# Question
Title: Why does the game end at checkmate and not upon taking the king?
Ever since I was a kid this has felt kind of odd to me. Victory in chess is achieved by *"cornering"* the king, and not by *taking* him outright, like what you do to all the other pieces. I always wondered why that is.

Of course the distinction between taking the king and "cornering" him is very minute, and upon achieving checkmate you can confidently assume that a capture will occur next turn, but somehow it feels odd that this next step is forbidden by the official rules. What if the player who achieved check-mate is inexperienced or distracted and doesn't realize that he did so? What if he's really experienced and wants to continue taking material for sadistic purposes? Why do the rules of chess disallow such moments? These moments probably wouldn't end up happening in tournament games (since most seem to end up in resignation anyway), but nevertheless they could, and I think chess would be more fun like that. So why was the checkmate created?

# Answer
Per wikipedia, citing Henry Davidson's *A Short History of Chess* (1949):

> In early Sanskrit chess (c. 500–700) the king could be captured and this ended the game. The Persians (c. 700–800) introduced the idea of warning that the king was under attack (announcing check in modern terminology). This was done to avoid the early and accidental end of a game. Later the Persians added the additional rule that a king could not be moved into check or left in check. As a result, the king could not be captured, and checkmate was the only decisive way of ending a game.
> 14 votes

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Tags: rules, history, checkmate
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# Question
Title: Chess Engines that have "Deep" in their names?
Why is it that some chess engines have the word deep in their names? It does seem to be a common trend, but not one that is universal.

# Answer
It used to be the case that the "Deep" specified the multiprocessor version. At least for Fritz, Shredder and so on, the "old" engines. But I guess nowadays every engine is a multi processor engine …

This naming trend was surely started by Deep Thought, the first seriously strong IBM chess machine. And of course Deep Thought was named after the famous computer from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.
> 5 votes

# Answer
"Deep" is simply just a marketing technique. It's a tactic to sell you more, and sell you at a higher price.

Consider this, "Fritz" and "Deep Fritz". What does that mean to an average user? "Fritz" might sell for $50, "Deep Fritz" might sell for $100. What would an average user with little chess engine knowledge think?

They might think like this: "Oh, it's a DEEP version of the software, so it must be GOOD because DEEP Blue has beaten the World Champion. This software must be DEEP. Why not pay $50 more for a world-champion-level product?".

Chessbase is trying to paint a mental picture on you:

"DEEP" Fritz == "DEEP" Blue \> Kasparov == World Champion \> the $50 difference.

Technically, Chessbase explains the difference is due to multi-threading. But this is just an excuse. They simply make the "normal" version single-threaded. It's a 10s work. Everyone can do it.

This is really a very standard marketing technique. What do you think when someone says "I have a new porsche car"? Probably something like, "rich", "successful" etc.

Then, why they're also selling the "normal version if they want to make more money? That's because a consumer needs a reference, they need something to compare to justify that they should buy the more expensive version. Say, a small coke at McDonald was $3.5 and a large coke costed you $4.0. Only a 50 cents gap, lots of people would get the large coke because it's relatively cheap to smaller version of the same product.

It's all about marketing. Chessbase (and also Shredder) is here to make profits. They're trying to relate their product to something that you're familiar with, to make more money.
> 2 votes

# Answer
It has to do with the way the chess engine calculates the its moves. It constructs a partial Game Tree and then runs a search algorithm to calculate the best move. The deeper the search algorithm goes (that is, the deeper are the "roots" of the partial tree), the better the move will be.
> -2 votes

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Tags: engines
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# Question
Title: What is the most popular chess app for android?
What is the most popular chess app for android that is used for playing against other Human opponents?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Every good chess website has its own app. Such as chess.com, lichess, chess24, ... Just lunch play store and enter your favorite chess site name, you will find its app. They usually have human mode or computer mode with various time controls. With chess.com app you are also able to challenge particular opponent by his user ID and in lichess it's even easier, create a challenge and send a link of challenge to your opponent.

It turns out some people here cannot get what is the most popular app to play against other humans in android even w.r.t my answer that I put some of those apps in order. It's clear that app is chess.com app, as the number of members of chess.com is way more than any other website and if someone still says this is not related to app, then 1M+ downloads of this app on play store compare to 10K+ downloads of other apps clear's everything.

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Tags: android
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title: When to push centrals pawns?

text:
# Question
Title: When to push centrals pawns?
Lets consider you have `e4 d4` pawns with white or `e5,d5` with black. When your opponent challenge your center with e5 or d5 with black, or with e4 or d4 with white of course his pawns are protected. How do you know if you have to push your pawn or simply capture the challenger pawn?

# Answer
There are basically three possibilities:

* Keeping the tension is often the best one: If your opponent resolves the tension by taking your pawn you can retake and centralise a piece and your remaining pawn often gives you a space advantage.
* Taking is usually the least attractive option, but it can be good, if you are the first (or only one) to take advantage of vulnerable squares. So you might take on e5 if you can bring a knight to d5, possibly because the black c-pawn is already on c5, whereas your c-pawn can still control d4.
* Pushing the pawn gives you a space advantage, but there is a big difference on which side of the board you get this space advantage! Pushing e5 gives you a space advantage on the king side. This can lead to an (piece-) attack against the king and is therefore a generally attractive option. It is not by random chance that against the French and against the Caro-Kann the e-pawn is often pushed to e5. Pushing d5 gives you an advantage on the queenside and this is only attractive if you can follow it up with play on this side of the board. Therefore it is generally more often played if you already have a pawn on c4, which is ready to be pushed to c5. If you need too much time to get your queenside play going, there will be the counter lever f5, which gives black play on the kingside.
> 5 votes

# Answer
For your general chess education it's important to know the textbook example Tarrasch-Marco, Dresden 1892.

```
[FEN ""]
[Date "1892.07.18"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Siegbert Tarrasch"]
[Black "Georg Marco"]
[StartPly "8"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 4.d4 Bd7 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.O-O Be7 7.Re1
O-O (7... exd4)8.Bxc6 Bxc6 9.dxe5 dxe5 10.Qxd8 Raxd8 11.Nxe5 Bxe4 12.Nxe4
Nxe4 13.Nd3 f5 14.f3 Bc5+ 15.Nxc5 Nxc5 16.Bg5 Rd5 17.Be7 Re8
18.c4 1-0

```

White could have pushed the pawn `5. d5` with a small advantage, due to more space. Instead he kept the tension until black made a mistake with `7... 0-0?`, when the correct move for black was to surrender the center with `7... exd4`. After the mistake `7... 0-0?`, white started a series of exchanges on move `8` that eventually wins a pawn. The moral: Don't take on `e5` before it's actually good. Also notice how white's moves `5-7`support his center.
> 5 votes

# Answer
This is actually a stylistic situation: **Space lovers** enjoy cramping the opponent and denying his pieces room to move freely. By advancing the central pawn, oftentimes a knight is deprived of its most natural development square and may have to compete with its companion Bishop for use of a square. In the French Defense, Advance Variation, for instance, the Black King's Knight and Bishop can find mutual need for the 'e7' square. **Tactical Players** like keeping the tension by prolonging the attacking central formation which requires defense by the opponent. **Simplification addicts** may play for central exchanges hoping to keep strategy and tactics under control while they look for gradual improvement of their overall position and prospects over time. As previously pointed out by others here, there is no one **right** answer to the question.
> 0 votes

# Answer
The best position is usually two pawns on the same row. Once you push one of them, you create a hole that may be exploited. For example the hole can be used as an outpost for a Knight or a Bishop can block the pawns from moving forward. Like everything else, it depends on the position.
> 0 votes

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Tags: theory, strategy, pawn-structure
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# Question
Title: In the Slav, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6, what are all the differences between 4. Qc2 and 4. Qb3?
In the Slav, after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 :

What are all the differences between 4. Qc2 and 4. Qb3 ?

Which one of them is better to reach some Catalan type positions?

Which one of them tends to lead (on average) to the most solid, quiet, positional, slow, safe and strategic positions (i.e. the least sharp and tactical positions) ?

Is one of the two objectively stronger than the other?

.

I have made some research and here is what I've found:

If Black plays 4...dxc4 then they transpose (except if White is crazy enough to try the rare gambit 4. Qc2 dxc4 5. e4 but I'm never going to play this anyway).

Against 4. Qc2 Black often plays 4...g6, while against 4. Qb3 the move 4...g6 seems to be less popular.

If Black plays 4...e6, maybe it makes a difference if the Queen is on c2 or on b3. Not sure.

# Answer
> 2 votes
After quickly looking at the differences, I think Qb3 is more suited if you want to fianchetto.

The queen puts pressure on b7 and d5 and combines nicely with a fianchettoed king bishop.

If the queen is on c2 black often plays g6, planning to fianchetto and also play Bf5 with tempo.

Both moves are equaly popular. The choice is yours!

# Answer
> 1 votes
The difference is that Qc2 will allow you to later push the b pawn at the expense of you pressuring the black b7 pawn. With the Queen on c2 you also gain the option of combining the Qc2 and Bd3 against the h7 pawn later when the black King is castle. I recommend delaying the Queen move until later. Develop your pieces and castle first.

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Tags: opening, theory, 1.d4, slav-defense, catalan
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# Question
Title: Recommend chess software for windows 8.1
I've been running an old version Chessmaster: Grandmaster edition on my windows 8.1 laptop when I found a bug (Chessmaster recommended an illegal move), and I thought it was time to change my software.

I'm rated around 2000 elo and would like a program that has tutorials (tactics exercises, annotated games, endgame courses etc.)

Any recommendations?

PS. I've checked that my Chessmaster program has all the latest updates from Ubisoft.

# Answer
> 0 votes
A very good piece of software would be ChessBase. Two good engines to run would be Houdini or Fritz (they are essentially indistinguishable to anyone below a super grandmaster standard, although Houdini is reputedly stronger). Besides playing against the engine, you could also store and analyse your games on them.

ChessBase is also the name of the company that produces it, i.e. it's a company that specialises in the development of chess programs, unlike Ubisoft, so you can expect a lot from them.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Lucas is a good software but in my opinion I would say that Chessmaster is better than Lucas. Well you can try Lucas and see...

