# Question
Title: What was Fischer's preparation for tournaments?
Surely he didn't follow the old cookie-cutter formula of take a day off before game day, play blitz matches, or some other standard ritual?

Any sources?

# Answer
This is a question for people who knew him well personally. Anyway Fischer lived and breathed chess almost daily since the day in which he learnt the rules, until well into the first match vs. Spassky, so we have no reasons to believe that he changed his lifestyle before tournaments, i.e. he constantly played and studied chess, at least until his life's main mission changed and became the one to "unmask the Jewish conspiracy". But this happened after the first match vs. Spassky. However it is evident that the mature Fischer was aware of the importance of being fit physically, so we have to suppose that he did some exercise, especially before important matches and tournaments.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: fischer, preparation
---


# Question
Title: Would a chess game go on indefinitely if both players played the absolute best move each turn?
Just as the title says: Would a chess game go on indefinitely if both players played the absolute best move each turn? (assuming there is no draw) Or is it white that's going to win?

Is it even possible to be sure about that? Since even engines like Stockfish don't have a 100% accuracy rate.

It's not really a "does white have the advantage" question, rather "if we make the best move each turn, will it ever end?"

# Answer
It doesn't matter whether the players play good moves or bad moves there is a maximum possible number of moves. There is a rule which guarantees this - the 75 move rule. It says that if 75 moves are played without either a pawn move or a capture then the game is drawn.

The relevant article of the FIDE Laws of chess is 9.6.2-

> 9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:
>
> 9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times.
>
> **9.6.2 any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.** If the last move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence.

So, once every 75 moves a piece must be captured or a pawn moved (forward). Eventually all the pawns have queened or been captured and all the pieces captured and only the kings are left - which is a draw.
> 5 votes

---
Tags: theory
---


title: super stalemate

text:
# Question
Title: super stalemate
Your challenge. Find a position such that one side cannot make any legal *or illegal* moves. I.E. Make it such that that even if you were allowed to move your king into check there would still be no legal moves.

# Answer
An empty board is the only solution.

As soon as there are pieces on the board, they can move in some way (capturing your own pieces is an illegal move which is now allowed).
> 2 votes

---
Tags: problems, stalemate
---


title: Chess software for writing books

text:
# Question
Title: Chess software for writing books
I am currently converting some of my chess books into electronic format by manually copying the pgn and making notes. I have found lichess study and chessable courses to be useful in doing this. However, I would like to do this offline. Is there a software which will do this for me? I am looking at ChessX but the interface is too complicated for me to even understand if this is what I want.

# Answer
If you're familiar with LaTeX (or if you're willing to learn it, which in my opinion is time well spent), there are some user-created packages which exist just for that. These are very easy to download (e.g. via with the MiKTeX Package Manager) and use.

To my knowledge, the most extensive and well-documented of these packages for creating chessboards is chessboard. As you can see in the documentation, it's highly flexible. As for chess fonts (i.e. being able to write moves with the symbol for the piece rather than the letter for the piece), there's the package chessfss. There are other packages too if ever these aren't to your liking, for example chess-problem-diagrams.
> 5 votes

---
Tags: learning, software, books
---


title: Carlsen-Caruana Game 12

text:
# Question
Title: Carlsen-Caruana Game 12
Any online search about the recent game 12 in Carlsen-Caruana's WCC is filled with the surprise caused by Carlsen offering a draw when in a (possibly?) winning position. It was announced on chess.com that

> the top eight chess engines in the CCC will play a 2x-round-robin tournament starting after move 31 of the world chess championship game 12. The time control is rapid chess, 30 minutes plus five-second increment.

At the moment of writing this, I can see the tournament here. But I don't know enough about chess or at least how chess.com works to understand what's happening.

Is the tournament leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's decision was?

# Answer
> 23 votes
> Is the tournament leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's decision was?

Not quite. As others have pointed out, Carlsen's decision was based on factors outside that one game. With a stronger position and a large time advantage, Carlsen most likely could have won game 12, but Caruana had just tied Carlsen in 11 consecutive games, several of which had each player blunder away a significant advantage. Caruana showed he could go toe-to-toe with our Norwegian champion, and so attacking his position would not come without risks.

Meanwhile, a draw effectively changed the championship to a 4-game Rapid tournament (then Blitz if that ended in a tie), where Carlsen is a *heavy* favorite. While Carlsen and Caruana are roughly equal in standard chess (2835 and 2832 respectively), Carlsen is much stronger at Rapid (2880 and 2789) and Blitz (2939 and 2767). Why extend a game in an even format when a draw moves to a format you're stronger in?

Having said that, the Chess community was not happy at all to see that draw offered (source: I was unhappy). I'll concede it was a technically correct decision, but as someone who had been waiting 11 games for a win, seeing one materialize then simply vanish was frustrating. It left a lot of people asking **"What would have happened if Carlsen hadn't offered that draw? How would the game have ended?"**, and that's the question these games are answering.

In other words, the tournament isn't leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's ***decision*** was. It's leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's ***position*** was.

All in all, the tournament showed that Carlsen had a **very** good position. After 56 games, black finished with 27 wins, white finished with 3 wins, and there were 26 draws. That's a tremendous advantage. Any grandmaster would be ecstatic to hear that, for a chess engine, their position was only losing in 5% of games played.

What's more, this tournament had given both sides equal time. That's not completely accurate, as Carlsen had a significant lead on time (though I've forgotten just how much). That implies these results are even too conservative, and that Carlsen may have had a larger lead.

Having said that, humans and computers play in very different styles. Because it's winning for a computer doesn't guarantee it's winning for Carlsen (though he's practically a computer anyway), but it does show he had a strong opportunity to win it all in game 12.

# Answer
> 20 votes
> Is the tournament leading to some consensus on how good/bad Carlsen's decision was?

No. Consensus on Carlsen's play and decision has already been reached, I would suggest.

Psychologically Carlsen made it clear in the post match interview that his goal before this game was a draw to reach the rapid playoff where he thought (correctly) that he was strong favourite to win. Hence his play was aimed at taking no risks and inviting a draw at every opportunity. For instance, he offered to repeat moves around about move 14 or 15. In so far as he practically forced Caruana to accept the draw and then went on to win the playoff 3-0 his decision was a good one.

From a chess point of view the consensus is that a few moves earlier Carlsen had a winning advantage, say after white's 29. Re1, and that Carlsen made quiet moves rather than the aggressive moves he needed to make to win.

While the game was in progress a very powerful computer, sesse, was analysing the positions and showing its analysis and evaluations.

This computer tournament adds nothing to the judgement as to how good or bad Carlsen's decision was.

# Answer
> 10 votes
It will not show how good or bad Carlsen's decision was - humans play and assess differently from computers; there are positions that are extremely easy for computers, but terribly difficult for humans and vice versa.

So a computer evaluation of ~+1 might not give any chance for a human win and in many cases a position with equal computer evaluation is an easy win for one side in a human game, most often difficult endgame defence, that computer never gets tired and plays perfectly and gets a draw, but human can't execute it with tablebase precision.

I think Carlsen did Very OK, last game before tie-breaks, draw with black pieces - and he won the tie-break - that's the best proof that he was right :)

# Answer
> 5 votes
The classic game rating of Carlsen and Caruana is very close (3 points difference!). But rapid game rating is another story. The rating point difference is a whooping 100 points. Carlsen's strategy throughout this whole tournament was along these lines - beat me if you can in classic. If you don't, I will sweep you off in the rapid games. And he did exactly that. Sure, Caruana is a quality player; but playing under time pressure, not to mention pressure in playing for World Championshiop, is a totally different thing.

So, Carlsen has no need to risk anything; (yet, it was Caruana who looked more happy after draw was agreed in game 12. This is quite understandable since Carlsen had the advantage in the game.)

# Answer
> 2 votes
As Lord Farquaad points out, the tournament will only show how good Carlsen's position was, not how good his decision was. That said, his position was pretty damned good, if the computers can be believed: so far 49 games have been played, and the score is 23 Black wins to 3 White wins, with 23 draws.

# Answer
> 2 votes
The engine tournament is absolutely pointless. Engines don't make mistakes and they are far better at pushing in advantageous positions. Even then black still managed to lose games.

Carlsen's decision was absolutely the right one for the highest probability of holding the title. Realistically in a GM game black probably had around a 20% chance of winning and a 10% chance of losing at best. Instead he goes for the tiebreakers where he as a 75%+ chance of winning that with his elo advantage.

---
Tags: computer-chess, world-championship, carlsen
---


# Question
Title: Public higher-order endgame tablebases for *common* positions?
It's easy for me to locate 6-piece tablebases online for free (e.g. lichess), and I know 7-piece tablebases exist (cf. Lomonosov tablebase), but I don't know of any easy way to access them.

However, I'm not really interested in all the weird positions like K4B vs KQ that a ≥7-piece tablebase would "honestly" have to include to be called as such. Haven't there been any restricted tablebases generated that only bother to include useful positions, such as e.g. KR vs. KR with more than a total of two pawns? Or is such a thing still technically infeasible?

