kill their leader, you still died first. You effectively committed suicide for a chance to take the enemy leader down with you.
> -2 votes

# Answer
No. If you are in check, you have to get out of check, either by moving king or blocking check with other piece. Anything else is illegal.
> -3 votes

---
Tags: rules, checkmate, check, winning
---


title: Can White win this Q+P endgame?

text:
# Question
Title: Can White win this Q+P endgame?
Can white win this queen and pawn endgame?

From this position put Black queen on the best defensive square, and then it will be White's to move.

```
[FEN "8/1PQ3pk/6pp/8/8/8/8/3K4 w - - 0 1"]

```

It might look like this:

```
[FEN "8/1PQ3pk/6pp/8/q7/8/8/3K4 w - - 0 1"]

```

My computer gives +6 for White, but it doesn't seem to be able to find a winning strategy.

# Answer
The 7-piece tablebase says that the position without the pawn on h6 is draw, so I believe this position is also a draw (by perpetual check).

A typical winning attempt in queen+pawn vs queen endgames is to find a position where white can block a check with his queen while at the same time giving check. This is not possible here since the black king is protected by pawns.

Another option is to hide behind the pawn somehow. A somewhat ideal situation would be if white could move the king to a8, and to have the white queen on the a-file (e.g. on a5). In this position there is no check on the a-file and if black checked on the 8th row, white could respond by queening the pawn. However even in this ideal position black has the single (but sufficient) resource of pinning the pawn along the h1-a8 diagonal.

So yes this position with the b-pawn is draw and you can almost freely arrange white king and queen and it still stays a draw.

If it was a c-pawn though it would be more difficult for black to hold this.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Black seems to be able to get away with a draw by perpetual check. The usual way for White to escape that, is to advance the pawn, or interpose his/her own queen while giving check (thereby forcing the exchange of queens). The latter is impossible because black's king is well protected. The former is impossible as well, as long as black remembers to give check from the a-file if the white king is on a8.

Your computer probably doesn't see a threefold repetition (indeed, it's possible for White to stave this off for more than 50 moves) and thinks the b7 pawn is worth almost 6 pawns because it is on the verge of queening.
> 4 votes

# Answer
No table base necessary... black gives check every move, done :P The *only* position I can think of where white can promote is:

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "K7/QP4pk/6pp/8/8/4q3/8/8 b - - 37 19"]

1... Qe8+ 2. b8=Q Qe4+ 3. Qbb7 Qe8+ 4. Qab8 Qa4+ 5. Q7a7 Qe4+ 6. Qbb7 Qe8+

```

which is also a draw thus. But you can't even reach that position.
> 2 votes

# Answer
I know that this is three years late, but Stockfish with partial 7-piece tablebases immediately says 0.00. Now, at a depth of 71, it still says 0.00. I think it is, indeed, a draw.

Of course, there is no harm in trying, and the plan in such endings is to try to walk the king toward your own pawn. Clearly, it should not work based on the computer assessment, but still, I would try for a while until my opponent could prove a perpetual.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Black can put a piece on a square where it checks White's king, and then perpetually check. There isn't enough cover for White to stop the checks.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: analysis, endgame, queen-endgame, winning
---


# Question
Title: Sharp pawn endgame - can it be calculated to the end? With Computer engine?
White to move, here is a brief summary of my analysis where I attempted to determine exact evaluation. Number of pawns is equal but White's 2 pawns on the queenside are held by one Black's pawn, so in a sense Black has an extra pawn on the rest of the board.
`1. a4` with pawn breaks on both sides of the board by both White and Black (!) leads to a difficult queen endgame for White.
`1. Kc3` (played by me in the game) is a blunder that should lose after 1...f4! since then Black puts pawns on e4 and f4 and goes to the kingside with his king to pickup White's pawns.
`1. Kd3` is possibly best as now `1...f4` is met with `2.Ke4`. But Black instead plays `1...Kf7` and manoeuvres, waiting for zugzwang. Can Black win? Can a computer engine be used in this day and age to determine exactly if this position is a draw or win for Black?

This is a pawn endgame - which are supposed to be evaluated precisely... I feel this is likely a draw, but can't prove exactly. Is there Mr. Grigoriev in the audience?