# Answer
> 0 votes
Join chess.com and play against humans. Training against computer will not help your positional judgement which is what you need to improve to get you from 2000 to 2200.

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Tags: engines, software
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# Question
Title: Can the Nc3+e3 Chebanenko Slav, the Exchange Slav and the 4...Bg4 Slow Slav transpose into each other?
I would like to know if the following three variations can transpose into each other?

* The Nc3+e3 Chebanenko Slav: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 a6
* The Exchange Slav: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. cxd5 cxd5
* The 4...Bg4 Slow Slav: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4

?

I'm asking because:

* 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 a6 5. Nf3 b5 6. cxd5 cxd5 looks like an Exchange Slav
* 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 a6 5. Nf3 b5 6. b3 Bg4 looks like a 4...Bg4 Slow Slav.
* 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4 5. cxd5 looks like an Exchange Slav.

# Answer
> 2 votes
No, they don't transpose to Exchange Slavs.

In the Slow Slav and the Chebanenko, white plays e3 to prevent trouble with the c4 pawn. The bishop stays inside the pawn chain which is somewhat passive, but the plus is that c4 is defended, so that black can't stir up trouble by taking it and defending it with ...b5.

In the Exchange, white has dealt with that issue drastically by just exchanging the pawn away, so there's no need to make further concessions because of threats to it. I've never seen an Exchange Slav where white chose to keep Bc1 inside the chain, it goes to f4.

---
Tags: opening, theory, 1.d4, slav-defense, transpositions
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# Question
Title: Possible to simulate specific chess situations?
I played around with cutechess and stockfish to simulate a specific situation in chess. But I ended up playing complete games against a human or cpu. Is it even possible to set up a chess situation by hand and let the chess engine compute solutions?

# Answer
You could use Fritz (or any other engine under the ChessBase GUI) to do this, using the "Infinite Analysis" function, so it's definitely possible, though I have no experience with other chess software and therefore don't know how to do this with other GUIs.

As for simulations, it is possible to have the engine play many games against itself, available in the ChessBase GUI again, called Monte Carlo analysis.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Okay I ended up using jerry which is very easy to use, platform independent and also supportes various engines. Recommend it.
> 1 votes

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Tags: engines, stockfish
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# Question
Title: How do I activate ChessBase 12 with a serial number? It keeps saying "SerialNumber already used"
My old PC died, so I bought a new PC.

I tried to re-install my chess softwares on the new PC.

I successfully re-installed Komodo 8 as well as Houdini 3 and activated them with my serial numbers. They work perfectly.

But there is a problem for ChessBase 12. I re-installed it successfully, but when I try to activate it with my serial number (File \> Activation \> Activate) it doesn't work.

Here is a screenshot of the problem:

So apparently "ChessProgram 13/14", "Engine: Houdini 3 Pro" and "Engine: Invalid" (no idea what "invalid" means) have been activated successfully.

But "CBase 12" (ChessBase 12) was not activated successfully.

I have re-tried to activate it many times, but each time the message says "SerialNumber already used", and then it also says "You can now open database files by double-clicking them in Windows". And "CBase 12" stays at "No".

So how do I solve this problem?

And don't answer me "buy another ChessBase serial number"... I have already bought ChessBase a few months ago, it costed a lot of money (around €370 I think), and I don't want to lose even more money...

# Answer
I've had serial number issues in the past whe moving to new computer and after upgrading to a new version of windows without deactivating the serial number on the old computer. When that happens, I've contacted ChessBase support through the support form on their site. http://en.chessbase.com/support

They have always responded within 24 hours and resolved the problem.

I'm pretty sure they have to resolve it on their end since they have to update it on their licensing server. Just explain that you are moving to a new computer and the issue you are having.
> 2 votes

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Tags: software, chessbase
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# Question
Title: In Queen's Indian - Classical Line, why is ... Bb4+, Bd2 Be7 preferred over Be7 directly
Consider the following line

```
[FEN ""]
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.b3 Bb4+ (5... Be7) 6.Bd2 Be7 (6... Bxd2+)

```

Black hardly ever plays 5... Be7 directly (I could only find one such game), but rather plays the above sequence (this sequence happens 1573 times). The variation 6... Bxd2+ happens 54 times.

This suggests that it is better for black if white has the Bishop on d2. But I cannot see why this is.

# Answer
White's intended setup involves fianchettoing his dark-squared bishop on b2. The "free move" 6. Bd2 brings more harm than good:

1. Transferring the bishop onto the long diagonal, if white wishes to, will still take another move (i.e. Bd2-c3), but more importantly, if he does, the bishop on c3 takes away the square for the knight, which is preferred in many lines.
2. In many lines, white wants to play d5, aiming for a Benoni-like structure (which is bad for black in these cases); the bishop on d2 blocks the queen's defence of the d5 square, making this push harder to achieve.

For case 1: consider the "old" line, and compare this to a possible variation that arises after giving the check on move 5 instead:

```
[FEN ""]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 (4... Ba6 5. b3 Bb4+ 6. Bd2 Be7 7. Bg2 Bb7 8. O-O O-O 9. Nc3) Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Ne4 8. Qc2 Nxc3 9. Qxc3 f5 10. b3 Bf6 11. Bb2

```

Clearly, in this case, having the bishop on d2 is worse than having it on c1!

Long story short: the check disrupts white's set-up.
> 6 votes

# Answer
According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s\_Indian\_Defense

> "The effect of Black's check has been to lure White's bishop to c3 where it blocks the c-file. This, the current main line of the Queen's Indian, is considered equal by theory and became a frequent guest in grandmaster praxis in the 1980s."

You should be able to get some understanding from this page. Then look at those games you found.
> 3 votes

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Tags: opening, queens-indian
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title: Opening a chess club

text:
# Question
Title: Opening a chess club
Beside the chess sets and clocks, what materials are needed? I took care of the place, I'm talking about chess materials needed.

Now lets talk about the materials, I would like to buy them this week, I was looking at wholesalechess.com, but I wanted to ask you first, you are the almighty experts.

What I want is to buy, between 10 or 12 chess sets and 10 or 12 clocks (Do I need something else?)

I want free shipping to Lebanon, middle east, I want something that is quality and somehow cheap, I would prefer digital clocks, and club chess sets like this

I would like to be able to communicate with the seller, maybe I could ask him for a discount, or ask him for advice. I would like buyer protection, credit card gateway (paypal isn't available in my country) new items, nothing used, fast support, and fast shipping (ideally less than a month).

Second question here.

# Answer
The manufacturer of the Game Timer II clock used to give a good discount to anyone buying 5+, but that was before they were owned by Excalibur; no idea if they currently do.

In my experience running a chess foundation, most of the manufacturers are open to quantity discounts, but you need to contact them directly in order to find out what they are. (Often they will give you the same price they give the retailers.) Retailers like wholesalechess.com are often willing to do some discounting, but usually they give you a table on their website of where the quantity breaks come in. Sometimes the price breaks don't happen before 25 or 50, though.

Bottom line is it never hurts to ask.

As for what else, depends on what you're aiming for with the club. Boards, sets and clocks are all you really need to get going. Other supplies might include pencils and scoresheets for official games, a large demo board (or electronic display, depending upon budget -- we typically use demo boards with pockets on each square for the piece) can come in handy if someone is going to give demonstrations or lessons for the club members.
> 1 votes

# Answer
IMHO best place to buy chess sets is cnchess.com factory in China.
Pretty reasonable prices, and you avoid the middle man. Shipping is OK but not great. The basic vinyl boards and tournament sets are decent, but they have a better selection. They also have a clock section.

The best clock for the price is the "leap pq 9903" - you can find them in a lot of places. They are cheap and way more durable than the others mentioned above.

As far as what you need I highly recommend that you buy 30-40 extra sets to sell to your customers. Your sales should cover the cost of your boards and your shipping, with extra in your pocket. It might take a year to sell them off, but if you don't have them you can't sell them!
> 0 votes

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Tags: chessboards, chess-clocks, clubs
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# Question
Title: How does a chess club become recognized by FIDE?
First question here, I split it into 2 questions

What would it take for the club to be recognized by FIDE? At first the club would be a place to have fun, but later on, I would like that the club become recognized by FIDE, I would like to give the members FIDE ratings and to participate in local and international events.

# Answer
> 8 votes
> What would it take for the club to be recognized by FIDE?

FIDE does not recognize chess clubs (except perhaps maybe for club world cup competitions?). Depending on your country, your national chess federation (NCF) will likely need to recognize your club to allow you to participate in national team tournaments.

> I would like to give the members FIDE ratings

FIDE gives the ratings to players who have played in a tournament that has been registered as a FIDE-rated tournament. If you want to organize such a tournament, you should discuss with your NCF.

> and to participate in local and international events.

Your NCF may require each player to belong to a club recognized by the NCF before participating in tournaments rated by NCF. In international events, there is no requirement by FIDE to belong to a national club, but each player needs to register with FIDE via the NCF before entering the competition (since July 2014; before that registration was possible after the tournament).

# Answer
> 4 votes
Unfortunately JiK is just plain wrong! FIDE accredited clubs (called FIDE academies) are all over the world. According to FIDE representatives in the FIDE Trainers' Commission they are looking to rapidly expand to 500 approved FIDE Clubs worldwide by 2017. Currently there are 33. You need to pay for this AND have approval from your National Chess Federation. Some details with this will be changing as it seems that most national chess federations don't like some of the power that these academies have. For more information you can visit : http://trainers.fide.com/fide-academies.html for more. The serious question is it worth the fee! When I inquired in October 2014 it was 500 euro for the first year and 200 (or 300??) every year after. This is not ideal for a small club, but it seems you wouldn't want it right away! Hope that helps! I should also mention that your club name stays the same, but you get to add FIDE academy to your logos, letterhead and advertisments...

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Tags: fide, clubs
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# Question
Title: Opening theory versus strong AI suggestions
I have realised that Opening theory usually contains the highest quality chess, they have been pruned and honed. However sometimes when I am going through an opening with say Stockfish, I find that at times Stockfish has different recommendations than the opening has. So I have been wondering how does the quality of play in an opening compare with the abilities of a 3300 elo chess program?

# Answer
> 8 votes
There are at least four possibilities, all of which are pretty normal.

One, the opening theory is from a good, recent book. The author will have used the strongest engines himself, and also applied his own chess knowledge, and spent enough time to find better moves than the engine did.