(I realize that in theory, such a tablebase may not be 100% perfect, since calculations for common positions may be inextricably linked to those for uncommon ones; I would hope this issue could be circumvented with a minimum of resources spent brute forcing the uncommon positions and a minimum loss of accuracy for the common positions, but I could be wrong)

# Answer
I understand where you are getting from. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work like that. To generate a 7-man `KRPPvKRP` you would also need 7-man endgames for the promotion. You would need:

* KRQPvKRP
* KRQPvKRQ
* KRQQvKRQ
* KRBBvKRB
* .......

Can you see, it's really not that easy to generate an endgame with a pawn, because that can transpose to another endgame with the same number of pieces.

We **do** have technology to generate Syzygy 7-piece, but you'd need a super-computer or a high-performance-computing to do it. Google can definitely do it if they want to. So far, nobody wants to cover the costs.
> 2 votes

# Answer
As of August 2018 a complete set of 7-piece Syzygy endgame tablebases is available
> 2 votes

# Answer
I'm not expert in this field but my opinion is that even if you managed to create selected tablebases of 10% size of full package, what would be the point? I understand if you made 0.0001% size that you could be thinking about adding some pieces count but I highly doubt yo can eliminate that much and still call it tablebase. I would expect size of database for every next piece added to go extremely bigger so I think there is no point in doing this. How more precise would heavily incomplete tablebase be compared to engine? I think engine itself is way too precise these days.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Creating those tablebases requires a lot of resources (CPU time, memory, storage). The Lomonossov tables were built in the course of months and require \>100TByte of storage.

For 'interesting' tables with pawns, you need to compute all tables which can result from pawn promotions first. So it requires quite some effort to create even a single table.

OTOH, you can be pretty sure that engines equipped with 6-man TBs are sufficent to analyze 7-man positions well enough for all practical needs.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: endgame, tablebases
---


# Question
Title: Embedding chess games from PGN in markdown
How do I embed chess games from PGN files in markdown format?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Well, on this site, you can use the 'replayer'. Basically, you just paste the PGN as a code block; for more details, see Can we implement a replayer for chess analysis on the site?.

For example, the following code will display the first three moves of the Ruy Lopez opening:

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

```

<sub>(it doesn't work right here because of the \<pre\> block in the post source)</sub>

But this isn't really converting the PGN into Markdown, it's just Stack Exchange's rendering engine detecting the PGN and converting it into a JavaScript widget. There is no 'official' way of converting PGN into Markdown, just like there is no official way to convert it into HTML.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Sometimes when I found interesting articles, I copy it to my notepad2-mod, that allows me some simple syntax highlighting, and that has moved me to adopt the following practices with chess articles with games interspersed.

1) For every pair of moves, supress the dot.

2) To avoid markdown processor interpreting incorrectly the pgn header, place the game between '~~~', before and after the game. This way, the block is treated as a block.

3) Add the text as you please, following the markdown conventions.

For the time being, it is not possible to assign a chess font to the move section, due to the document model followed by markdown. A document, does not change fonts on every paragraph; instead asign fonts to specific parts of the document, like title, tables and text.

---
Tags: learning, software
---


title: What is the idea behind h2-h3?

text:
# Question
Title: What is the idea behind h2-h3?
The pawn move from `h2` to `h3`. I do not understand the reason behind this.

# Answer
It's a **common** idea in the position. It's there to prevent `Be3 Ng4`. Allowing Ng4 with the bishop on e3 is not good; White's dark bishop should be exchanged with Black's strong g7-bishop, something like `Be3-Qd2-Bh6` or `Be3-Bd4-Bxg7`.

Please note White played `10.Be3` immediately next. Without `9.h3`, something like this would have happened:

```
9.Be3 Ng4! 10.Qe2 Nxe3!

```

Black's position is fine with the strong g7 bishop unchallenged. `9.h3` is a good move.
> 10 votes

---
Tags: pawns
---


title: How do you checkmate with a rook?

text:
# Question
Title: How do you checkmate with a rook?
How do you checkmate with a Rook and King versus King? Is there a good and fast method? Can you explain it in a good way? Thanks!

# Answer
I know you're a FIDE Master :), so I suppose you're more interested in this question from a teaching perspective.

The simplest way to understand a checkmate with King and Rook vs King is the idea of the rectangle of the opposing king. Consider this position-

Here, the Black King is restricted by the White Rook in this giant rectangular area of the chessboard. For simplicity, I am not considering the area restricted by the White King, which would be like this -

A simple way (I'll deal with optimizations later) to checkmate is to ensure that this rectangle gets smaller and smaller, so that the Black King is pushed to a corner of the board (more visual representation below with diagrams).

```
    [FEN "8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/K6R w - - 0 1"]

     1. Re1+ Kd4 2. Kb1 Kd3 3. Kc1 Kd4 4. Re2 Kd3 5. Kd1 Kd4 6. Kd2 Kc4 7. Re3 Kd4
     8. Ke2 Kc4 9. Rd3 Kc5 10. Ke3 Kc4 11. Ke4 Kc5 12. Rd4 Kc6 13. Rd5 Kb6 14. Kd4
     Kc6 15. Kc4 Kb6 16. Rc5 Kb7 17. Kb5 Ka7 18. Rc6 Kb7 19. Kc5 Ka7 20. Rb6 Ka8 21.
     Kc6 Ka7 22. Kc7 Ka8 23. Ra6#

1. Re1+ Kd4

```

```
2. Kb1 Kd3 3. Kc1 Kd4 4. Re2 Kd3 5. Kd1

```

```
5...Kd4 6. Kd2 Kc4 7. Re3 Kd4

```

```
8. Ke2 Kc4 9. Rd3

```

```
9...Kc5 10. Ke3 Kc4 11. Ke4 Kc5 12. Rd4

```

```
12...Kc6 13. Rd5

```

```
13...Kb6 14. Kd4 Kc6 15. Kc4 Kb6 16. Rc5

```

```
16...Kb7 17. Kb5 Ka7 18. Rc6

```

```
18...Kb7 19. Kc5 Ka7 20. Rb6

```

```
Ka8 21.Kc6 Ka7 22. Kc7 Ka8 23. Ra6# 1-0

```

Of course, with this method, the one mistake that White must avoid is stalemate -

23. Rb7?? stalemate!

**Optimizations and Tricks.**

More experienced players can get to smaller rectangles quicker by looking further ahead.

One trick is to trap the king in a **smaller rectangle** if it comes too close to the rook. For this, White also has to use the king more actively.

```
   [FEN "8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/K6R w - - 0 1"]

   1. Re1+ Kd4 2. Kb2 Kd3 3. Kb3! Kd2 4. Re4! Kd3 5. Rc4

```

Another trick is to give a **rook check** when the kings are in opposition.

```
   [FEN "8/8/8/2k5/8/2K5/8/4R3 w - - 0 6"]

   1. Re5+!? (1. Rd1!) Kd6 2.Kd4

```

This trick is not necessarily optimal. In the above example, White can actually mate faster with the move 1. Rd1!

```
   [FEN "8/8/8/2k5/8/2K5/8/4R3 w - - 0 6"]

   1. Rd1! Kb5 2. Rd5+! Kc6 3. Kc4

```

The above optimization is also made possible by the **rook-waiting-move** trick. If, in the above position, instead of going to c6, the Black king tries to escape via a4, then the following checkmate is possible.

```
 [FEN "8/8/8/1k6/8/2K5/8/3R4 w - - 0 7"]

 1. Rd5+ Ka4 2. Rc5! Ka3 3. Ra5#

```

One more idea is to use **king-opposition** (in combination with the rook) to push the enemy king behind.