```
8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 38

```

# Answer
It's clear that Black has the following advantages:

1) His king is better centralized.

2) He has *two* connected passed pawns.

3) White has *no* passed pawns because one Black pawn holds up two White ones on both the queen and king sides.

White's main advantage is that he has two rook pawns, which could lead to "outside" passed pawns. Even so, it might take the sacrifice of a pawn for White to get a passed pawn.

So I would give Black the advantage overall, and say that he should win with proper play. White should draw with great difficulty if at all.

I'm basing this judgment on "pattern recognition," because I am a only a 1500 player.
> 6 votes

# Answer
This is actually a drawn position with correct play. As expected, the two sides with pawns are actually more important in the end-game than the center pawns (because the center pawns can be effectively barricaded.) Here is a full analysis done GNU chess (your move kd3 is correct, however, the difficult moves come later on in the game when there are two queens on the board.)

GNU Chess comes up with this:

```
[fen "8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 38"]

1. Kd3 f4 2. h5 f3 3. Ke3 e4 4. g6 hxg6 5. h6 Kf7 6. a4 bxa4 7. b5 a3 8. b6 a2 9. b7 a1=Q 10. b8=Q Qe1+ 11. Kf4 Qh4+ 12. Ke3 g5 13. h7 Qxh7 14. Qb7+ Kg8 15. Qc8+ Kf7 16. Qd7+ Kg6 17. Qe6+ Kh5 18. Qh3+ Kg6 19. Qe6+ Kh5 20. Qh3+ Kg6 21. Qe6+ 1/2-1/2

```
> 3 votes

# Answer
Black needs four moves to promote the black f-pawn, if white doesn't stop it with his king. White needs also four moves to promote. I.e.,

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. h5 f4 2. g6 hxg6 3. h6 f3 4. h7 f2 5. h8=Q

```

But, black stands in its square and in reality this would happen:

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. h5 f4 2. g6 hxg6 3. h6 Kf7 4. Kd3 Kg8 5. Ke4 Kh7 6. Kf3 Kxh6

```

where black simply picks up white's free pawn and then goes on to assist his three connected free pawns.

Fortunately, white also has a pawn majority on the Queen's side, which also costs four moves to promote:

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. a4 bxa4 2. b5 f4 3. b6 f3 4. b7 f2 5. b8=Q

```

But black *also* stands in that square. Black can not stop both, the b-pawn and the h-pawn however:

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. a4 bxa4 2. b5 f4 3. b6 Kd6 4. h5 f3 5. g6 hxg6 6. hxg6 f2 7. g7 f1=Q 8. g8=Q

```

That is the best computer line and now it is a draw due to infinite check.

Note that black *must* play 1... bxa4 or white simply promotes the a-pawn, stopping blacks pawns with his king: also black needs the threat of two pawns promoting.

On top of that, white *must* play 2... hxg6 and not h6 as before. For example (the best computer line):

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. a4 bxa4 2. b5 f4 3. b6 Kd6 4. h5 f3 5. g6 hxg6 6. h6 f2 7. h7 f1=Q 8. h8=Q Qf2+ 9. Kd1 Qd4+ 10. Ke1 Kc6 11. Qb8 Qxb6 12. Qe8+ Kd5 13. Ke2 Qc6 14. Qd8+ Kc5 15. Kf2 Kc4 16. Qd1 Qc5+ 17. Ke2 a3 18. Kf1 e4 19. Qc1+ Kb5 20. Qa1 Qc4+ 21. Kg1 a2 22. Kh1 e3 23. Kg2 Ka4 24. Qd1+ Ka3 25. Qd6+ Kb2 26. Qb8+ Kc2 27. Qa8 e2 28. Qa5 Qe4+ 29. Kf2 e1=Q+ 30. Qxe1 Qxe1+ 31. Kxe1 a1=Q+ 32. Kf2 Kd3 33. Kg3 Qd4 34. Kh3 Qg1 35. Kh4 Ke3 36. Kh3 Kf3 37. Kh4 Qg3#

```

where white avoided queen trade as long as possible (pointlessly). The actual problem being that if white would win one pawn, then black would be able to immediately trade queens and easily win with king plus two pawns against king. For example:

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. a4 bxa4 2. b5 f4 3. b6 Kd6 4. h5 f3 5. g6 hxg6 6. h6 f2 7. h7 f1=Q 8. h8=Q Qf2+ 9. Kc1 Qc5+ 10. Kd1 Kc6 11. Qa8+ Kxb6 12. Qxa4 Qd4+ 13. Qxd4+ exd4 14. Ke2 Kc5

```

or any of the other billion possibilities. It is however crucial to understand what K+Q+3 pawns against K+Q has infinitely larger chance to win in this manner than K+Q+2 pawns against K+Q.

Also keeping it a draw with infinite check is an art by itself that isn't very trivial. In general you just want to keep the queen on the board and keep giving check. Try to play this against a computer to see all the pitfalls.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: analysis, endgame, pawn-endgame, calculation
---


# Question
Title: Where are the non captured Black pieces?
```
[FEN "8/8/8/8/8/PP4PP/2PPPP2/NNBQKBRR w - - 0 1"]

```

Here is a problem from my blog once more. This is the position after White's 14th move. Seven Black pieces were captured during the game for a total of 27 points using the normal piece values. Where are Black's nine surviving pieces?

# Answer
> 3 votes
That was fun - but your puzzle does not have a single solution. Here are three solutions that I found - and something tells me you found another one (because in this case it is trivial you can't know where the black knight ends).

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

1. Nf3 e6 2. Nc3 Ba3 3. bxa3 Nc6 4. Rb1 Nd4 5. Nxd4 b5 6. Rxb5 Qh4 7. Nb3 g5 8. Rxg5 Qh3 9. gxh3 Nh6 (9... Nf6) (9... Ne7) 10. Na1 Rb8 11. Rgg1 Rg8 12. Nb1 Rb3 13. axb3 Rg3 14. hxg3

```

Pieces taken: Two rooks (10 points), a bishop (3 points), a knight (3 points), a queen (9 points) and two pawns (2 points). 10 + 3 + 3 + 9 + 2 = 27.

---
Tags: problems, retrograde-analysis
---


# Question
Title: Is there a strategy to win chess960 games?
Chess960, a variant where the backrank pieces are all randomized subject to a few constraints, is a variant of chess where you cannot really memorize openings. Is there a strategy in chess960 so it is easy to win the game?

Maybe controlling the center or developing the opposite side of where the king is?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Stick with basic chess principles. Through trial and error, you'll find your style.

---
Tags: opening, strategy, chess-variants, chess960
---


# Question
Title: Which piece was captured last - knowing that this position was reached in the minimum number of moves possible?
This is a puzzle that I made a while ago, but never really published anywhere before (although I posted it on an obscure Dutch telegram channel).

The question is simple: what was the piece that was captured last? Hence, the answer can be: rook, knight, bishop or queen.

However, you can't know - because there are multiple ways to reach this position - so there is extra information: this position was reached in the minimum number of moves possible.

As answer - just post a game-diagram (PGN) that shows a way to reach the given position in the fastest way possible.

```
[FEN "rnb1kbnr/p1ppp1pp/1p6/8/4P3/3P1P2/BPP3PP/RN1QKqNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

```

Have fun!

# Answer
Full solution attempt:

Last move obviously was `exZf1=Q+`, with yet unspecified piece `Z`. If that was original `Bf1`, `a2` is promoted. Impossible, as `a2` can only promote on `b8` given that it can only promote by `a6xQb7-b8` (the black f pawn promoted on f1, as already established, leaving only the black queen as victim for the white a pawn) - wrong color. Thus `Ba2` is original and `a2` promoted, again by `a6xQb7-b8`. We thus already know the promoted figure Z is either `Q` or `N` (`R` can't get out again). Here is a `N` attempt, I have a good hunch that `Q` is faster (`Q-b7-a6-f1`) and even the moves are unique.

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

1. a4 b6 2. a5 Bb7 3. a6 Bc6 4. e4 Qc8 5. Bc4 Qb7 6. axb7 Na6 7. b8=N Bb7 8. Nc6 f5 9. d3 f4 10. Be3 fxe3 11. f3 e2 12. Nd4 Nb8 13. Nf5 Bc8 14. Ng3 Bb7 15. Ba2 Bc8 16. Nf1 exf1=Q+

```

A simple counting of White moves proves that a `N` solution can't be improved. `Q` could attain 14 moves, here Black also needs 14 moves minimally - so this could work out if timed carefully. But I don't see a trick to actually save the one black move: with a square z5, I could play Bz5 and avoid wasting the white/black tempo, so I am at 15.

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

1. a4 b6 2. a5 Ba6 3. e4 Bb5 4. Bc4 Qc8 5. a6 Qb7 6. axb7 Nc6 7. Bb3 Ba6 8.
b8=Q+ Bc8 9. Qb7 f6 10. Qa6 f5 11. Qf1 f4 12. d3 Nb8 13. Be3 fxe3 14. Ba2 e2
15. f3 exf1=Q+

```

Optimality proof attempt: White obviously does need 14 moves (one tempo was wasted on Bb3). But then let's retro-move further from the final diagram: White can only take back "neutrally" `f3`. But another move pair is needed before `Be3`, which forces `d3` before that, and the white queen can't get to f1 anymore! White has no such move, obviously, so a tempo like `Bb3` must be inserted.