Two, the author did see the computer move, but thought it was not practical for a human to play like that, and that his move was almost as good but much easier to understand, explain and play.

Three, the position is drawn (as most opening theory positions are) and in the final analysis both moves will turn out to be good enough.

Four, you've found a mistake in the book.

All of those happen all the time.

If you have a concrete example, you'll get much more concrete responses.

# Answer
> 3 votes
First off, we should understand how opening theory is developed, and a short answer is that it comes about through publications, either through analysis in books/articles/magazines, or tournament games (that are published).

Now, some openings are dubbed "non-theoretical", but in reality, all openings contain a body of opening theory, and what "non-theoretical" usually means is that the analysis in publications usually ends early (say by move 10). These openings, especially the obscure ones, are seldom played at GM level, and lack recent GM-level proponents, so the existing literature is either scarce or leaves much to be desired. In these cases, there are points of improvement certainly discoverable with engines. (Some of these do get played, but fail to impact theory because they are at a lower level and receive little attention, or are not published.)

On the other hand, the sharp, theoretical, and top-choice-for-GMs such as the Sicilian/KID/Gruenfeld are heavily studied and "analysed to death" in certain lines. It's difficult to find improvements through the analysis of a program that have not already been considered by the theorists. The biggest problem with engines in general is that they fail to understand long-term positional advantages, and this happens particularly often, for example, in exchange sacrifices in more quiet positions of the Sicilian (where black plays Rxc3, forcing white to recapture by bxc3) after which black plays against white's structural weaknesses (and the c4 square) are often underrated by engines as it takes looking at the position several dozen moves later (for a computer) to realise that these sacrifices may potentially be the best option. On another note, the analysis of sacrifices in open positions such as the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Najdorf (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf3 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6 8. Qd2 Qxb2 9. Rb1 Qa3) do well to be assisted by an engine, but it is noteworthy that it takes some time before the computer agrees with existing theory in many positions!

Another time when engines may be inferior to theory is the placement of pieces in closed positions, which computers are notoriously poor at playing. In these cases, the computer has difficulty differentiating on whether to put that bishop on e2 or d3, but it is often strategically clear to humans, and such positions can arise in the opening as well.

Nevertheless, it should be stressed that improvements in heavily theoretical positions do exist, and are often found with the assistance of computers (which is how modern theory advances in today's age), but don't expect these to come by easily!

# Answer
> 1 votes
What I've noticed with Stockfish is that a lot of the recommended moves they suggest depend on the options you have selected. For instance if you have selected Stockfish's play style as aggressive or suicidal vs. passive or solid it is going to recommend different different openings. Also selecting the book variety as low medium or high will change what Stockfish recommends.

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Tags: opening, engines
---


title: What does autopilot mean in chess?

text:
# Question
Title: What does autopilot mean in chess?
I've seen people saying things like "from now on this is just autopilot" or "autopilot from move 20"

# Answer
> 4 votes
I think overtheboard is mostly right, especially because your quotes seem to have this gist, but there is another aspect to playing on autopilot in chess, more often referred to as "playing by hand", i.e. without using you head.

If you reach a certain level in chess, in almost all positions a "typical" move represents itself to you, not necessarily the best move, but with high probability a decent move. This phenomenon is closely connected to the term priyome, which refers to standard positional responses and methods, that somebody with a certain amount of chess culture just knows.

So if somebody talks about playing on autopilot or playing by hand, he might just mean choosing natural strong moves without looking deeply into the position. Often this is enough to beat weaker players and it can be done in all kinds of positions, not just in easily winning ones or in forcing lines.

# Answer
> 3 votes
It probably means that the moves from this point forth are *forced, obvious, or not easily wrong*. For example:

* A promotion race (forced)
* Basic checkmate with a king and queen (obvious)
* An easy win, e.g. up a large amount of material (the moves from this point on are very unlikely to blow the win).

Not a common term in chess.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Playing a position in which the moves are fairly obvious even to a player of average strength,or the plan to follow is a time-honored strategy that ought to be known as part of any player's basic knowledge i.e playing your rook to the only open file and proceeding to advance it to the 7th rank etc(such maneuvers require little to no thought to make) hence "auto-pilot", You'll also often hear phrases like "at this point, the position plays itself". In the opening,tonnes of theoretical positions can be played on auto-pilot as they too do not require any novel approach. Most plans have already been established.

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Tags: evaluation
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# Question
Title: Why is it said that beginning with 1. Nf3 2. c4 avoids the Benoni but beginning with 1. d4 2. c4 does not?
I have read a lot of messages on different Forums about the merits of beginning with 1.Nf3 or beginning with 1.d4.

And a very big number of people said essentially this:

One of the advantages of starting with 1.Nf3 2. c4 is that it avoids the Benoni while starting with 1. d4 2. c4 does not.

But I just don't understand why that is the case.

.

After 1. Nf3 2. c4, if White wants to try to avoid the Benoni he should delay d4. At some point Black will play ...c5. But White will play d4 anyway sooner or later, and when White does play d4 Black will answer with ...cxd4.

For example, from a Symmetrical English move order:

1. Nf3 c5 2. c4 Nf6 3. g3 (3. Nc3 Nc6 4. g3 will transpose; while 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 instantly gets into roughly the same position) g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. O-O O-O 6. Nc3 Nc6 7. d4 (7. d3 is inferior and scores very poorly for White) cxd4 8. Nxd4

Or from a King's Indian Defense move order:

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 O-O 5. O-O (5. d4 c5 transposes) c5 6. Nc3 (6. d4 cxd4 transposes) Nc6 7. d4 cxd4 8. Nxd4

These seem to be White's best tries to try avoid the Benoni (or I should probably say "to delay entering in a Benoni") by beginning with 1. Nf3 2. c4. White has many other possibilities, but they end up reaching roughly the same position as above even quicker than in 8 moves (and the only moves that White can play to get a different position are rare and weaker).

I'm not sure if this position is considered as a Benoni or not (one database calls this an "English Benoni formation", another source calls this an "Anti Benoni"), but it doesn't matter if it's really a Benoni or not, the only important question is: does it make a difference if White begins with 1. d4 2. c4 instead?

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4

Play can continue: 4... Nc6 5. Nc3 g6 6. g3 Bg7 7. Bg2 O-O 8. O-O

And we reach the exact same position!

Since I don't know if this position is considered as a Benoni or not, I don't know if White can or cannot avoid the Benoni by starting with 1. Nf3 2. c4, and I don't know if White can or cannot avoid the Benoni by starting with 1. d4 2. c4.

But this doesn't matter, because the point is: beginning with 1. Nf3 2. c4 or with 1. d4 2. c4 does not seem to make a difference if White wants to avoid the Benoni, since White ends up in the exact same position regardless of if he starts with 1. Nf3 2. c4 or with 1. d4 2. d4.

So the statement "one of the advantages of starting with 1.Nf3 2. c4 is that it avoids the Benoni while starting with 1. d4 2. c4 does not" should be false.

But obviously I must be wrong, I must be missing something, because I've seen dozens of people (some were very high rated) say that 1. Nf3 2. c4 avoids the Benoni while 1. d4 2. c4 does not.

# Answer
With both move orders white can avoid the Benoni. The difference is all about which sidelines you allow and which ones you don't.

`1. Nf3 c5 2. c4` is generally considered the most flexible move order for white since they can wait and play `d4` at the moment of their choosing.

`1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4` on the other hand gives black extra options, for instance the interesting gambit

```
    [FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nb5 d5 6. cxd5 Bc5

```

Have a look at the following game where I was the victim: Madsen-Hodgson.

Another option black has after `1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4` is to play like Kramnik did against Kasparov.

```
   [FEN ""]
   [Event "Braingames World Chess Championship"]
   [Site "London"]
   [Date "2000.10.19"]
   [Round "7"]
   [Result "1/2-1/2"]
   [White "Garry Kasparov"]
   [Black "Vladimir Kramnik"]
   [ECO "A31"]
   [WhiteElo "2849"]
   [BlackElo "2770"]
   [PlyCount "21"]

   1. c4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Nc3 e6 6. g3 Qc7
   7. Qd3 (7.Bg2) Nc6 8. Nxc6 dxc6 9. Bg2 e5 10. O-O Be6 11. Na4 1/2-1/2

```

To get an advantage in this variation, white might have to sacrifice the `c4` pawn instead of covering it with `7. Qd3`.

A third option black has is to enter the Hedgehog with

```
    [FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 b6 (4... b6 5.g3?)

```

In this move order white should not fianchetto the bishop with `5.g3` since black's bishop is first on the long diagonal.
> 4 votes

# Answer
One of the main ideas of hypermodern defenses such as the Benoni is to chisel away at white's 'big' centre with moves like 2...c5 after 1.d4 Nf6, and 2.c4 (chewing away at the d4 pawn). A move order such as 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 does not give black any target at d4 and black must be prepared for English-opening structures with white's pawn on d3(not d4). Additionally, even if white eventually plays d4(after about 5 moves), the Czech Benoni, Snake Benoni as well as a few other Benoni variants and gambits will have been sidestepped.
> 1 votes

# Answer
The simple version, with no variations: With 1 Nf3 2 c4 White is basically declaring the desire not to play Benoni. And if Black decides to go for it willy-nilly, Black knows they will quite likely end up in various variations of the Queen's Indian, the QGD (probably Tarrasch) or the Sicilian, including many Maroczy Bind possibilities. So Black chooses another line. more suited to the temperament of a Benoni player.

Yes, it's possible for White to steer for many of those same positions starting with 1 d4 (1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 e3 being one approach). But playing 1 d4 just encourages Black to try and play Benoni, and in this case, the avoidance lines all are required to have the pawn on d4, not always the optimum choice.

There are some lines available in the 1 Nf3 / 2 c4 beginning that work better with the d-pawn on d3 (or even d2, letting White use a timely d4 to attack *Black's* center). Playing Nf3 and c4 first leaves those options open for White, and tells Black up front that White isn't going to put up with any of that Benoni nonsense, hence Black typically doesn't try to play it.