```
 [FEN "8/8/8/2k5/8/8/2K5/4R3 w - - 0 4"]

 1. Kc3! (1...Kd5 2. Re3!) Kc6 2. Kc4! Kd6 3. Re4

```

Combining these different ideas, here are two of the most optimal mates possible from the starting position -

```
   [FEN "8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/K6R w - - 0 1"]

   1. Re1+ (1. Kb2 Kf4 2. Kc3 Ke5 3. Re1+ Kf6 4. Kd4 Kf5 5. Re4 Kf6 6. Re5 Kg6 7.
   Ke4 Kf6 8. Kf4 Kg6 9. Re6+ Kg7 10. Kg5 Kf7 11. Re5 Kg7 12. Rf5 Kh7 13. Kf6! Kg8
   14. Rh5 Kf8 15. Rh8#) 1... Kd4 2. Kb2 Kd3 3. Kb3! Kd4 4. Kb4 $3 Kd3 5. Kc5! Kd2
   6. Re4 Kd3 7. Re5 Kc3 8. Rd5 Kb3 9. Rd3+ Kc2 10. Kc4 Kb2 11. Rd2+ Kc1 12. Kc3
   Kb1 13. Kb3 Kc1 14. Rd3 Kb1 15. Rd1# *

```
> 29 votes

# Answer
I would teach the slow but safe and easy way first: The rook divides the board in two halves. Then the attacking king tries to get in opposition to the enemy king (sometimes the rook has to swap sides or needs to make a waiting move for this to happen). Then the rook gives a check, hence pushing the king one field closer to the edge of the board. The mate follows exactly the same pattern.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I would suggest -- Play this out with an opponent. That's the best way to get the feel of it. Otherwise just google and you will see lots of explanation -- with some nice graphics. www.chess.com and chesstempo.com even have some practice board where you can learn.

One link that covers good theory and explains slowly is http://www.chesscorner.com/tutorial/basic/r\_k\_mate/r\_k\_mate.htm
> 2 votes

# Answer
***Rule of thumb for checkmate with Rook against lone king:***

1. Use the Rook to restrict the opponent's King.
2. Support the Rook with the King.
3. Confine the King to a box and make the box smaller if possible.
4. If it is not possible to make the box smaller, move the King (a waiting move to force back the opponent's King.).
5. Last but not least which leads to victory is
Force your opponent king to corner (`Rank - 1st or 8th or File - a or h` ).
> 0 votes

# Answer
Wes already gave a good answer from the teaching perspective for the OP. This answer is complementary to his answer. I am concentrating on the *optimization and tricks* still keeping beginners in mind (may not be useful to OP). If you haven't seen the basic technique read that form Wes's answer first, then read these tricks and finally go back to *optimisation and tricks* section of his answer.

The most basic tool in making it faster is **flexibility**
(eg: not sticking one method always whether it is king-in-opposition method or box-in-method)

Also, just to recall, our purpose is to confine the king **to an edge**, not to a corner. And we are not preoccupied with which edge it must be.

Though obvious, these fact helps to make it shorter.

**Trick 1**) When you use king-in-opposition, there is no need to go all the way to the end of the side.

So, instead of the following, you can make the check earlier if the king is confined enough (see the variation).

```
[FEN "8/8/8/4k3/R7/2K5/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.Kd3 Kf5 2.Ke3 Kg5 3.Kf3
( 3.Ra5+ Kf6
    ( 3...Kg4 4.Rb5 Kg3 5.Rg5+)
4.Ke4 Kg6 5.Ra6+ Kg5 6.Rb6 Kg4 7.Rg6+ )

```

5...Kh5 6.Kg3 Kg5 7.Ra5+ *

**Trick 2**) King can be inside the rectangle instead of outside

```
[FEN "8/8/1k6/8/2R5/1K6/8/8 w - - 0 3"]

3.Kb4 Kb7
( 3...Ka6 4.Rc6+ Kb7 5.Kb5 )
4.Kb5 Ka7 5.Rc7+
( 5.Kc6 Kb8 6.Ra4 )
*

```
> 0 votes

---
Tags: endgame, checkmate, rooks, kings, elementary-mates
---


title: How do you solve chess tactics?

text:
# Question
Title: How do you solve chess tactics?
Do you just grind them, or do you save some of the chess tactics that you miss?

Do you ever annotate your chess tactics?

Do you try to remember certain patterns and main ideas? Do you categorize your tactics by forks, pins, zugzwang, etc.?

How do you recommend we train tactics puzzles?

# Answer
> 3 votes
There is an article about tactics training at ChessTempo.com

http://www.apronus.com/chess/trainingtactics.htm

It deals with some of the issues raised in the question.

# Answer
> 7 votes
Training chess tactics should be done by theme. This means solve a set of tactics that are based on a similar theme, like Double Attack, Discovered Check, Absolute Pin, Relative Pin, Skewers, etc. This impresses upon the mind the ideas of that particular kind of tactic and gets your brain looking for it as a matter of course. After, you will find yourself 'seeing' these tactics (i.e., imagining) in your games or at least considering them as a means to an end in your positions. This is the creativity you cultivate in your chess game.

# Answer
> 6 votes
Well this is the sort of thing that changes from one person to another: there's no unique/best way of going about it. Almost everything you say are in general good recommendations. At least from my personal experience, most important is to find a routine for solving puzzles on a regular basis. Each puzzle contains at least a key idea that you can take away, mainly in terms of the structure and the weakness in it to be exploited in the tactic. Doing these on a regular basis fills up your bag of ideas as they often push you to think outside the box, but be patient, it takes time for them to residue and to lurk into your play in a natural way.

Another important aspect of puzzle solving is the fact that it is also by definition a calculation exercise, either before or after you've spotted the key idea. So it is strongly recommended to patiently1 solve puzzles without an analysis board, instead solve them entirely in your head, even if it requires a depth of 4-5 moves, and sometimes a bit more. This will improve both your speed and precision of calculation.

Finally, in terms of organization, almost all sources of chess tactics nowadays, be they books or websites2 offer categorized puzzles, in terms of checkmates, pins, double attacks, endgames, and so on, or options to do them all mixed in. So just find a rhythm for doing as many of them as possible, whenever you feel fresh.

---

1: Most importantly, don't try the first idea you see, once you spot a potential solution, check further to see if you cannot find a better one. Most puzzles often have only one solution (or one accepted one), so you have to think optimally in each step of the way. In other words there's definitely grinding involved :)

2: Just to name a few sources worth considering: chess24, chess.com and lichess.org all offer a wide range of tactics trainers, with small differences between them.

# Answer
> 5 votes
In his award winning book, Pump up you Rating, Axel Smith advocates something he calls the "Woodpecker Method". This is named after Hans Tikkanen (Tikkanen is Finnish for woodpecker) who first used the method to obtain 3 GM norms in 7 weeks.

There are a number of important principles in the method.

First you solve large numbers (larger numbers (1000s) for professional players, smaller numbers (100s) for amateurs) of tactical problems sorted by motif. When you have completed them you have a short break (a day or two) and then work through them again. You do this 4 or 5 times in a similar way to spaced repetition but without the same longer spacing between repetitions.

When you have done this you repeat with mixed motifs, so you don't automatically know what type of thing you are looking for and maybe include problems with no solution.

Second, the way you solve them is disciplined and has some rules. These are -

1) You do them against the clock, either something like 15 minutes per problem or 45 minutes for a set of 3. If your flag falls and you haven't written down at least a move for each problem you were supposed to solve then you "lose".

2) Even if you can't solve the problem you must choose a move, as you would have to do in a real game, and like in a real game you solve them in order. You are not allowed to go back.

3) Award yourself points. Smith gives a couple of scoring systems.

4) Calculate the variations through to the end. This is important when you do the repetitions. Don't just note the solution move.

The use of the clock and the points system is important to help you measure progress. You can use these to set targets which you must reach before going on to a new set of exercises.

The source for the tactical exercises is not important. What is important is that the solutions are given with extensive annotations so that you can check your calculations of logical defences and promising tries that don't quite work.

# Answer
> 4 votes
I never return to old tactics unless it is masterpiece. I don't sort them by motives, just calculating the best move and go on. I think mainly the calculation itself is important and if there is some new motive, you just remember it. I solve hard positions, taking time. Some strong players like plenty of easy positions, even repeatedly solving same positions. To me this looks like a waste of time.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Look for checks, captures, and threats.

Look for any undefended pieces.

**Visualize where a tactic is possible.** Can I pin the knight by moving my bishop here, and will it not leave my position vulnerable? Or, can I force the queen to move to this square, so I can checkmate/produce a royal fork/get him to resign/etc.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I like @phonon's answer; but still I guess some sub-questions are not answered.

1. Do you just grind them or save them for later?

Depends on the difference between your chess level and chess level of the audience the puzzle is intended to. If the puzzles are from books (esp. course-like structured series), authors will typically mention the level of the puzzles. For example, in winning chess series, Seirawan recommends time to be spent on puzzle and so on. The same is true for other series such as Yusupov's. If the puzzle is not a study, you should try to grinding and if you can't solve it in 'reasonable time', save it for later. If it is a study, one may be grinding against stone; but still that can be instructive (or not). What is 'reasonable time' also varies. To make the learning process more smooth and enjoyable, I would recommend doing puzzles that are just above your level of play.

2.Do you ever annotate your chess tactics?

Annotation doesn't matter much. But, **analyzing all important variations** can not be overemphasized. Writing down seems to help it.
IMO, you should set the problem on board and solve rather than solve looking at a figure. That would be a better practice. (I have seen master players pointing out this)

3.Do you try to remember certain patterns and main ideas? Do you categorize your tactics by forks, pins, zugzwang, etc.?

In fact, no need to try to remember things. It is more like **getting familiar with it**. Practicing with particular patterns or particular themes helps for sure.
IMO, you should mix it up. If you know for sure that you are to use a particular patter only, you can easily figure it out. People (incl. professionals) say that it imprints the pattern in your mind. May be, it does. But it kills all the fun. I would suggest noting down the puzzles and note down some positions from random games (need not be master games) and mix it up and try to solve the position as if you are facing the position in a game over the board.

4.How do you recommend we train tactics puzzles?

This question is answered very carefully by @photon. I don't have much to add; I am only expressing an opinion.

Also go through the recommendations of Seirawan and Yusupov they give on how they expect their reader to try out the problems in their book. You can not go wrong with it. (One such recommendation is fight not only against the problem, but also time as pointed out by @Brian Towers)

Find a set of puzzles that fits your level best (not too easy not too hard; may be a small percentage of them challenging). Just to reiterate, solving over the board is a better practice whether the source is a book or not (eg:a software or website).

# Answer
> -1 votes
In my opinion it depends on how well you can understand and memorize them. The next time you want to play chess try different methods, such as the methods you know before and the methods which are suggested by others and try to work out which of them is easier and more comfortable for you. It's not one method for all. Try to find what is suitable for you.