5 minutes for the logic :-)
> 5 votes

# Answer
The last piece captured was a white **knight** on f1.

* The last move must have been exf1=Q.
* With a bishop on a2, the captured piece on f1 must have been promoted before.
* It is white's a-pawn then that must have reached b8 via a6-axb7-b8.
* Promotion to rook or bishop can be excluded since they cannot return to f1 in above pawn structure.
* Promotion to queen can be excluded wrt the condition of minimal game length.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: problems, retrograde-analysis
---


title: Bishops standing on their toes

text:
# Question
Title: Bishops standing on their toes
Another silly idea:

```
[FEN "1B1B1BkB/B1B1B1B1/1B1B1B1B/B1B1B1B1/1B1B1B1B/B1B1B1B1/KB1B1B1B/BNB1B1B1 w - - 0 0"]

```

How many bishops must be removed such that the position is won? How long does the mate take then?

Obviously, this would best be solved by creating a tablebase...

(Note: I once gave an algorithm that 2 suffice, and 1 most probably won't, but I trust my algorithms that \>\< far. Also, I never computed how long it takes, but "of the order 100" is my best guess.)

# Answer
At least three... for example

```
[FEN "1B1B1Bk1/B1B1B1B1/1B1B1B1B/B1B1B1B1/1B1B1B1B/B3B1B1/KB1B3B/BNB1B1B1 w - - 6 46"]

1. Nc3 Kf7 2. Nd1 Ke6 3. Nf2 Kd5 4. Kb3 Ke6?? 5. Kc4 Kd7 6. Kb5 Kc8 7. Ka6 Kd7 8. Kb7 Ke6 9. Kc6 Kf5 10. Bd4c3 Ke6 11. Be5d4 Kf5 12. Bh8 Ke6 13. Bf6g7 Kf5 14. Bge5 Ke6 15. Bgf6 Kf5 16. Kd5 Kg6 17. Ne4 Kf5 18. Ng5 Kg4 19. Ke4 Kh5 20. Kf3 Kg6 21. Ne6 Kf5 22. Ng7+ Kg6 23. Kg4 Kf7 24. Kf5 Kg8 25. Kg6 Kxh8 26. Bh6g5 Kg8 27. Bg1f2 Kh8 28. Nf5+ Kg8 29. Nh6#

```

But in this game black makes a fatal error on move 4... Ke6?? after which it is forced mate in 25. If black runs to a white corner, I am not sure :/. It will obviously be much harder to force black to take a bishop there (= make use of a black square so stale mate is avoided).

For this reason, I think that more than four need to be removed - but I didn't figure out yet how many.

Here is another version that is slightly more human and, I think, easier to follow:

```
[FEN "1B1B1Bk1/B1B1B1B1/1B1B1B1B/B1B1B1B1/1B1B1B1B/B3B1B1/KB1B3B/BNB1B1B1 w - - 6 46"]

1. Nc3 Kf7 2. Nd1 Ke6 3. Nf2 Kd5 4. Kb3 Ke6?? 5. Kc4 Kd7 6. Kb5 Kc8 7. Ka6 Kd7 8. Kb7 Ke6 9. Kc6 Kf5 10. Kd5 Kg6 11. Ke6 Kh5 12. Bd4c3 Kg6 13. Bh8 Kh5 14. Bh6g7 Kg6 15. Ng4 Kh5 16. Nh6 Kg6 17. Be5d4 Kh5 18. Kd5 Kg6 19. Ke4 Kh5 20. Kf3 Kg6 21. Kg4 Kh7 22. Bf6e5 Kg6 23. Bg7f6 Kh7 24. Nf5 Kg6 25. Ng7 Kf7 26. Kf5 Kg8 27. Kg6 Kxh8 28. Nf5+ Kg8 29. Nh6#

```

EDIT

But then again - here is a version where black runs to a white corner...