And so, White avoids it.
> 1 votes

# Answer
I'm not an expert on these lines and I don't see a difference in that respect between Nf3+c4 and d4+c4.

I do, however, see a difference between 1.d4 and 1.Nf3/1.c4. 1.d4 can be met by 1…c5 which leads to a "real" Benoni structure, because you cannot really answer it with Nf3: 1.d4 c5 2.Nf3 cxd4 3.Nxd4 d5!

So if you don't want to be passive with 2.e3 or 2.c3 you would have to play 2.d5, when 2…e5 leads to the Czech-Benoni and a later e6 might still lead to a modern Benoni, although white is probably better off playing e4 instead of c4.
> 0 votes

# Answer
The first thing that sprung to mind you said people say 1. Nf3 avoids the Benoni was that are talking about responding to 1...c5 with 2. e4, which leads to the Sicilian. However, the openings you have shown in your post are actually all members of the Symmetrical English, not the Benoni proper. The typical starting position for the Benoni occurs after 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5. This is why 1. Nf3 avoids the Benoni.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: opening, theory, 1.d4, transpositions, modern-benoni
---


# Question
Title: What are the differences between the How To Reassess Your Chess books from Jeremy Silman?
How To Reassess Your Chess 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Edition

What's the difference? Are these improvisations or just parts?

# Answer
The editions do not form a series. It just is that the 4th edition is the one released at the latest date (October 2010) with revisions to the text.

There is also a workbook which contains a summary of the main book, with about 300 examples with detailed answers. This was released in December 2000. This is the book that I personally found the most useful.
> 3 votes

# Answer
The snarky side of my mind says the reason there are x editions of the book is Silman wants to make money. This is not evil, but really you only need one of the editions. The other editions are pretty much Silman saying the same things using different words and different examples. If you go by the principle "more material means better book" grab the most recent one, whatever it is. It gets longer every time he releases it.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: books
---


# Question
Title: Which classic chess books are in the public domain?
While looking through Project Gutenberg I noticed that *Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals* is there (I believe that should mean it is in the Public Domain). I was also able to find Modern Ideas in Chess by Richard Rèti on line.

What other famous chess books are in the Public Domain and can be freely posted on a website? or how can I tell whether or not a book I own is in the public domain?

# Answer
> 13 votes
The International Chess Congress, St. Petersburg, 1909 is a classic by World Champion Emanuel Lasker was written in 1910 and is in the public domain.

\[EDIT\] ISBN: 1888690097, can be viewed online or downloaded in PDF at http://archive.org/details/internationalche00lask

# Answer
> 9 votes
You can find more books at the following sites:

http://chesszone.org/lib/lib.html

http://www.chessville.com/downloads/ebooks.htm

http://www.chessmaniac.com/chess\_ebooks/index.shtml

http://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=chess&as\_brr=1

# Answer
> 9 votes
Tim Harding's *The Kibitzer* column on Chesscafe.com recently had an article about finding old chess books online. Basically he goes to Google Books and Forgotten Books, and searches for chess. See the article for details.

In the article, he says he's found the following old chess books this way, although whether they are available to you or not depends on your country:

* The exploits and triumphs, in Europe, of Paul Morphy, by Morphy's late secretary (Edge). The English edition, with a slightly different title, is probably also available.
* A Popular Introduction to the Study and Practice of Chess…by an Amateur (1851). This is an early manual that came out soon after Staunton's Handbook. The author was S. S. Boden, a leading contemporary of Bird and Morphy.
* Chess Brilliants, One Hundred Games, selected by I. O. Howard Taylor of Norwich Chess Club (1869)
* The Chess-Player's Annual for the Year 1856, edited by Charles Tomlinson (the only year that ever came out, but full of interesting material). Also his Amusements in Chess.
* Staunton's Chess Praxis, and other books by him.
* Several George Walker books, including Chess Studies (the first large published collection of actual play, over 1,000 games) and his Chess and Chess Players, still a good read, which includes the articles he wrote for Fraser's Magazine. Also his collection of Games Actually Played by Philidor should be available.
* Horae Divanianae, by Elijah Williams (1852), a collection of 150 games played at the Grand Divan in the Strand.
* Willard Fiske's The book of the first American chess congress is well worth obtaining.
* The Principles of Chess in Theory & Practice by James Mason (1894); this is one I got from Forgotten Books.
* Some early books on chess compositions are also available, for example A collection of two hundred chess problems, by Francis Healey (1862).

Edit: Now I see that this doesn't really answer your question. Perhaps see here on Wikipedia to see how long copyright in the book's author's country lasts, to find out whether a book is in the public domain.

# Answer
> 3 votes
In the US, you can date public domain for the most part by the date of "Steamboat Willie," the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. Any time it gets close to falling into public domain, Disney opens up Scrooge McDuck's vault and buys enough votes in Congress to prevent it. There's a small loophole that was closed in the 70's which says works which didn't have their term renewed (28 years) fall into the public domain, but it's dicey to figure out whether it applies.

Google is no authority for this. They basically announced with the opening of their Google Books site that they didn't care whether the book was copyrighted, they'd only take it down if the author reached for a lawyer. So if it's on Google, that means pretty much nothing at all about whether the book is still under copyright.

The most reliable date is 1928. Books before that are probably Public Domain. But no guarantees.

---
Tags: books, capablanca
---


# Question
Title: Vitamins to improve memorizing of variations in chess
Has anyone tried vitamins for improving memory? How about Memo Plus Gold, has anyone tried it?

Do you think it will improve memorizing theories and variations?

# Answer
> 4 votes
There is no credible evidence that supplements benefit cognitive functioning in people who don't have clinical disorders. The only people making those claims are people trying to sell you something. As mentioned above, the only indicated rationale for such treatment is with a nutritional disorder, or some other type of clinical problem.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3311304/

"Dietary supplements are one of the most common forms of complementary and alternative medicine that patients use and although limited, evidence for their potential interactions with other treatments has been documented. Considering the insufficient evidence for their efficacy, potential for interaction with other therapies and costs to patients, physicians should be aware of the use of dietary supplements among their patients so that they can advise their patients on the potential benefits and harms."

# Answer
> 3 votes
This is unlikely to work for adults.

For children it has been shown that giving vitamin supplements produces an overall average increase in IQ over a large population. If this experiment is repeated over a population which is restricted to only include those who are already getting their daily requirement then no increase is seen.

So, if you are a child and you have an inadequate diet then yes, taking vitamin supplements will help your cognitive development and this will likely help you memorize variations.

If you already have an adequate diet then overdosing on vitamins will not help you.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I am not aware about the impact that vitamins would have in terms of improving memory but I am sure that it would not affect your chess skills all that much.

**Chess is not about memory**. Sure there are some things that you need to remember but you remember them through experience or through understanding the reason behind it, and this is not something that vitamins will help with.

If your goal at the end is to improve your tactics, strategies and skill in using various variations of different openings, I suggest that you play a lot of games using the same opening against live opponents or a chess engine and analyze those games. This will help you keep track of the various variations because speaking from expierence, nothing helps like understanding it and actually analyzing and playing it a few times.

---
Tags: memorization
---


title: Chess Puzzles vs Laziness

text:
# Question
Title: Chess Puzzles vs Laziness
Does solving chess puzzles help in overcoming laziness? I lost many games in a tournament because I am too lazy to calculate variations, e.g.: calculating 4-5 moves deep when defending to be sure that I will not be down in material.

# Answer
From personal experience doing puzzles has no effect on my level of laziness. What it does, which is more important for me, is widen my thinking. I become less narrow in the possibilities I will consider simply because I have seen unlikely moves work in the puzzles I've tried.

Overcoming laziness is more a problem of motivation, will and energy.

Tony Miles used to tell the story of when his doctor prescribed beta blockers for him for a medical problem. In his next tournament he lost the first three games. Although this was bad enough it was not what really worried Miles when he tried to work out what was going on. The problem for him was that he was losing and he just didn't care. He blamed the beta blockers for this and stopped taking them with the result that he started caring more during the game about his position and so started winning again.
> 6 votes

# Answer
Doing puzzles makes you more alert to tactics, and usually this allows you to calculate more quickly. But you need to think about how you have phrased your question: Consider the outside-chess question, "does increasing your intelligence make you less lazy?"

It does help to offset some of the potential problems you face in being lazy, but at the end of the day you need to be willing to work. In reality, doing puzzles gives you ideas and increases your tactical awareness over the board, but you still need to check that these ideas work over the board when some things have changed slightly.

There is also a mindset issue: when you spend hours in preparation for a tournament, studying opening theory, middlegame strategies/tactics and endgame theory, why are you willing to cast it all aside to save yourself from the pain of spending a few minutes to just think over the board? It's much like a student who studies exceptionally hard for a math exam, learning little calculation tricks left and right but is unwilling to double check his answers on the day of the test.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Puzzles are the best way to get better at tactics which involves lot of calculations and when you are calculating you can't be lazy.

So I think puzzles may help in overcoming laziness but on a little scale.
> 2 votes

# Answer
It's similar to @Brian Towers how solving puzzles improved my play: in regular looking positions I started coming up with a target at least, how I can modify the position and with a bit of luck turn it into one where I can make a non-straightforward move, possibly a sacrifice, and gain advantage. It widens your perspective and gives you additional goals to aim at during the game. Even if you're not a tournament player, this all makes your games more fun.
> 2 votes

# Answer
For people who think or play strategically, there is a process that helps to overcome being lazy. However, people who have no idea about their moves will normally stay lazy. The 4-5 moves deep thinking is actually quite effective and also leads to a greater chance of victory.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Laziness is not a problem that can be solved by solving more puzzles. Solving more puzzles will help you widen your thinking and solving the right puzzles for you (puzzles which require in depth analysis) might help you improve your chess but it would not help with laziness.

The real question to ask yourself is whether you are too lazy to think and can do it in extreme situations, or you are unable to think through all the situations and assume it is laziness. If it is the latter case, then puzzles will help but if it is the former, then puzzles will not help much.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: puzzles, calculation
---


title: Must chess pieces be within a square?

text:
# Question
Title: Must chess pieces be within a square?
In lightning chess. must pieces be moved so they are completely within a square? If not then how much overlap is allowed? If my opponent breaks this rule do I stop the clock and call the DOP?

# Answer
> 3 votes
FIDE rules are silent on this subject. In standard chess players would typically say "j'adoube" and adjust the piece accordingly if there was a slight overlap and a player putting a piece half on one square and half on another would either immediately readjust or his opponent would challenge him to put it on the right square.