```
                                                           Be successful

```

---
Tags: tactics, attack
---


# Question
Title: Is it possible to force checkmate with King, Knight, and Bishop vs. King?
If a King, Knight, and Bishop are pitted against the opposing King, is it possible to force checkmate? I find it very hard to do, enough so that I'm not sure whether there's a clean method.

# Answer
Yes, mate can be forced in 33 moves from nearly any position, according to Wikipedia.

See the standard "w" maneuver cited in that article.
> 38 votes

# Answer
Yes it is possible to force mate. There's a phenomenal video explaining the process on chessvideos.tv.

If you want to practice the endgame, you can do so on the same site as well.
> 24 votes

# Answer
Yes, it can be done. The standard position is to force the enemy king into a corner of the same color as the bishop. Then there are four squares (the corner, the diagonal, and two lateral) squares that need to be attacked.

The bishop attacks the corner and diagonal squares, the king guards one of the lateral squares, and the knight the other one.

```
[FEN "8/5N2/8/5K2/8/5Bk1/8/8 w - - 0 1"]
[White "K + B + N vs K"]
[Black "White to play and win"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. Ne5 Kh3 2. Kf4 Kh4 3. Ng6+ Kh3 4. Bd5 Kh2 5. Kf3 Kg1 6. Ke2 Kh2
7. Kf2 Kh3 8. Be6+ Kh2 9. Bg4 {A waiting move to transfer a move to Black, so that the knight will arrive at its destination while giving check.} Kh1 10. Nh4 {The knight starts its journey to f1.} Kh2 11. Nf3+ Kh1 12. Nd2 Kh2
13. Nf1+ {The all-important destination-check.} Kh1 14. Bf3# {Note: White's bishop can be anywhere on the c8-h3 diagonal (except h3) before this move, and anywhere on the long diagonal to give mate.} 1-0

```
> 12 votes

# Answer
\[Edited\] The winning plan is to force the king into either of the corners which have the same colour as your bishop.

This is done in a few steps.

1. Force the king to one side of the board so he is stuck on either the a/h file or 1st/8th rank
2. Use the W manoeuvre to force the king to the corner of your bishop, then use the motif of knight check on (e.g. Na3+ to hit b1) then mate with your king on b3, knight covering b1 and Bishop mates on the long diagonal (e.g. Bg7#).

I have put a detailed review of each step of the ending on my website.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Yes it is. Check out this video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3EqM17jvOc

The general rule is to get the opponent king in the same corner as your bishop. Use the knight and king to control the squares of opposite color to the color your bishop controls. Then, drive the opponent king to one of the two corners with the correct color!
> 4 votes

# Answer
It is possible, but hard.

Memorizing it doesn't help (it rarely occurs over the board). But, if you try to do it own your own, it will help you with **learning how to make better use of minor pieces in the end game**.

If you can confine the king to a corner of the same colour as the bishop, then it is over (try it!).

The method most people know is composed of two parts: (i) confine his king to some corner, and (ii) force it to a corner of correct colour (colour of your bishop). Part (ii) is is called the W technique in the lore. Part (i) is easy; part (ii) is not. I recommend against memorizing part (ii).

**But being able to do part (i) is a must**. Practice it if you cannot do it. If you are good at it, in some positions, you will be able to directly confine the opponent king to a 'right' corner - something that memorizing people cannot. Once you can do part (i) easily, may be just see the 'W technique' more to enjoy than to memorize. It is basically repeatedly forcing the king to move one square closer to the right corner (you fix that corner this time). This is done with a knight maneuver basically. You can then try to do it on your own. Whether you can recreate it or not doesn't matter.

(Note: if you are doing it on your own, it may go beyond the allowed 50 moves and lead to a draw. Don't worry about that. Once you can do it on your own, practice that ending with a friend and try to achieve that mate quicker. )
> 1 votes

# Answer
Yes, it is possible, and any basic chess manual will demonstrate the method. As mentioned above, the king must be driven into a corner the color of your bishop. To those who say it occurs too rarely to bother to learn, I might mention that I was able to steer a rated game into such an ending, knowing that with my understanding of how to do it I could force mate, which I was able to do well within the allotted 50 moves.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: endgame, checkmate, knights, bishops, elementary-mates
---


# Question
Title: Stuck around 2000 rating. Concrete advice for improving?
I've been stuck around the 2000 rating mark on various different online chess websites for a few years now. I seem to have hit a wall. I'm quite busy so when I do find time for chess I tend to just play some blitz for enjoyment. But I suspect that is what is stalling my game. I've decided to spend more time studying than playing in order to finally progress further.

I am looking for concrete advice on what other players have found successful in their own experience of going past 2000. I've just ordered Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual and I plan to study several key positions each week over the next year. I hope that improving my endgame will bring my overall game up. But I'd be interested to hear other ideas too.

# Answer
Without actually knowing your strengths and weaknesses, I'd suggest doing the following:

Studying endgames is a great idea - it will help you to convert equal positions into wins against players with worse endgame knowledge. However - an equal position has to be reached first.

***Find out what style of play you excel in - and learn how to get into positions that fit that style.*** The most drastic example of this might be the Fried Liver Attack. An engine really doesn't mind playing black here (I mean - it's a free knight!), but human players, even Grandmasters, are just screwed; they are just not able to calculate a complicated position like that well enough. Improving here starts with analyzing openings and getting a feeling for positions, the weaknesses and strengths they bare and what long-term consequences your moves make. Aim to always know *why* you make a move. To practice this, you take any position, make out weak and strong points and formulate a plan *for both sides* \- then think about moves you want to play to pursue your plan - and delay your opponents plans. Bonus points for moves that do both. Take your time for this - it will help you find a plan OTB if you practice it.

At higher ratings games are usually decided by strategy, not tactics. While it is important to have a good eye for tactics, tactical opportunities will be rarer and rarer. Get a good position, keep a good position and the checkmate will come naturally! :)
> 3 votes

# Answer
Don't over-emphasize studying over actually playing. Studying is good, but if you neglect actually playing chess in the meantime you will suffer a great deal; you need to play to keep yourself from getting rusty and losing trust in your decision making over the board. Since you've stated that you don't have lots of time, I'd suggest that you play rapid chess instead of blitz; something like 15 minutes + 10 seconds/move is enough to get some good practice if you don't have the time to play actual slow time controls, since it will not take a huge amount of time (20-40 minutes in total per game) and will still give you a chance to go for some more refined ideas than the ones one may go for in blitz.

With all this being said, I think it's a good idea for you to study endgames as well since those are always going to be important for players of any level. And you can't really go wrong with DEM, it's a truly excellent book. The only thing with DEM is that it's quite high-level stuff and will require some serious effort on your part to get the most out of it.
> 2 votes

# Answer
I'm 2100 in online blitz so we have a similar rating. I'll give you the same advice that Judit Polgar gave to me. Study middlegames and basic endgames. And tactics. I think that Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual might be difficult. It's a little too in depth. It's hard to apply the knowledge that you glean there to your games. For the amount of time you invest in it, you get very little application.

Let's explore this in further detail. There are three components to Judit Polgar's advice: (1) middlegames (2) basic endgames and (3) tactics. It's important that she left out openings, because at the 2000 level it's more important to know plans and ideas than to memorize sequences of moves. It's also important that she said "basic endgames" and not "thoroughly know all the theoretical endgames", because basic endgames have enormous application -- such as opposite colored bishops, a- and h-pawns, knowing to put your king in front of your pawn and your rook behind your pawn -- whereas knowing the theoretical diagrams in Dvoretsky's book has little application unless you're a grandmaster. Why? Well, even if an endgame is theoretically drawn, at the 2000 level your opponent will often make mistakes which render the theoretical result irrelevant, since what's really relevant here is whether you exploit their mistakes and use that to win.

Instead of Dvoretsky, I would recommend looking at annotated games (e.g. books, Chessbase, Chess.com) and watching top players play. This will help you absorb plans and ideas that you can then use in your own games. If you have a good plan during the middlegame then on the 2000 level you often have an edge against your opponent. Forming a knowledge base of plans, ideas, motifs is a lot like building a vocabulary. In order to build a good vocabulary it helps to be a voracious reader. Well, by analogy, you want to be a voracious chess observer. In addition to reading annotated games, you can watch the world's best players play blitz on chess.com. Why blitz? Well, Magnus Carlsen recently said that blitz and rapid are in a sense a purer form of chess because it takes the element of preparation out of it. It's easier to understand a grandmaster's ideas in blitz or rapid because the barrier of opening preparation, to which you are not privy, is removed to a certain extent.

If there are positions where you feel uncomfortable, such as isolated queen pawn positions or even the endgame itself, then it helps to play those positions at every opportunity with willingness and enthusiasm, so that way you can get a feel for them and improve. I think it was like eight or nine years ago that I was afraid of the endgame, and preferred to win by attacking my opponent in the middle game to get a decisive material advantage or a mate. To improve this hole in my game, I just decided to play endgames with (1) willingness and (2) enthusiasm, often trading off pieces just for the sake of entering the endgame, especially when it was equal. Then I started winning equal endgames, and I found it enjoyable. What improved my endgame was not Dvoretsky but a basic endgame knowledge and lots of practice - and, of course, willingness and enthusiasm for the endgame.

But this last bit of advice is important. If you watch grandmasters play blitz on chess.com, you'll notice that even 2700s and 2800s miss basic tactics that afford their opponent the opportunity to win. That's why it's so important to learn tactics. You can use them to win at almost any level. The number of tactics available to you in a position depends on how well your pawns and pieces are placed. The better position you have, the more tactics you likely have. In order to improve tactically, you also have to improve positionally. That's where studying the middle game helps. When Polgar gave me that advice, she said something like "spend 70% of your time on the middle game". Because if you have good plans and ideas in the middle game, then chances are you'll reach positions where you have winning tactics. There's a big disconnect where some players place their pieces well but are then unable to find the winning tactics. I think this comes with experience. The better chess shape you're in, and the more experience you have, the more easily you can convert advantages, and know when to convert advantages. It's a skill in itself. Some times you have a strong knight on d5, but then you have to give it up in order to break up black's pawns on the kingside. Some players would be unwilling to give up this knight and never make any progress in their attack.

At the 2000 level, so many games are decided by not seeing one or two moves ahead. In other words, tactics. In order to get those tactics you need to have a good position. Hence Polgar's emphasis on middle games. When you go online, don't forget to watch top players play. It's something that I only started recently, and I wish I had started a lot sooner!
> 0 votes

---
Tags: endgame, learning, rating
---


# Question
Title: Why is Carlsen being praised for his tie-break play, when Caruana made several game-losing moves?
I followed the three games live on chess24.es (for live commentary from GMs) and chess.com (for actual real time computer analysis).

As per my understanding:

* Game 13 was mostly balanced until `19... Nb5?` (GMs were expecting `Nb7` if anything), and then after `34... Rc3?` it was definitely over.
* Game 14, Caruana was in a better position until `21. c5?` which brought it back to balance, followed "shortly" after by `26. c7?` which was definitely a losing move (live commentators went nuts here).
* Game 15, there were no "obvious" errors (not that the GMs noticed on-air, at least), Caruana was even leading, but in the last half of the game the computer was marking several of Caruana's moves in red.

As far as I can tell, Carlsen didn't make any winning`!!` or distinctly good moves. Yes, he played great and made very few errors, but my feeling is that Caruana lost the game, more than Carlsen won it.

So, why is everybody praising Carlsen for his play? What moves or strategies did he apply in the tie-breakers that show how good he is?

# Answer
Game 1 of the tiebreak: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1937923

37 Rc7 is a brilliant endgame move under time control, that induces the opponent to make the mistake 37...Kxe4. There were few other options for Carlsen, v.i.z., 37. Kh3 or 37. Rb4. You can see the evaluation jumps couple of points from +0.3 to +2.1 even though materially Caruana pulls back to equal pawns. There are two aspects to playing good chess:

* First is finding amazing moves
* Second and equally important is provoking the opponent into making incorrect moves.

If you look at Carlsen's previous WC games, in most of them he has ground the opponent down and forced them to make incorrect moves. You may not like his style but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve praise.
> 13 votes

# Answer
Carlsen crushed it, made almost no mistakes whatsoever in rapid. It is as if he was playing at classical time controls.

Chess is about not making mistakes. If your opponent doesn't make mistakes then you're only going to get a draw even if you play like an engine.

He did play good moves as well. Example on move 37 the position is a draw but he gave himself winning chances with 37. Rc7!. Caruana now blunders with Kxe4 instead of playing Ra2+. Now Carlsen plays the accurate Re7+! instead of Rxg7? and obtains a winning position.
> 27 votes

# Answer
> my feeling is that Caruana lost the game, more than Carlsen won it.

Whenever two players play a game without making any errors the result is a draw. Most games have lots of errors and it is usually the player who makes the last error who loses.

> As far as I can tell, Carlsen didn't make any winning!! or distinctly good moves

Not true. Carlsen made many very good moves. So too did Caruana but unfortunately for Caruana he made more bad moves than Carlsen.
> 17 votes

# Answer
> Carlsen didn't make any winning!! or distinctly good moves.

I doubt. Carlsen's play was almost accurate. He could exploit almost all of Caruana's mistakes in the rapid games.

# Game 1:

Carlsen realizes his opponent is in serious time trouble, in which a move like Rc7! seems the most suitable. Without thinking, a human player would like to collect 2 pawns via **37... Kxe4 38. Rxg7 Kxf5**, without realizing that **39. Rg5+ Kf6 Rxh5** wins the crucial h5 pawn, without which the game is a straightforward victory for white.