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "1B1B1Bk1/B1B1B1B1/1B1B1B1B/B1B1B1B1/1B1B1B1B/B3B1B1/KB1B3B/BNB1B1B1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Kb3 Kf7 2. Kc4 Kg6 3. Nc3 Kf5 4. Nd1 Ke4 5. Nf2+ Kf3 6. Kd3 Kg2 7. Bd4c3 Kf3 8. Be5d4 Kg2 9. Bf4e5 Kf1 10. Bg3f4 Kg2 11. B2g3 Kf1 12. Bh8 Kg2 13. Ke2 Kxg1 14. Bh2+ Kg2 15. Bg1 Kxg1 16. Bh2+ Kg2 17. Bg1 Kxg1 18. Nh3+ Kg2 19. Nf4+ Kh2 20. Bh8g7 Kh1 21. Kf1 Kh2 22. Nd3+ Kh3 23. Nf2#

```

Final edit:

It *is* enough to remove three bishops. And then it is mate in 28, but you have to begin with the king, not the knight:

Just one line for mate in 28, and a few variations that lead to mate in 27:

```
[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "1B1B1Bk1/B1B1B1B1/1B1B1B1B/B1B1B1B1/1B1B1B1B/B3B1B1/KB1B3B/BNB1B1B1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Kb3 Kf7 2. Nc3 Ke6 3. Kc4 Kd7 4. Kb5 Kc8 5. Ka6 Kd7 6. Ne2 Kc6 7. Bd2c3 Kd5 8. Kb5 Ke4 9. Kc4 Kf3 (9... Kf5 10. Be1d2 Ke4 11. Bge1 Kf5 (11... Kf3 12. Kd3 Kg4 13. Ke4 Kh5 14. Ng3+ Kg4 15. Bgf2 Kh3 16. Kf3 Kxh2 17. Bg1+ Kh3 18. Bh2 Kxh2 19. Kg4 Kg2 20. B3f2 Kh2 21. Nf1+ Kg2 22. Ne3+ Kh1 23. Bg1 Kxg1 24. Bh8 Kh1 25. Kh3 Kg1 26. Nf5+ Kf1 27. Ng3#) 12. Ng3+ Ke6 13. Kb5 Kd7 14. Bh8 Kc8 15. Ka6 Kd7 16. Kb7 Ke8 17. Kc6 Kf7 18. Nh5 Ke6 19. Ng7+ Kf7 20. Kd7 Kg8 21. Ke8 Kxh8 22. Kf7 Kh7 23. Bhf2 Kh8 24. Bgh4 Kh7 25. Bh2g3 Kh8 26. Ne6+ Kh7 27. Ng5#) 10. Kd3 Kg4 (10... Kg2 11. Be1d2 Kh1 12. Bge1 Kg2 13. Bgf2 Kf1 14. Ng3+ Kg2 15. Ke2 Kh3 16. Kf3 Kxh2 17. Bg1+ Kh3 18. Bh2 Kxh2 19. Kg4 Kg2 20. B3f2 Kh2 21. Nf1+ Kg2 22. Ne3+ Kh1 23. Bg1 Kxg1 24. Bh8 Kh1 25. Kh3 Kg1 26. Nf5+ Kf1 27. Ng3#) 11. Ke4 Kh3 12. Be1d2 Kg2 13. Bge1 Kf1 14. Ng3+ Kg2 15. Bgf2 Kxh2 16. Bg1+ Kh3 17. Kf5 Kg2 18. Bh8 Kh3 19. Bh2 Kg2 20. Kg4 Kxh2 21. Bg1+ Kg2 22. Bh2 Kxh2 23. Nf1+ Kg2 24. Ne3+ Kg1 25. Bh8g7 Kh1 26. Kh3 Kg1 27. Nf5+ Kf1 28. Ng3#

```
> 1 votes

---
Tags: problems, bishops
---


# Question
Title: How does white win/get an advantage here?
In the board below, I'm not entirely sure who is winning, black's rook looks dangerous at the moment.

Its white to move

How does white have an advantage?

```
4rk2/5p1p/2p3pP/8/p7/PqP1Q3/1P1R1P2/1K6 w - - 12 39

```

# Answer
> 5 votes
In the position given, White, when plugged into Stockfish, has a +8 advantage. Seeing that white is to move, the first move should be Qc5+, followed by Kg8. Notice Re7 is not possible because of mate in 1 (Rd8#). Following Kg8 should be Qe5, and if Rxe5 it is mate in 2 with Rd8+, Re8, Rxe8#. Kf8 is the only move for black. Following this should be Qh8+, Ke7,Re2+, Kd6(any other king move results in mate in 8.), Qd4,and now black has to trade queens, or else it is mate in 10. Qd5, Qxd5+, Kxd5, can be possible, but Rxe8, Qxd4, cxd4 results in a better position, and from here Stockfish rates this +13.3. Kc2 or Rh8 for white results in a win.

In a more interactive manner:

```
[fen "4rk2/5p1p/2p3pP/8/p7/PqP1Q3/1P1R1P2/1K6 w - - 0 1"]

1. Qc5+ Kg8 (1... Re7 2. Rd8#) 2. Qe5 Kf8 (2... Rxe5 3. Rd8+ Re8 4. Rxe8#) 3. Qh8+ Ke7 4. Re2+ Kd6 5. Qd4+ {As Scounged in the comments, Qd4 is to stop perpetual check, as Qxe8 would be a blunder} Qd5 6. Rxe8 Qxd4 (6. Qxd5 Kxd5) 7. cxd4 Kd5

```

# Answer
> 7 votes
(Human thought process below)

White's h6-pawn gives him a decisive advantage. Note how it restricts Black's king. If the king is on g8 or h8, then Qg7 is checkmate, and so is Rd8 if Black's rook leaves the back rank. If the king is on f8, then Qg7+ still forces the king into the open, not to mention threatens Qxh7 followed by promotion. This immediately suggests the move 1. Qc5+. Black can't interpose with 1...Re7 because 2. Rd8 is checkmate, so the king is forced to g8. Then 2. Qe5 (exploiting the fact that the black rook can't leave the back rank) threatens 3. Qg7#, forcing 3...Kf8.

At this point a 2-move tactic suggests itself: 4. Qh8+ Ke7 5. Re2+ wins the rook on e8. An extra rook is more than enough material to win, so Black's only recourse is a perpetual check. ...Qd1+-Qb3+ is a perpetual, so White must stop it, and conveniently 6. Qd4+ does this. White then collects the e8-rook and wins.

Stockfish does suggest moves like 4...Qe6, but I don't think many humans would analyze that, because that is equivalent to resigns after 5. Rxe6+.

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Tags: endgame, puzzles
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title: What do you call average?

text:
# Question
Title: What do you call average?
Is there an average rating? If so, what is it?

I saw this in a chess.com forum:

> There's no such thing as an "average" chess rating, but a solid club-level chess player might be rate somewhere around 1500-1700. In general, a person's rating will increase as that person becomes more experienced.

Although, on chess.com, 1500-1700 is around 1800-2000 on lichess. Personally, I'm 1950 rated in lichess blitz and I consider myself average.

# Answer
By **average**, chess sites mean the rating of all players divided by a total number of players on their website.

## Here's the distribution for Lichess Blitz

As you can see **Your rating** refers to the place where you are in terms of other players and the point of 50% on the yellow line tell us the **average rating** which is around **1510**.

## Here's the distribution for Chess.com Blitz
> 2 votes

# Answer
I don't have the chesscom data or FIDE data but for Lichess, there is a distribution which also can show the average. According to that distribution, the average of blitz is about 1500.
> 11 votes

# Answer
In my experience, it's a fact of human psychology in any endeavor that regardless of how good someone is objectively, they usually consider people around their own level of skill to be "ok" or "pretty good".

People at a level that is a bit better than them, but seems achievable, are considered "good". People they can consistently beat are considered not very good.

One reason this is true is that people feel like reaching their current level is relatively easy (after all, they were able to do it), but reaching beyond that level is pretty difficult (after all, they're currently struggling to do it).

Another reason this is true is that you usually compete against people about your level, so you have about an equal win and loss rate, so you think of yourself as okay or average.

Another reason is that if you tend to meet and hang out with people about your level, some a bit better, some a bit worse. So you get used to thinking of your level as normal, even if you belong to an advanced club and everyone you hang out with is exceptionally good, and yourself in the middle.

The above applies to athletics, gaming, academics, etc. A similar phenomenon is that most people think of themselves as not quite as talented as most people, but a harder worker.
> 8 votes

# Answer
This is a question of mathematical definition as much as it is about chess.

Whenever you have some kind of measurement you have three different "averages":

1. **Mean** \- add up all the numbers and divide by how many there are. This is the most commonly used meaning of "average".
2. **Median** \- line all the numbers up in order and then the middle number is the median.
3. **Mode** \- count how many times each number occurs. The most common number is the mode. Slightly problematic as you can have more than one mode if there is a tie.

> Is there an average rating? and if there is what is it?

Since ratings are systems where different numbers are assigned to different players then each rating system has an averages for each different measurement.

Using the latest (January 2022) FIDE data here are the means for FIDE rated standard, rapid and blitz:

**FIDE Standard** \- 1647
**FIDE Rapid** \- 1567
**FIDE Blitz** \- 1640
> 7 votes

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Tags: rating
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