All of this becomes a bit more fraught at blitz. If the piece is touching a line or marginally over the line then I would suggest you either adjust its position on your time if it disturbs you (you may not touch the pieces during your opponent's turn) or ignore it.

If it is well over the line, close to half and half then you could on your turn adjust the piece to the square which is better for you but obviously you need to be prepared for reaction from your opponent. A better approach would be to call the arbiter and claim the game on the grounds of an illegal move. e3 and e4 are both legal moves. e3.5 is not. Note, for comparison, that e8="upside down rook" is an illegal move.

Edit: I had this happen to me in a rapid competition a week ago. My opponent played Rb6 - g7+ which was a devastating game changer. Rb6 - g6+ would have been a boring move which wouldn't have changed much. I immediately stopped the clocks, called the arbiter and claimed the game.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Yes, pieces need to be properly placed. You can either tap the clock back and ask him/her to adjust his/her piece (which is what happens in many local level tournaments). It is generally better to check with the arbiter before the start of the game on what is the rule for handling such a scenario in their tournament since calling the arbiter mid-game can get you penalised.

The official FIDE site says that pieces can be adjusted only in each player's time.

I would suggest use your judgement and good sportsmanship sense and not call for the adjust for a small overlap but that is my opinion.

---
Tags: rules, blitz, pieces
---


title: Defensive Skils

text:
# Question
Title: Defensive Skils
```
 I want to improve my chess defensive abilities.

```

If you have any recommendation, any suggestion, learning technique, study plans would be appreciated.

# Answer
A reader of NM Dan Heisman's column Novice Nook asked:

**Question** What books do you recommend for defense in chess.

**Answer** It depends on what you mean by defense. **The most important defense (see The Most Common and Important Use of Tactics) is just making sure your moves are safe.** So that means any good book covering basic tactics are also the best books about defense. They work if you ask "Is my candidate move safe?" and look to see if that move would result in a position that gives your opponent one of those safety patterns to win material or checkmate you. If so, then you likely reject that candidate move, and prevention is the best defense. If you are talking about advanced defensive ideas then Soltis's book The Art of Defense and GM Aagaard's Practical Chess Defence come to mind. **But unless your rating is 1900+, the type of defense I mention in my article above is way more important.**
> 0 votes

---
Tags: learning, defense
---


# Question
Title: Is it possible to checkmate with knight and king against king?
I would like to clarify two things:

1. Is it possible to checkmate with only a knight and a king against a lone king?
2. What will happen when one side has a king and knight and the other has just a king, does the game have to be drawn due to insufficient material?

# Answer
If you drive an enemy king into a corner, you still need to control four different squares to checkmate him. Your king can control two of those squares (but cannot approach the enemy king), your knight can control the third, but there is no way of controlling the fourth. That is, it is impossible for the knight to control both the corner square and the one adjacent to the enemy king (the one your own king doesn't control).

**So the result would be a draw -- insufficient material to win.**
> 42 votes

# Answer
It is POSSIBLE to checkmate a lone king with a king and 2 knights but it cannot be FORCED. There is always an escape square for the lone king. If the player with the lone king is drunk or reckless he would possibly move his king to the corner square in which case he would be checkmated. If the player with the king and 2 knights fails to checkmate the lone king within 50 moves then the player with the lone king can claim a draw.

Checkmate with either 1 bishop or 1 knight and a king against a lone king is IMPOSSIBLE.

What CAN be forced is checkmate with a king and a knight and a bishop against a lone king. There is an exact pattern for this though. Consult a chess book. My favorite is "Chess for Beginners" by Horowitz....
> 11 votes

# Answer
Checkmate with K+N v K is not possible. The game ends in a draw by insufficient material.
> 8 votes

# Answer
No it is not possible to checkmate a lone king with king and Knight ...

Even a lone king king cannot be checkmated using King and a bishop...

This is because knight controls only one coloured square a a time (either black or white), this is the case with bishop....

So the opponent king can run using the other color which is not controlled. even if you control that escaping square with your king that will be stalemate (Draw)...

Even two knights and a king cannot mate a lone king (True fact)...

The minor piece combination that will mate a lone king is King + 2 bishops or King + knight + bishop....

Since two bishops control both colored squares and in case of Knight and bishop, knight should control the opposite colored square as that of the bishop ....
> 2 votes

---
Tags: rules, endgame, checkmate, draw, knights
---


# Question
Title: What happens after two kings stay on the board?
A lot of times my sibling and I have played chess and have ended up with just two kings. We have never known what would happen next. Two kings on the board would somehow result in an infinite game, as each can move forever wheresoever they like Hence, in such situations, is the game cancelled, tied, or withdrawn?

# Answer
This is covered in FIDE's Laws of Chess 5.2b)

> The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.

The term "insufficient mating material" describes this situation informally. However, the term "dead position" also applies to e.g. this kind of position:

```
[fen "8/6k1/8/p2p2p1/P2P2P1/8/1K6/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

Even with worst opposition, neither side can make any advances here, because the kings cannot cross the line set by the pawns. Therefore, this is an immediate draw by the same rule.
> 14 votes

# Answer
It is a draw (tie) because of "insufficient mating material". The game ends in this state.

The condition also arises when both sides are down to King+Bishop or King+Knight with no pawns on the board.
> 7 votes

---
Tags: rules, endgame, draw, kings, dead-position
---


# Question
Title: What are books about the French Defence which feature a Black repertoire that tends to lead to solid/positional/closed/slow/quiet/strategic positions?
I am a 1750 Elo player with a very positional, quiet and strategic style of play.

I am looking for one or more books about the French Defence which fits these 3 conditions:

* It must offer a complete Black repertoire. It must cover the French Defence from the point of view of Black only. (I don't care about playing the French Defence as White since I don't play 1. e4) (And if the diagram boards in the book show Black at the bottom, ie. with the board flipped, that would be great.)
* The Black repertoire proposed in the book must (on average) tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, quiet and strategic as possible. I want as few sharp and tactical lines as possible.
* If possible, I would like that the repertoire tries to avoid playing the Pawn break ...f7-f6 (except when it's totally necessary).

.

.

.

**Edit:**

.

I don’t really like 3.Nc3 dxe4 and 3.Nd2 dxe4. I’ve looked in my ChessBase Mega Database and on Chess Tempo games database and here is what I found out:

.

3...X: A | B | C | D

X: The Black move

A: The average Elo that Black is expected to lose, ie \[Average Elo\] minus \[Performance Elo\] - Statistics from Chess Tempo

B: The average Elo that Black is expected to lose, ie \[Average Elo\] minus \[Performance Elo\] - Statistics from ChessBase (selecting only games where both players were rated between 1700 and 2200)

C: The percentage of games that ended in a draw - Statistics from Chess Tempo

D: The percentage of games that ended in a draw - Statistics from ChessBase (selecting only games where both players were rated between 1700 and 2200)

.

3.Nc3:

3...Bb4: 43 | 33 | 34.3 | 27

3...Nf6: 37 | 19 | 38.4 | 27

3...dxe4: 57 | 40 | 47.7 | 34

.

3.Nd2:

3...Nf6: 53 | 35 | 34.1 | 28

3...c5: 43 | 28 | 49.7 | 32

3...Be7: 40 | 33 | 39.8 | 33

3...dxe4: 59 | 27 | 47.2 | 30

3...Nc6: 58 | 27 | 33.0 | 33

3...a6: 43 | 34 | 43.1 | 35

.

Conclusion: 3... dxe4 scores extremely poorly both against 3. Nc3 and against 3. Nd2. And against 3. Nd2 it isn't even efficient at making draws.

I don't know much about the French so I don't know exactly which of these moves are sharp/tactical and which of them are solid/positional/quiet.

But I would guess that against 3. Nc3 I should probably choose 3...Nf6 (I heard that 3...Bb4 was extremely sharp and tactical)

And against 3. Nd2 I should probably choose 3...c5 and answer 4. exd5 with 4...Qxd5 (I heard that 3...Nf6 was extremely sharp and tactical) (and 3...Be7 looks too subtle for a non-GM)

So any more suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.

# Answer
> 8 votes
There are several excellent books covering the French Defense.

Unfortunately, you cannot avoid complications, despite how much you want to, there are going to be complications, just because you play this line, doesn't mean the game can't somehow explode into a tactical mess.

Also how can you be a French player if you don't want to play the critical f7-f6 pawn break? That "break" defines so much of the French!

Probably the definitive French Defense repertoire book is **Play the French** by John Watson (4th Edition) (3rd also fine), which I ***highly*** recommend http://www.amazon.com/Play-French-4th-Everyman-Chess/dp/1857446801/ref=sr\_1\_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403968578&sr=8-1&keywords=play+the+french

Also good is **Chess Explained: The French** by Viacheslav Eingorn and Valentin Bogdanov, this covers the Rubinstein variations of the French and more http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Explained-French-Viacheslav-Eingorn-ebook/dp/B00H8ZDATS/ref=sr\_1\_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1403968623&sr=8-15&keywords=french+defense

There is also the **Grandmaster Repertoire Series** on it, with two volumes by Emmanuel Berg http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/207/grandmaster\_repertoire\_14\_-\_the\_french\_defence\_volume\_one\_by\_emanuel\_berg/

And lastly, **The Flexible French** by Viktor Moskalenko (French Defense expert) should not be ignored http://www.amazon.com/The-Flexible-French-Strategic-Explanations/dp/9056912453/ref=sr\_1\_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1403968623&sr=8-8&keywords=french+defense

Hope this helps

# Answer
> 2 votes
French can get very sharp. Your biggest problem is the fact that **it is White** who steers the game. If he chooses, he can make things so sharp that both of your heads will explode.

Your best bet to dodge this is to play *Rubinstein variation*, which is positional in nature and has a reputation of being solid:

```
[Title "French defense, Rubinstein variation - ECO code is C10"]
[fen ""]