```
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
[Event "2018 World Chess Championship"]
[Site "London"]
[Date "2018.11.28"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Carlsen, Magnus"]
[Black "Caruana, Fabiano"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A22"]
[Annotator "Sam Shankland"]
[PlyCount "109"]
[StartPly "72"]
[EventDate "2018.??.??"]
[CurrentPosition "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 Bb4 4. e4 O-O 5. Nge2 c6 6. Bg2 a6 7. O-O b5 8. d4 d6 9. a3 Bxc3 10. Nxc3 bxc4 11. dxe5 dxe5 12. Na4 Be6 13. Qxd8 Rxd8 14. Be3 Nbd7 15. f3 Rab8 16. Rac1 Rb3 17. Rfe1 Ne8 18. Bf1 Nd6 19. Rcd1 Nb5 20. Nc5 Rxb2 21. Nxe6 fxe6 22. Bxc4 Nd4 23. Bxd4 exd4 24. Bxe6+ Kf8 25. Rxd4 Ke7 26. Rxd7+ Rxd7 27. Bxd7 Kxd7 28. Rd1+ Ke6 29. f4 c5 30. Rd5 Rc2 31. h4 c4 32. f5+ Kf6 33. Rc5 h5 34. Kf1 Rc3 35. Kg2 Rxa3 36. Rxc4 Ke5 37. Rc7! Kxe4 38. Re7+ Kxf5 39. Rxg7 Kf6 40. Rg5 a5 41. Rxh5 a4 42. Ra5 Ra1 43. Kf3 a3 44. Ra6+ Kg7 45. Kg2 Ra2+ 46. Kh3 Ra1 47. h5 Kh7 48. g4 Kg7 49. Kh4 a2 50. Kg5 Kf7 51. h6 Rb1 52. Ra7+ Kg8 53. Rxa2 Rb5+ 54. Kg6 Rb6+ 55. Kh5 1-0

```

# Game 2:

Carlsen finds **24... Bd8!**, after which the most clear path for white is to get c7 through after Nd5. However, Magnus finds the best move in the position, **25... e4!**, generating enough counterplay in the center such that c7 is easily handled.

```
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
[Event "2018 World Chess Championship"]
[Site "London"]
[Date "2018.11.28"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Caruana, Fabiano"]
[Black "Carlsen, Magnus"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Annotator "Sam Shankland"]
[PlyCount "56"]
[StartPly "50"]
[EventDate "2006.06.28"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Nd5 Nxd5 8. exd5 Ne7 9. c4 Ng6 10. Qa4 Bd7 11. Qb4 Qb8 12. h4 h5 13. Be3 a6 14. Nc3 a5 15. Qb3 a4 16. Qd1 Be7 17. g3 Qc8 18. Rc1 Bg4 19. Be2 Bxe2 20. Qxe2 Qf5 21. c5 O-O 22. c6 bxc6 23. dxc6 Rfc8 24. Qc4 Bd8 25. Nd5 e4 26. c7? Bxc7 27. Nxc7 Ne5 28. Nd5 Kh7 (29. Qe2 Nd3+) (29. Ne7 Qf3 30. Qxc8 Rxc8 31. Rxc8 Qxh1+) 0-1

```
> 10 votes

# Answer
Garry Kasparov put it this way in a tweet:

> Carlsen’s consistent level of play in rapid chess is phenomenal. We all play worse as we play faster and faster, but his ratio may be the smallest ever, perhaps only a 15% drop off. Huge advantage in this format.

Not sure where he gets the 15% from, but the general idea must be right: Caruana suffered much more from the lack of thinking time than Carlsen did. That is what is amazing about Carlsen.

Like others said, you can only win if your opponent makes mistakes. Tartakower famously put it this way: "The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake".
> 8 votes

# Answer
You should read GM Sam Shankland's annotations to all three games, which are freely available on Chess.com.

In them he points out many good moves that Carlsen played. Some that come to mind are d4 in game 1, sacrificing a pawn. Castling kingside in game 2 allowing c6. Bd8 in game 2 and then sacrificing this bishop for the c7 pawn. e4 followed by Ne5 in game 2. All the moves in game 1 that won him the endgame. Playing for a solid Maroczy bind in game 3 which is very hard to beat.
> 6 votes

# Answer
> As far as I can tell, Carlsen didn't make any winning!! or distinctly good moves.

In chess, only results count not the moves... Carlsen is being praised because he won the match. Winner takes all.
> -2 votes

---
Tags: analysis, strategy, tactics, world-championship, carlsen
---


# Question
Title: Are there any engines that present evaluations based on probability of finding moves?
All engines I'm aware of focus on finding the best moves to win the position. I'm curious whether there are any that exist that attempt to present an honest *evaluation* of a position, with human capabilities in mind. For example, with each candidate move, associate a weighted probability that indicates the likelihood a human is to actually find a given move on the board.

I'm thinking of situations where computers can find winning lines, but the key moves are so counterintuitive or unnatural that most humans would never consider them.

This is clearly a challenging computer science task. I'm also not even sure there's a good use case for such an engine. But, I'm curious.

# Answer
No engine do what you describe because it’s too hard to code a imperfect human brain. Estimating positional complexity at humans level is also quite hard.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: engines
---


# Question
Title: Is there a GUI software that exports chess diagrams for chess authors?
Is there a program either Linux or a Windows program that can create a chess position and save it as an image. That image can then be used by the chess author in a book that is being written.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Chessbase products have to capability to export an image or using a chess diagram font as rtf to be pasted directly into word.

---
Tags: software, books, linux, windows
---


# Question
Title: Am I actually playing against a 1425 rated player?
I am using Deep Shredder 13 and somewhat struggled with the engine at 1400. I then managed to defeat 1425 with great ease. The game went as follows

```
[FEN ""]
    1. d4   e6
        2. Bf4  Nf6
        3. Nf3  d6
        4. Nc3  h6
        5. e4   g5
        6. Bg3  d5
        7. e5   Ne4
        8. Qd3  f5
        9. h4   Nd7
        10. hxg5  Nxg5
        11. Nxg5  Qxg5
        12. f4    Qg8
        13. O-O-O h5
        14. Bh4  Bh6
        15. g3   Qf7
        16. Nb5  Nf8
        17. Qc3  Rg8
        18. Nxc7+  Kd7
        19. Nxa8 Qh7
        20. Qc7+ Ke8
        21. Qd8+ Kf7
        22. Qe7+ Kg6
        23. Qf6#

```

Thus, this brings me to question whether I am actually playing against a 1425 rating. On my iphone app I struggle with a 1350, thus I am unsure what to make of this. During the game, I saw obvious threats (`Nb5xc7+`) which could've been avoided. The engine instead of avoiding mate with `Qxc7`, it went for the dubious move `Kd7`. Afterwards, when I added a new variation, it actually went with `Qxc7`. Why does this occur? I mean it seems as if I was playing against a 1300 rating. What is the logic behind this? (Also, I should add that during the game the engine was limited to book knowledge)

# Answer
I don't know if the engine was really playing at 1400+, but it was quite weak. 1400+ rating sounds fair to me.

Please note:

* Shredder is **not** the iPhone app you mention. It's rating system is not the same as what Shredder is using.
* The iOS app you mention is definitely under-rated. I tried it several times, I know.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: engines, learning, rating
---


title: Human–machine stronger than machine?

text:
# Question
Title: Human–machine stronger than machine?
It seems to be pretty well established since the days of (the second) Deep Blue vs. Kasparov match that top machines can beat top humans at playing chess.

However, Kasparov seems to claim that the best combination is human+machine, assuming the right decision-making process.

I'm wondering if there's any evidence to back up this claim that a human+machine combination would be stronger than a machine on its own, or in other words, whether human reasoning can contribute something valuable to playing chess beyond what the top machines are capable of?

For example, have there been matches along these lines (human+computer vs. computer) that might shed light on this claim/question?

# Answer
Yes. I remembered seeing a Reddit post on this, so I looked it up;

From /u/MortalSisyphus on Reddit:

> At the end of the day engines win and lose games against each other. Which means their analysis is "flawed" in the sense they don't have an infinite horizon. It says 0.27, but if the move ends up with an eventual loss then the analysis of that move wasn't actually 0.27, it was -100.
>
> Of course it is more complicated than that since each move contributes slightly, but the point is the same. The engine does blunder, just not in the way humans typically blunder. The blunders are basically impossible to see even for a 3000+ engine, but if the move(s) lead to a loss it is a blunder.
>
> It is possible that a human seeing 3 roughly equally assessed lines could use intuition to pick the one least likely to be a long-term blunder, meaning a strategic mistake.
>
> And of course humans have highly advanced opening theory, which is probably where most human advantage comes from if the engines in question don't have a very strong book.

If you want to see some human-machine chess, look up some modern ICCF games - ICCF correspondence games are played with engine assistance.
> 3 votes

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


# Question
Title: Why isn't the objective of chess to capture the opponent's king?
The objective of chess is to put the opponent's king in a position where it cannot evade capture. Why not go all the way?

Short of tremendous blunders of moving into check, chess would be completely the same, except with one more move at the end, and the rules would be simpler and easier to explain.

# Answer
> 5 votes
> Short of tremendous blunders of moving into check, chess would be completely the same

But it wouldn't be the same. There is one case where moving a king into check would not be a blunder. That case is what we currently call stalemate. If it was legal to move a king into check, then almost all cases of what is currently stalemate would instead be a win for one side.

This would have a huge impact on the endgame. Many endgames which are currently draws would turn into wins for the side with more material (KP vs K would win regardless of opposition, for example, and many other endgames can be simplified to that) and many theoretically won but difficult endgames would be much easier to win (since KNN vs K would now win, KNN vs KP could be won by just taking the pawn.)

And this effect on the endgame would in turn have a large effect on the earlier stages of the game. It's harder to sacrifice a pawn if you know you don't have drawing chances in the event that you end up a pawn down in the endgame.

You could, of course, hack a stalemate exception into the new rules, but that would probably be even more confusing.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Of course the goal of chess is to capture the opponent king. However, I see no point in your suggestion for the game. If one player’s king is in check they are forced to move a piece so your king does not remain so. If you are checkmated, by definition, your king cannot move and so you cannot escape the check. Because no move you could possibly make would avoid that, there is no legal move for you and so it is game over.