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 ( 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 ) 3...dxe4 4.Nxe4

```

I was trying to play this line, relying on general principles, against computer/stronger opponents and things went very bad. **You must know opening moves and typical middlegame positions that arise very well** in order to have equal chances.

That being said, each time I played opening well, **I drew with ease**. I have never faced any problems, even against a computer -\> positions are simplified and tend to fizzle out to a draw. You might have to defend accurately in some lines, but it is worth it. White has limited options and has just a few lines that give you difficulties.

Once you learn how to defend there, there will be nothing White can do and you will have usually an easy game, **at the cost that you will never win.** I am sorry to say that, but endgames give winning chances only to White. Middlegame positions are harder to play as Black too, as I have mentioned, and are designed to draw, not to win the game. All in all, this line is a powerful, risk free drawing weapon.

The only book that tried to cover this line in depth was *Nikita Vitiugov-The French defense A Complete Repertoire for Black ( 2010 )*, but the author didn't manage to cover all the options. I just feel that something is missing... The line itself is also at crisis at the top level, which is consistent with my painful experiences.

**Your biggest problem will be to find detailed, quality coverage of this line. If you still manage to solve this problem somehow, I ask you to leave me a comment with the name of the book/resource/CD you found, as this is big problem for me that I'm struggling with for over a year.**

I am sorry for posting this as an answer, but the content is too big to fit into a comment...

# Answer
> 1 votes
I understand you want a book recommendation however having been in said situation before(quiet, positional player myself that loves the french), i chanced upon a chessbase dvd by Nick Pert,the variations he provides are as solid as it gets in the french link...http://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/pert\_french\_defence\_for\_the\_tournament\_player

---
Tags: opening, theory, positional-play, books, french-defense
---


# Question
Title: What is black trying to accomplish when playing Bb4 after Nc3 in the opening?
This happens sometimes when you're playing a person, more often when playing the computer it seems. The lichess Android app for e.g., on the easiest setting, *always* follows Nc3 this way (usually following on the first variation below).

```
[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bb4 3. a3 ( 3... Bxc3 4. bxc3 Nf6 5. Rb1) (3... Ba5 4. b4 Bb6)

```

Every time I see this played I wonder what black is trying to gain here. He either ends exchanging the bishop for my knight (and giving my rook a good open file) or locking his bishop in one corner, neither seems particularly useful.

Am I missing something?

# Answer
It is indeed a little silly to play ...Bb4 on move 2 here. That said, it often gets played a little later, and the main idea is to pin the knight on c3 (after the d-pawn has moved), so that it no longer protects the pawn on e4, which can now be attacked by a knight on f6, say.

In the particular line you gave, by the way, the bishop is doing just fine on b6. You spent time kicking it to a place where it's aiming right at the weak pawn on f2 and beyond to your king on g1 once you castle.
> 4 votes

# Answer
This is an opening reminiscent of the Ruy Lopez. Black has several goals when playing 2... Bb4:

1. Move the bishop out of the way in order to prepare to castle.
2. Set up a potential knight-to-king pin, preventing white from advancing the important central d-pawn, which white will usually want to do in order to gain better control of the center.
3. Attack the knight that is defending the e-pawn—this isn't as immediately productive as it is when played by white, as black has no way to subsequently capture it; however, it's still a threat.
4. If black does trade the bishop for the knight, recapturing it will ruin white's pawn structure. Recapturing with the b-pawn is a bad idea (allowing 2... Bb4 3. a3 Bxc3 4. bxc3? d5 5. exd5 Qxd5 giving black better control of the center), and hence white is forced to move the important d-pawn aside.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: opening
---


# Question
Title: getting started to develop entire chess application
Hi i love playing chess and i am software engineer.I want to create a chess web application for the sake of learning , so i need one chess engine,UI and one protocol as far as my knowledge.
For chess engine i have chosen Stockfish, but i am not sure for UI and protocol.The below are my questions
1.Already we are having quite protocols like ws(websocket) or XMPP why can't we use them as protocol?
2.For UI why can't we use simple html to design the page and we will use the images for corresponding pieces?
If this question is wrong in this forum please spare me.
Provide me any resources related to this topic
Thanks

# Answer
When you want to write a chess application such as playing against a chess engine, you'll definitely need to learn the UCI protocol. You won't go anywhere unless you master it. Stockfish, Houdini, Komodo and a dozen of other chess engines use it. Please google "UCI chess protocol" for more details.

1. This is probably out of scope. Anyway, there is no reason why you can't use an XML format. You might want to look up ajax, because this is how most of the web sites use to create an asynchronous behaviour.
2. It's not a good idea to use a simple HTML page, because you'll force the user to reload the entire page everytime you want to update the board. You'll need something asynchronous, such as an ajax call.

Please check and talk with lichess. They have a chat channel that you can use to talk with the programmers. Those guys know everything.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: stockfish
---


# Question
Title: Converting square notation to algebraic notation programmatically
I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this question, but it requires a fair amount of chess background so I decided to post it here.

Square notation describes moves by simply noting the square the piece moved from to the square the piece moved to. For example, e4 is e2-e4 and Nf3 is g1-f3.

Algebraic notation is far more common and is well-handled by most chess libraries.

Does anyone have any background working with the conversion between the two?

# Answer
To do what you want, you'll need a move validator. To make things clear, let's take a look at the Stockfish iOS chess playing app. The app uses the Stockfish chess engine. The outputs from the engine would be something like:

```
e2e4 e7e5 ...

```

But that's not what we want to see. We'd need to convert the outputs to something like:

```
1. e4 e5

```

How do we do it? The open-source Stockfish app has a function called move\_to\_san defined. Please download the full source code from the Stockfish web site. Here, we'll briefly go through the implementation.

```
const std::string move_to_san(Position &pos, Move m)

```

This is the header of the function. It takes a position object and a move. That's why I asked you whether you have a move validator implemented. You'll need a validator for this position object as we will see.

```
from = move_from(m);
to = move_to(m);
pc = pos.piece_on(move_from(m));

```

Here, we grab the source and destination square. We also need the moving piece.

```
else if(move_is_long_castle(m)
      || (int(to - from) == -2 && type_of_piece(pc) == KING))
    str = "O-O-O";
else if(move_is_short_castle(m)
      || (int(to - from) == 2 && type_of_piece(pc) == KING))
str = "O-O";

```

Next, we check if the move is a castle move. Note that it's a good idea to store the move as "e1 to h1". This is not what we normally expect, we always do move the e1 king to the g1 square then the h1 rook to the f1 square. The conditions in the code take care of that.

```
str = "";

if(type_of_piece(pc) == PAWN) {
  if(pos.move_is_capture(m))
    str += file_to_char(square_file(move_from(m)));
}

```

This is starting to get interesting. We build an empty buffer. Once we've done it, we'd need to ask if this is a pawn move. If it's a pawn move, convert it to an ASCI character. If our move is e2e4, the buffer would have been "e" by now.

```
  str += piece_type_to_char(type_of_piece(pc), true);

```

If this is not a pawn move, we convert the piece to a character. This can be done by a dictionary if you prefer.

```
if(pos.move_is_capture(m))
  str += "x";

str += square_to_string(move_to(m));

```

Next, if it's a capture, we add an "x" to it. Then, we'll need to add the destination square.

```
if(move_promotion(m)) {
  str += "=";
  str += piece_type_to_char(move_promotion(m), true);
}

```

Promotion.

```
pos.do_move(m, u);
if(pos.is_check())
    str += pos.is_mate()? "#" : "+";
pos.undo_move(m, u);

```

Is this a check?

What have we learnt so far?

1. We need an **internal board** representation. For example, the code **pos.do\_move(m, u)** needs a mechanism to save the board. You can implement a bitboard, a mailbox or an object-oriented design.
2. We need a way to tell where the move comes from, where it goes to etc. This can be done by simple logical operations.

Please download the Stockfish iOS source code. Study the code. You can post a new question if you're not sure what to do with the code and I'll help you.

Everything here is in C++. You might need to port the code to Ruby.
> 6 votes

---
Tags: notation, programming
---


# Question
Title: What are all the most common transpositions between the Caro-Kann Panov–Botvinnik Attack with 5...e6 6. Nf3 Bb4 and the Nimzo-Indian Defence?
I would like to know what are all the most frequent transpositions between the two following openings:

.

The Caro-Kann Panov–Botvinnik Attack with 5...e6 6. Nf3 Bb4:

```
  [StartPly "12"]

  [FEN ""]
  1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3 Bb4

```

.

The Nimzo-Indian Defence:

```
  [StartPly "6"]