So all in all, you cannot simply move any piece so you get checkmated in the next move because a check forces you to escape the threat of check.

---
Tags: rules, checkmate, kings, captures
---


title: Next world chess championship

text:
# Question
Title: Next world chess championship
When and where is the next world championship? Also, when is the candidates? Where can I find the important chess tournaments online?

# Answer
> 8 votes
> When and where is the next world championship?

It will take place in 2020 at the end of the year. The exact date and location have not been revealed nor decided yet.

> When is the Candidates?

In 2020, the same year as the world championship match. It usually takes place in March, but no official information about it has been released yet.

> Where can I find the important chess tournaments online?

If you are asking about the dates, then there are many sources. The one I use is 2700chess. Scroll down to the "Future Events" section. It lists many scheduled upcoming tournaments as well as the most notable players taking part in each. There is also the Chess.com tournaments calendar.

If you are asking about the broadcasts of the tournaments, then either Chess24 or Chess.com is the right place for you. Personally I use Chess24.

# Answer
> 5 votes
> Where can I find the important chess tournaments online?

Tournaments like the Candidates and World Championships are FIDE events. News about them will appear first on the FIDE website. FIDE also have a Twitter account which you can follow which will also make shorter announcements usually with links back to stories on the FIDE website.

---
Tags: tournament, world-championship, candidates
---


# Question
Title: Strategy according to the pawn structure in the Caro-Kann
I have long been playing the Caro-Kann but I have never been able to come up with a plan according to the pawn structure in the games.

After playing d5 (and entering the Pawn exchange variation or the Advance variation) I just simply play what “seems best” but I am aware that a plan in chess is necessary. I am asking this question because I hardly ever find a typical theme in this opening (doubled pawns, backward pawns) or any other typical position which has set goals for White and Black.

I am asking so someone can enlighten me on this. Below are some positions I often reach but I am specially interested what are the goals for Black in the Advance and Pawn Exchange variations (according to theory). I highlight again, I am interested in the plan (if there exists any) in terms of the pawn structures which result from such variations.  The link of this game is: https://lichess.org/0o6pkS9r/black#30

https://lichess.org/0o

Another game in which I have no idea what do after the advance c5 (in this position I should have probably played h6 in order to prevent the bishop from pinning my knight)

And here is a last one:

# Answer
> 1 votes
I (1878 rating) play the Caro-Kann and its cousin the Slav a lot and have found that in the Advance Variation, where White plays e5 you have to counterattack on the Queenside, usually beginning with ...c5 or ...b6 if c5 is occupied by White. You have to get the move in relatively early - usually soon after developing your QB, KN and QN. Of course, White playing Qb3 or Nh4 or Bd3, etc. can delay doing it, but it's almost always necessary to attack White there near the base of his Pawn Chain. In some cases, White supports the Q-side so much that you can attack the neglected K-side with an ...f6, etc. When I play White against the Caro-Kann, I play the Panov Attack or the Exchange Variation so the game is more open and Black isn't able to build the awesome wall you show in your boards. When I play Black I love it when White plays 3 e5. If you look at chess.com/explorer (free membership may be required), click the drop-down box where "Master Games" is, select "Other Player, enter MickinMD, select Black, and click on 1 e4, you'll see it has 23 games where I played 1...c6, winning 39%, drawing 26%, and losing only 35% to White against players averaging even with my rating including excellent players from Russia, Hungary, and other chess-loving nations - one was the former high school champ of Sidney, Australia. I posted one 3...e5 game on chess.com's Game Showcase that I won with a struggle - a struggle partly due to not playing ...c5 until later than I should have, according to some excellent players who critiqued the game at my request.

---
Tags: opening, caro-kann
---


# Question
Title: Open source engine that doesn't lose on time
I'm looking for an open source engine (doesn't have to be very strong) that can be loaded with python chess uci module and can play at very fast time controls (few seconds plus tens of milliseconds of increment)

Thanks for your recommendations

# Answer
> 1 votes
Stockfish is strong and able to handle your time control increments. Have you tried Stockfish?

---
Tags: engines
---


# Question
Title: Testing an engine (UCI) against an older version of itself
I am making modifications to a chess engine.

I want to get quick feedback on whether the modified version seems stronger than an unmodified version or not, by fighting the older version multiple times.

Does anyone know about a good tool to do this? (Currently I have some homemade code to do this using python-chess ... but a tried and tested tool would be preferred)

# Answer
> 1 votes
Cutechess is a very good solution for this. You can use either the CLI or the GUI to run matches of engines (both UCI and XBoard protocol), and at least the CLI even supports SPRT as a termination criterion of the match, see the help.

Cutechess is also heavily used in the development of Stockfish when running matches between different versions of Stockfish on fishtest.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Arena would best suit you. It has a graphical user interface as well as other features required for engine development such as multi-PV, specifying number or cores, and many more (but as a new user it will take you some time to get used to it). Download it from their website.

---
Tags: engines, tournament, programming, uci
---


# Question
Title: Blindfold game records of chess and xiangqi
According to Wikipedia, Timur Gareyev played 48 opponents with a mask before his eyes and sitting on an exercise bike, resulting in 35 wins, 7 draws, and 6 losses. On the other hand, the record for blindfold xiangqi is only 26 opponents. It seems that it is extremely difficult to improve this record even by one game.

I am wondering what makes the difference in the number of opponents? I do not think it is because xiangqi is more complicated than chess.

# Answer
> 2 votes
It could be as simple as the relative popularity of playing blindfolded. In chess playing blindfolded goes very far back. There are reports of islamic scholars playing blindfolded chess of three games simultaneously more than a thousand years ago. In modern times blindfold exhibitions have been a staple of chess events. As records tend to be improved in small steps, maybe xiangqi just didn't have enough events of this type yet, to get to a similar number of games.

---
Tags: blindfold-chess, xiangqi
---


# Question
Title: Python Engines to Beat to Take the Crown
Since Python is extremely slow, chess engines are almost never written using it. I've been building a Python engine to avoid this issue (through JIT compilation), and want to compare my engine against other 'pure Python' engines.

I'm defining a 'pure Python' engine as an engine where all the core functionality is written in Python. An example of this would be an engine which is written in all Python except for a tiny bit of C used to efficiently stitch together the use of a few Python packages.

Given that definition, I'm wondering which engine's would need to be beaten in order to fairly say my engine is the "Best Python Engine" running on my computer hardware.

If you'd like to test against my engine, or are just curious about it, my chess engine is Batch-First (although as of writing this the trained ANNs aren't currently uploaded).

# Answer
> 2 votes
You may claim yourself the World Computer Champion in Python if you beat all of them:

> http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67025

---
Tags: engines, python
---


title: How to improve on the early endgame?

text:
# Question
Title: How to improve on the early endgame?
The late middlegame/early endgame is by far my weakest point.

I often get some kind of advantage in the opening, but then struggle to convert. I do study endgames, for example I am currently reading Silmans Endgame Course. But the point is that these kind of endgames that you can learn by rote memorization/technique (e.g. say Lucena Position, or K+P vs K etc.) is not what I struggle with. It's rather to find the right plan in positions, where there are many more pieces on the board.

I try to give an example by some positions that I encountered in tournament games, e.g. longer time controls. I hope this explains better in what kind of positions I struggle.