  [FEN ""]
  1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4

```

.

Please try if possible to provide the list of all the transpositions sorted from the most common to the rarest.

.

Edit: I found two transpositions which seem to be very common ones.

Both of these two lines:

* 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d5 6. Nf3 c5 7. O-O cxd4 8. exd4 dxc4 9. Bxc4
* 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d5 6. Nf3 c5 7. O-O dxc4 8. Bxc4 cxd4 9. exd4

Transpose into this line:

* 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3 Bb4 7. Bd3 dxc4 8. Bxc4 O-O 9. O-O

But there are maybe more transpositions.

# Answer
There are indeed a couple of transpositions from the Nimzo-Indian to the Panov variation of the Caro-Kann and they occur sometimes in practical games.

Using a database of chess games, they can be filtered by searching simultaneously on:

1. The position after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4
2. "B10-B19", i.e. the ECO-code of the Caro-Kann.

After finding the games where an actual transposition occured, they can be put in a tree-like structure to count the transpositions.

Using ChessBase Mega Database 2015, 91 games are found, for which both players have a FIDE rating of 2200 or more. Then, the found games were put in a ChessBase tree-file (.ctg).

The most common transpositions found this way are:

1. 4.e3 0-0 5.Bd3 c5 6.Nf3 d5 7.0-0 cxd4 8.exd4
2. 4.e3 0-0 5.Bd3 d5 6.Nf3 c5 (see 1)
3. 4.e3 c5 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Bd3 (see 1)
4. 4.e3 c5 5.Bd3 0-0 (see 1)
> 2 votes

---
Tags: opening, theory, caro-kann, transpositions, nimzo-indian
---


title: What's a Confession Box?

text:
# Question
Title: What's a Confession Box?
The upcoming Norway chess tournament will implement something called a confession box. http://www.chess.com/news/grand-chess-tour-kicks-off-monday-with-norway-chess-7194

What's that really? What is that supposed to do? What's the point of it?

# Answer
**Apparently, it is supposed to make the live broadcasts more entertaining.**

Up until now, the live broadcasts (e.g. on chess24), although increasingly popular, only featured a video of the players, chessboards with constantly updating moves and engine evaluations, as well as live commentary from GMs/IMs.

As far as I understood, the players will be allowed (and encouraged) to, during the games, go into the "box" and speak about their games - so the live audience and commentators (but not their opponents) can hear their thoughts and considerations about the games, what their plans are, which moves they looked into etc.. A "Big Brother" sort of thing.

Apparently, it has already been used in EnterCard Chess Qualifier, the qualification tournament for Norway Chess 2015: http://www.chess.com/news/hammer-qualifies-for-norway-chess-6703

> Right after the game Hammer went to the “confession box,” a room next to the playing hall where the players were encouraged to give some thoughts about their ongoing game. Co-organizer and webmaster Tarjei J. Svensen explained: “They could do this whenever they wanted and it was a completely voluntary thing, but all the players had used the opportunity to do it, sometimes even more than once per game. The idea was suggested by Team Carlsen for TV2. It has been rather well received by the players and the viewers.”
> 6 votes

---
Tags: tournament, carlsen
---


# Question
Title: Which common response against 1.e4 did Magnus Carlsen say is a bad opening? And what was Carlsen's exact quote?
I remember that a year ago or two, Magnus Carlsen said that one of the response against 1.e4 was bad. I don't remember exactly which of them he was calling bad, but I think it was the French (or the Caro-Kann perhaps)... I'm not saying that I think the French is bad (I actually like it!), I'm just saying that I believe Carlsen said it was bad.

I would like to know which response to 1.e4 he was calling bad. And also I would like to know what was Magnus Carlsen's exact quote.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I think the answer is the French Defence.

A quote of Carlsen can be found here: http://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1do05q/annotated\_chess\_game\_in\_french\_defence\_by\_carlsen/

I copied the quote:

> The French Defence. In my younger years I used to consider it at best a second-rate opening, and I once even lost a bet with one of my friends, and as a result had to play 1... e6 in all my games with Black in a Super-GM tournament. Fortunately my friend was greedy, and took money instead. I believe that both 1...c5 and 1...e5! are better choices, but since I desperately wanted to win this game (I was trailing the leaders Kramnik and Shirov by 1 point at this stage) I decided to try something new.

Carlsen wrote this quote in his comments of the game Karjakin-Carlsen, Wijk Aan Zee 2010. See annotations of the game Ivanchuk-Carlsen in following report: http://www.chessvibes.com/?q=reports/masters-final-r5-leader-ivanchuk-loses-to-carlsen-nakamura-beats-vallejo

---
Tags: opening, carlsen, 1.e4
---


# Question
Title: Game since 2014 with both kings under fire
Does anyone know a game since 2014 with both players at least ELO 2000, where both kings are about to be checkmated and the game ends because one side cannot avoid checkmate ?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Probably you are looking for a game where both players attack the king castled on opposite sides. This is not the case in following game, but it does feature mate attacks from both sides and it is decided by one tempo. With 35....Be4 black threatens mate, but instead he gets mated himself with a nice tactic.

```

[FEN ""]
[Event "Tata Steel (Group B)"]
[Site "Wijk aan Zee NED"]
[Date "2015.01.18"]
[EventDate "2015.01.10"]
[Round "8"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "David Navara"]
[Black "Bart Michiels"]
[ECO "C06"]
[WhiteElo "2729"]
[BlackElo "2563"]
[PlyCount "75"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Bd3 c5 6. c3 Nc6
7. Ne2 cxd4 8. cxd4 f6 9. exf6 Nxf6 10. O-O Bd6 11. Nf3 Qc7
12. h3 O-O 13. Be3 Bd7 14. Re1 Be8 15. Ng5 Bf7 16. Rc1 Kh8
17. a3 Bg8 18. b4 a6 19. g3 h6 20. Nf4 Bxf4 21. Bxf4 Qd7
22. Nf3 Bh7 23. b5 axb5 24. Bxb5 Qe7 25. Bxc6 bxc6 26. Rxc6
Ne4 27. Re3 Ra7 28. Rb3 Qf6 29. Qc1 Qf5 30. Rc8 Ra8 31. Rc7
Qxh3 32. Rbb7 Ng5 33. Nxg5 hxg5 34. Rxg7 gxf4 35. Qc7 Be4
36. Rg8+ Rxg8 37. Qe5+ Rg7 38. Qxg7+ 1-0

```

---
Tags: checkmate, attack
---


# Question
Title: Is there an archived video with commentary of Norway 2015 blitz tournament available on the official or other websites?
They have many of top 10 players of the world, two teams of commentators on two different continents, but it seems impossible to (easily) find the archived broadcast on any official websites...

# Answer
> 1 votes
Blitz video now seems available at http://livestream.com/chess24/norwaychess2015

---
Tags: tournament
---


title: Need to say check if we are giving

text:
# Question
Title: Need to say check if we are giving
I want to give check to black and is it necessary to say check to other player?

# Answer
No, it's not necessary. If the opponent doesn't notice it, it's their fault. Reasoning behind this is (probably) what happens if your opponent is not at the board when you make the move? You don't have to sit and wait for them (and stay away from the toilet...) just in order to inform them that you have just checked the king - which is something that any player should notice themselves anyway.

If the opponent doesn't notice and makes a move that doesn't prevent the check, there are procedures to correct this (and you should generally involve the arbiter in these).
> 3 votes

---
Tags: check
---


# Question
Title: How do I make a chess engine make moves in Arena?
I've been trying to use Arena to analyze a position, but the engine is not making any moves. I'm using Stockfish, and I click "analyze" to let the engine do the work, however there are no results on the board. What should I do to make it move pawns?

Thanks!

# Answer
> 1 votes
In Arena 3.0, the "analyze" button does not make moves, it just tells the engine to analyze. (it should present you the analysis in the GUI itself). if you press the "edit" button the engine will responde to your move. the third relevant button is the "demo": it will tell the engine to play both sides until the end of the game.

---
Tags: engines, stockfish, arena
---


title: Permanent brain

text:
# Question
Title: Permanent brain
Is permanent brain any beneficial if they share same core?

"In chess games between two computers, pondering makes sense only if the competing chess engines use separate processors or cores. If they share the same core, the pondering program steals half of the time from the program thinking in the normal way and uses the stolen time less effectively. "

Pondering is less effective than normal thinking. For example, if the program guesses 25% of the opponent's moves correctly, the use of pondering is on average equivalent to increasing the normal calculating time by a factor of 1.25.

In chess games between two computers, pondering makes sense only if the competing chess engines use separate processors or cores. If they share the same core, the pondering program steals half of the time from the program thinking in the normal way and uses the stolen time less effectively. For this reason, chess GUIs have an option to turn the permanent brain off.

Can someone explain the last couple of sentenced for me.

# Answer
A simpler way to think about it might be to consider the engine's "strength" as a percentage of its maximum strength. Without pondering, each engine plays at 100% strength. With pondering, each engine plays at 100% strength during its turn **and** 25% strength during the other player's turn (assuming 25% accuracy in pondering guesses), but each turn is half as long (because only half the CPU time is available). So with pondering, the overall engine strength is only 62.5% of its maximum.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Consider a game in which each move must be made within 8 ns of real time. Two identical engines will play, sharing a single core. With pondering disabled, engine A gets 8 ns of CPU time and makes a move, engine B gets 8 ns of CPU time and makes a move, etc. Each move is the result of 8 ns of computation.

With pondering enabled, on the very first move engine A has only had access to the CPU for 4 ns before 8 ns of real time expires. During this time, engine B has had 4 ns of pondering. When engine A makes its move, engine B realizes that most of its pondering was based on an incorrect guess of the move that engine A would make. Suppose that only 25% of engine B's pondering was applicable. Of the 4 ns that engine B spent pondering, only 1 ns was actually useful.

Now it's engine B's turn. Like engine A, engine B only gets access to the CPU for 4 ns before 8 ns of real time expires. Counting the 1 ns of useful pondering, engine B has applied 5 ns of CPU time to its move. During this time engine A has had 4 ns of pondering, but again, only 25% (1 ns) is useful. On engine A's next turn it will also have applied 5 ns of CPU time to its move. With pondering, each move is the result of 5 ns of computation, except for the very first move, which is the result of only 4 ns of computation. You will get a better game (both engines performing more calculations per move) if you disable pondering.

If the engines are *different* the results will depend on engine implementation. In the extreme case, imagine that engine A can compute the absolutely best move with exactly 8 ns of computation, but after 4 ns it has only a wild guess. Engine B's performance scales much smoother with the amount of time it has to think. In this silly example, with pondering disabled engine A will win every game, but with pondering enabled engine B will win every game. I suspect that in real life, between two real engines, pondering will decrease the quality of the game fairly evenly, without giving either engine an advantage.

If the per-move time restriction is replaced with a total time restriction I *think* the results would be similar, except that the way in which engines decide how much time to commit to a move would have a greater effect. That is, I think that pondering would amplify the importance of deciding whether a move requires additional thinking time.

Taking all that together: if you want a battle between engines performing at their peak but you only have one core, disable pondering.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: engines
---


# Question
Title: Can I become a 2100+ rated player in 2 years if I train for 15 hours a day?
I’m 15 years old, and my FIDE rating is 1674. I’ve been playing chess since I was one and half years old. If I train, say, something like 15 hours a day and play in 20 tournaments, is it possbile for me to become a 2100+ rated player in 2 years?

# Answer
> 4 votes
To predict someone's progress is very difficult. It depends on so many things: "chess talent", how you practice and train, opportunities to play tournaments (not too weak, not too strong), etc...

A couple of years ago, the author of following blog tried to become a grandmaster: http://roadtograndmaster.com/ and http://roadtograndmaster.com/?p=11

Maybe this blog can give you some information, ideas and tips. Of course, your situation is different, for instance, you are 10 years younger than the author of the blog.

# Answer
> 3 votes
**Yes, it is possible.**

However, you will see from the comments that no one thinks you should bother trying. Why do you think that is? What does your FIDE Candidate Master rating get you? Clearly, everyone should have hobbies and goals, but they should be realistic and well balanced. If you spent all your time playing chess instead of going to school, you will have a great chess rating, but be virtually unemployable. There is little money in the chess industry, either from tournaments or from tutoring.

**I stand behind your goal of attaining a Master rating, as probably most users do.** Just don't sacrifice your social life, your education, or your health to make it happen.

Here's a great article on chess progress. The higher your rating, the more difficult it is to progress.

---
Tags: rating, training, elo
---


# Question
Title: Openings that fianchetto on the king side
I'm a beginner and I really like openings that end up in a fianchetto, I mostly like playing on Black side because of Sicilian Dragon and King's Indian Defence.

On White I play London System and King's Indian Attack.(For which I don't like London system that much.)

So I have 2 questions:

1.- Is there a list of openings where a fianchetto is involved for both black and white openings? And which are most effective?

2.- I like to think of myself as a positional player, what are the most popular white openings that have this kind of "passive" play?

# Answer
Beside very famous openings such as kings indian or dragon ... there is also a less known opening, Leningrad-Dutch (for black), which uses fianchentto king side bishop. For white in addition to what you mentioned very famous closed sicilian opening also goes for fianchentto kingside bishop.

By the way IMHO, openings with fianchentto bishops (particularly for black side) in many cases are quite sharp (such as kings indian, dragon) and not passive at all, if you are positional player and you want to avoid a race condition and many tactical patterns, it's maybe better to avoid it and play more relaxed openings. e.g in dragon or kings indian slowing down the race and sometimes even defending against opponent attack may result to a lost.

P.S: it's clear that almost every opening that we can play with black we could also play it with white just a move ahead.
> 1 votes

# Answer
With black against 1.e4:

1. Modern defence
2. Pirc
3. Sicilian defence: dragon
4. Sicilian defence: accelerated dragon

With black against 1.d4:

1. Modern defence
2. King's Indian defence
3. Grünfeld
4. Leningrad Dutch
5. Benoni

Most of these openings have a fixed or typical setup, so with white you can play the same setup with an extra tempo.

Hard to say whether an opening is tactical or positional, active or passive. All the openings in the list have the reputation of being "fighting". This is not surprising. As you spend time playing g6 and Bg7, your opponent has the opportunity to occupy the center. Therefore, it is often important to create counterplay, which leads to an interesting battle.

In order to choose one of these openings, you can take a look at some games of strong players to see which kind of position arises and to learn the main ideas.
> 2 votes

# Answer
A kingside fianchetto is basically always an option.

You can start to build one with your very first move:

* For black that would lead to the Modern Defence: 1…g6
* With white this is sometimes called the Benko(-Larsen)-Opening: 1.g3

You can also develop your kingside knight first (with black after 1.d4), which prevents e4/e5 and may lead to:

* The Reti: 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 and a fianchetto to follow.
* The King's Indian or the Grunfeld: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5/Bg7

With white you have additional options of kingside fianchettos, like the English with g3, 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.g3 or the Catalan 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.g3. or to just fianchetto your bishop *against* the King's Indian or Grunfeld.

Generally, white prefers to fianchetto the bishop after 1.d4/c4, because after 1.e4 it would be blocked by the e4-pawn. The King's Indian Attack is the exception, and for what it's worth, it isn't often seen in top level chess.

You are right that the kingside fianchetto is generally a very safe way to play with white (but not a passive one!). But the opposite is true for the black side! The Modern, the King's Indian, the Grunfeld and especially the Dragon are all regarded as very sharp and tactical openings.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: opening, fianchetto
---


# Question
Title: Why does Fritz prefer underpromotion in this position?
Why does Fritz prefer underpromotion in this position? How can underpromotion to bishop evaluate so much higher than normal queen promotion?

Can this be a bug in the Fritz 14 chess engine?

# Answer
> 23 votes
It's because `1. exf8=Q+ Kxh7 2. Rxd7??` would be stalemate. I think it is a even a theoretical draw after `1. exf8=Q+ Kxh7 2. Qg7+`. Therefore `1. exf8=B+!` (with check!) is better, since white then can keep an extra piece and win easily.

```
[FEN "5r2/3qPbkB/8/7P/8/8/8/1K1R4 w - - 0 1"]

1. exf8=Q+ (1. exf8=B+!) Kxh7 2. Rxd7? (2. Qg7+)

```

---
Tags: engines, evaluation, pawn-promotion, fritz
---


# Question
Title: How to defend from the crazy knight attack opening at Nf3 ..., Nd4 in Atomic chess?
Here's a game of Atomic chess I played with a friend. As you may see, neither of us are very good at Atomic chess and the game ended in under twenty moves.

```
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
[Event "Casual game"]
[Site "http://lichess.org/I9pp1BLC"]
[Date "2015.06.17"]
[White "sethdj"]
[Black "Unihedron"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1368"]
[BlackElo "1632"]
[PlyCount "32"]
[Variant "Atomic"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. Nf3 f6 2. Nd4 e6 3. e3 g6 4. Bc4 d5 5. Bb5+ c6 6. Qg4 Na6 7. c3 Nc5 8. Bxc6 {C6 capture removes itself and C5 knight.} Qb6 9. Qxe6 {E6 capture removes the queen herself.} Qa6! {Mate threat at Qf2# / Qg1#.} 10. Ne6! {Nuke threat at Nxf8#.} Bxe6 {E6 capture removes the bishop.} 11. d3 Qa4! {Mate threat at Qd1#.} 12. b3 Qg4! {Mate threat at Qd1#.} 13. f3 Qh4+ {Checkmate is now inevitable.} 14. g3 Qh3 15. Kd1 Qg2 16. Ke1 Qe2# { White is checkmated } 0-1

```

But that's not really the point here. The opening of `1. Nf3 f6 2. Nd4` is a very tricky knight attack, and when playing against a tricky player they may respond with `Nb5` or `Nf5` after `e6` and `c6` respectively, where `e6` and `c6` aims to protect those two grids. What is a good response here?

# Answer
> 9 votes
Black, who defends, should move its Knight to h6. There it protects f5 so if white moves its knight there, black can capture it. Additionally, if white does Kb5 with the intention to attack Black's Queen (and potentially king, if black attempts to defend the queen), Black can go forward (Ng4) and then Black wins: Black can either capture a pawn next to the king, or the queen if White moves this pawn, and white can capture the queen with some other pieces when black does Ng4, but black's king is still safe.

```
[FEN ""]
[White "White"]
[Black "Black"]
[Variant "Atomic"]

1. Nf3 f6 2. Nd4 Nh6 3. Nb5 Ng4 (3. Nf5 Nxf5) 4. f3 Nf2 5. Nxc7 Nxd1# 0-1

```

It can happen that white does h3 after Nh6 to block a potential Ng4 from black, and then black has to move a pawn to protect his pieces if white would move Nb5:

```
[FEN ""]
[White "White"]
[Black "Black"]
[Variant "Atomic"]

1. Nf3 f6 2. Nd4 Nh6 3. h3 c6

```

# Answer
> 0 votes
`2... c6` Should be played. You shouldn't let your opponent play `3. Nb5` safely unless you're welcome of losing your queen. Here's the line that shows the guaranteed queen casualty:

```
[FEN ""]
[White "Attacker"]
[Black "Defender"]
[Variant "Atomic"]

1. Nf3 f6 2. Nd4 e6 3. Nb5 (2... c6 3. Nf5! {Nuke threat at Nxe7#.} e6~ {Or e5, there's no real difference.}) Bb4! {Nuke threat at Bxd2#.} (3... Qe7~ {A way to reduce material loss. As the queen is guaranteed to be lost, this move saves the minor pieces. Unless your opponent decides to remove them with Nxc7 anyway and let your queen live, which is questionable.} 4. Nd6+ Qxd6 {This capture removes the queen herself from the explosion. The pawn can be used instead, but it wastes a pawn.}) 4. c3 Bc5! {Nuke threat at Bxf2#. The threat is kind of redundant but the idea here is to live longer.} 5. e3 c6~ {The idea here is to save a pawn.} 6.Nc7+ Qxc7 {C3 capture removes the queen herself, as well as the light bishop and B8 knight. The only possible move, as Ke5 / Ke6 leads to checkmate, and Kf8 is simply an inevitable checkmate. See additional line.} (6... Kf8 7. Ne8! {Either of Nxf6# or Nxg7# wins for white with a king explosion. Also, Qxe8 is illegal because the king would blow up.})

```

For the `2... c6 (2... c5) 3. Nf5 e6` line, on `Nd6+` you can capture the knight with your dark bishop, and on `Ne7` you can save your queen and launch an attack with `Qa5` threatening `Qxd2#`, and then force the `d`-`e`-`f` pawns to be moved, which makes it harder for your opponent to launch an attack with a stuck diagonals department. Therefore the knight wouldn't be able to create much of an impact and may finish off with an explosion at `4. Nxg7` that removes the rook (and two minor pieces), but with a queen ready to set off in a diagonal, you can try for a surprise attack and build defenses.

---
Tags: opening, chess-variants, atomic-chess
---


title: Can a computer have a good tournament?

text:
# Question
Title: Can a computer have a good tournament?
Tournament players can "have a good tournament" because of the psychology involved, so their playing strength will vary from game to game. Do computers play at a constant strength all the time, or do they have the occasional bad tournament?

# Answer
We're going to assume there is no hardware issue, as pointed by Tonny Ennis in his comment.

It's possible that a computer engine experiences a "bad" tournament, but it's extremely rare. When we say "bad", we don't mean collapsing like blundering pieces, it's more like not getting a good position suitable for the engine. Computer engine always play at a constant strength, dictated by the algorithm. They won't do anything other than what the algorithm tells it to do.

Let's give an example, it's well known Komodo is a better engine than Stockfish in a strategic position. If we randomly choose the openings in a match of four. We might see a closed position in three of those games. As expected, Komodo outplayed Stockfish in those three games. The final score would be 3-1 in favour of Komodo.

Does that mean Komodo is a much stronger engine than Stockfish? Probably not. Can we conclude Stockfish had a "bad day"? Maybe. But please remember the sample size is **too small**, what if we let them play more games? A typical computer chess tournament can have a match with over 1000 games. If we do it, we might see a very different result.

Conclusion: if we see a chess engine has a "bad day", usually it's because the sample size is **too small** or the testing condition is **biased**. The law of large number will erase unsystematic variation given enough sample size.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: engines, tournament, computer-chess
---