```
r1r3k1/ppp2pp1/2q2n1p/4B3/8/2Q4P/PPP2PP1/3RR1K1 w - - 0 19

1. Qxc6 bxc6 Bxf6 gxf6

```

I noticed by exchanging pieces, that black will end up with several pawn islands and double pawns. But I failed to convert. Later

```
8/p1p2p2/1rp2k1p/4Rp2/1PP2P2/P6P/6P1/6K1 w - - 0 29

1. Kf2

```

instead of Ra5, forcing on exchanging rooks, or attacking both the a and c pawns. I simply didn't have a proper plan here and what to do - so even though I can calculate, I did not know *what* to calculate. In this game black managed to ourmaneuvre me and I could barely hold a draw.

```
8/1p1k1p1p/2n1p1p1/p1P5/1pK1PP2/1P6/1B4PP/8 w - - 0 36

1. g4?

```

here I played g4? instead of seeing that I can invade with Kb5, and then Black is stuck with defending his a-pawn so that his Knight is almost not moveable. After Na7 I lost instead of securing a draw.

```
3r4/8/2Rnk1p1/7p/1P1p1B1P/2p2P2/5P2/6K1 w - - 0 40

1. b5??

```

which Black can answer with Kd5 and wins. I played b5?? instead of getting my King in the game with Kf1, which would have rescued the game.

In these positions it seems crucial to find the right plan before calculating anything. Typical endgame books kind of don't bring me forward I feel.

What kind of learning ressources and or methods can you suggest to improve in such kind of positions?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Knowing when/how to transition to an ending is one of the difficult choices. Ideally you will be able to correctly evaluate the resulting complex ending when making that choice. I find the most helpful thing in evaluating complex ending is knowing the simple endings. There are few resources I have found on this interesting topic.

There is a bit at the end of Silman's Complete Endgame Course on this.

Joel Benjamin's Liquidation on the Chess Board covers the transition to a pawn ending. Though that is from a piece ending to a pawn ending some of the ways of thinking are the same.

Your examples call for "technique" as in "and the win is now a matter of technique" Sadly these commentators rarely explain what the technique is.

Take your example of pawn islands / isolated pawns. Standard technique is to attack the pawns activating your pieces and tying your opponent's pieces to the defense of the pawns. But what to you do after he defends his pawns? Then another principle may come into play, 'alteration' or multiple weaknesses. Now you can switch you attack between weaknesses and make your opponent respond. Even if the position is drawn you can present your opponent problems and try to provoke an error. Sometime if you alternate your attack in just the right move order your opponent has no good response. This is often true when you have a space advantage. Sometimes a better position is just a draw. There are no simple rules to follow, only judgement and experience.

I agree with Ywapom that going over great endgames is a wonderful way to see the patterns and get an idea of what to try. I also agree that Karpov and Capablanca are good choices, they play very clear, the moves often look so simple. Have fun with the masters.

# Answer
> 5 votes
The English GM Glenn Flear has coined the phrase "not quite an endgame" or NQE to describe exactly the kind of positions you talk about. He has written a book, "Practical Endgame Play - Beyond the Basics: The Definitive Guide to the Endgames That Really Matter" about these. It covers NQEs where each player has pawns and only two pieces.

Unfortunately it is out of print but you may be able to find it for sale second hand.

# Answer
> 4 votes
There is a book: Endgame Strategy (Cadogan Chess Books)Apr 1, 1994 by Mikhail Shereshevsky which includes early endgame/late middlegame positions.

and: Capablanca's Best Chess Endings: 60 Complete GamesFeb 1, 1982 by Irving Chernev is good.

Going over complete games of Karpov is beneficial for technique as well.

---
Tags: endgame, learning, middlegame, pawn-structure
---


# Question
Title: Do the King's side and Queen's side pieces have different values because of which square color they start on?
I wonder if the Bishop and Knight that start out on the same color square as the opponent's King, is worth more than it's twin on the other flank. And if that is of significance when making choices about pawn structure and piece exchange in the early game.

White's King starts out on and castles to dark squares, so Black's King's side dark Bishop can check white, or use the King as a pinboard, or win a tempo when the King moves to avoid that. For the Knights, it takes both sides' King's side Knights 4 moves to give a check, but only 3 moves for the Queen's side Knights, regardless which way is castled.

Is this enough to say that from the onset, the King's side Bishop is (a potential tempo) better than the Queen's side Bishop, and vice versa for the Knights?

Should one transfer one's Queen's side Knight to the King's side, on a 3-move path towards check, and thus possibly win a tempo later on? And also not trade the King's side Knight against the opponent's Queen's side Knight early on?

# Answer
> 2 votes
There is no doubt that the value of a piece depends on where it is on the board, but the difference between b1 and g1 or between c1 and f1 is going to be very small and probably not worth worrying about for human players. (Position-dependent piece values are much more sensitive to the rank and centrality of the square, neither of which change in this case.)

One way to try to measure this would be to ask the all-wise Stockfish. :-) What does it say if you remove one of these pieces? Here's what I got using the Lichess analysis board to default depth (these are the evaluation scores after removing the white piece):

* Queen's knight: -3.8
* King's knight: -3.6
* Queen's bishop: -4.7
* King's bishop: -4.8

So if we are to believe Stockfish, the queen's knight is worth 0.2 more, and the King's bishop is worth 0.1 more than their counterparts. Seems like a relatively small difference to me, and it is probably dependent on depth. Still, for whatever it is worth, the small differences at least went in the same direction as your hypothesis!

# Answer
> 1 votes
They don't have different values, but the actual place on the board definitely matters for pieces. Some well-known examples are the octopus knight, positioned on the sixth or seventh rank protected by a pawn or another piece, which is usually worth at least a rook. The relative value of a pawn on the seventh rank is also much more than when it's still on the second rank.

There is no a priori difference in relative value between the pieces in the starting position, but there are certain openings (e.g. French advance variation, King's Indian) which create central pawn structures leading to bad and good bishops. One could think of one bishop being worth 2.5 pawns and the other 3.5, but I don't know of any player who really counts this way.

# Answer
> 0 votes
## Short answer

You do have a certain point, but it is not meaningful enough in the big picture to truly matter.

## Long answer

Indeed, on an empty board, the knight from c1 will reach the square e8 one move faster than the one on f1.

However:

* The board isn't empty. Your opponent won't simply allow you to march up to their king like that. The opponent's pawn structure will make a lot of squares impassable for your knights, and the kingside knight might have a faster path through that structure than the queenside knight in the end.
* Checks are not the only way to gain tempo. Your queenside knight is potentially faster to attack the opponent's king, but conversely, the kingside knight is potentially faster to attack the queen, which in 90%+ of cases is just about as tempo-winning.
* The opponent's king will most likely not even be on e8 anymore anyways by the time your knights come into range.
* Usually, an invasion across the middle of the board will need some preparation on your part, and you will easily spend more than three or four moves to even enable your knight to give a check in the first place. Winning one tempo on the last move of a plan isn't that useful if the plan was more tempo-consuming than another.
* In the end, that one check to the opponent's king after a direct 3-move or 4-move path only happens in a small fraction of games. Most of the time, you will need your knights to perform other duties.
* Even in cases where it happens, that one check will only be a tiny fraction of the "value" of that knight during that game. What it did along the path is much more important (an octopus knight as mentioned in another answer will ultimately be much more useful than one who only gave check once and didn't have much more impact otherwise).
* Chess is concrete.

---
Tags: strategy, theory
---


# Question
Title: Can my pc calculate to depth 125 in 15 seconds, if a chess engine is programmed well?
I have a PC, an AMD RYZEN 7 2700 with minimal graphic card and 8 GB RAM. It has 8 cores and 16 threads.

If a chess engine is programmed well will it be able to calculate to a depth of 125 in 15 seconds? My question to the forum is is it scientifically possible? Please share your thoughts.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Sure it could, if you do a lot of pruning and consider only one or few branches. However it would likely not be a very strong engine, because it would miss lots of relevant sidelines/variations.

---

Longer answer:

The "depth" you see in engines does not mean, that the engine calculates all variations to that depth. This would be practically impossible because of the huge number of variations: After just 1 white and 1 black move you already have 20\*20=400 different games. With every move that you look ahead this number increases by a factor that is on average around 35.

Because of that, engines are (just like humans) only considering what they think are the relevant lines, by ignoring all other moves. This is called "pruning".

If you do this pruning very heavily you can end up with an engine that can look very deep. However it would look in a very narrow range, considering only one line or so.

It would miss lots of moves/lines and be very weak. Roughly speaking you could say that engines are doing a compromise between depth, width (number of variations) and allocated time in order to optimize for playing strength.

# Answer
> 2 votes
To complement the answer by user1583209, I would point towards the supercomputer Sesse. In normal positions, I've never seen it even come close to reaching a depth of 125. A more typical depth reached from what I've seen would be something like 40, i.e. very far off from 125. In the case of a home PC (even with Ryzen 2700), you likely won't even come close to 40 within the allocated 15 seconds. Therefore, assuming that your engine is actually half-decent and isn't instantly pruning almost every single variation, I'd say 25 is much more realistic than 125.

---
Tags: computer-chess
---


# Question
Title: What makes game 5 of the 2018 World Championship a draw?
I was watching recently the excellent ChessNetwork commentary of the 5th game of the WCC 2018 between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana. The end position looked like this and players shook hands after white played g4.

```
[FEN "8/5R2/5bp1/3rpk1p/8/4B2P/5PP1/5K2 w - - 0 1"]

```

There is not much to grip onto on either side for sure, but it doesn't strike me as a draw either. The line I get with Stockfish is not straight forward.

```
[Title "{ [Stockfish 280218 64 POPCNT] 68:+0.00}"]
[FEN "8/5R2/5bp1/3rpk1p/8/4B2P/5PP1/5K2 b - - 0 1"]
[startflipped ""]

 1... Ke6 2. Ra7 Rd6 3. Ke2 hxg4 4. hxg4 Rc6 5. f3 Bd8 6. Rg7 Kf6 7. Rg8 Bb6 8.Bh6 Rd6 9.Rf8+ Ke6 10. Re8+ Kd5 11. Be3 Bd8 12. f4 exf4 13. Bxf4 Re6+ 14. Rxe6 Kxe6 15. Kd3 Kd5 16. Ke3 Be7 17. Kd3 Bb4 18. Ke3 Bc5+ 19. Kf3 Be7 20. Be3 Bd8 21. Bf4 Be7

```

Is there any simple explanation why this position appears as an obvious draw other than a lack of goals to pursue on both sides?

# Answer
Some points to consider:

* No passed pawn
* All rook endgames with equal number of pawns in its own half are drawn (I do not know if this is a theorem, but it is almost a theorem).
* One of the players can probably force exchange of bishops and get it to rook endgame with equal number of pawns.
* Both players are 2800+ and it is a classical game, so enough time to think and make the right moves.

**EDIT**: You can look at the game discussed here, where one side has Rook along with 'a' and 'c' pawns, while the other side just has a rook and the game is still a draw.
> 8 votes

# Answer
Computer engines are of little use in positions like this. Still it is a pretty obvious draw, because of:

* equal (and very limited) material
* pawns on the same side of the board
* no weaknesses for either player
* active and safe kings

In order to win this, one would have to win material or promote a pawn, neither of which can be forced.
> 6 votes

# Answer
I'll add a few points to the answers already given:

1. If both sides exchanged all their pawns, the game is a draw, because R+B vs. R+B is a draw. In fact R+B vs. R is a draw . Think about this for a moment: it means that if either side can exchange their bishop for all three of the other side's pawns, they're the only side that can win (since they can still theoretically promote a pawn while the opponent will never be able to checkmate them).
2. Obviously from that position, for either side to win, they must push their pawns to promotion. But there are no passed pawns. What's likely to happen after the pawn pushes is that the pawns are going to be exchanged.
3. Neither side has a material advantage.

You can imagine what's likely to happen if both players had played on. Because of #2, pawns will be pushed and likely exchanged. Because of #3, there's a good chance all the pawns are exchanged. If either side is to have any hope of winning, it needs to be able to win a pawn for nothing. But even if that happens, some pawns are still likely to have been exchanged, leaving a R+B+P vs. R+B scenario ... and then the side with the R+B can just sacrifice the Bishop for the pawn and the game is drawn by #1.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: analysis, draw, world-championship
---


# Question
Title: Would a classic full time armageddon tiebreaker be balanced?
I think that classic chess and rapid chess are two quite different kinds of sport. The classic chess title was undecided this year 2018.

Why not use the armageddon rule, that black wins if tied in exchange for a white time advantage, in a classic format? Say for example normal classic time rules for white, but in total only 100 minutes with no increment per move and no additional time after move 40 for black. Could something like that be fair or is it too easy for black to force a drawing position during the first 40 moves? Is armageddon all about blunders under time pressure?

# Answer
> 3 votes
That wouldn't make any sense. In a long game between two 2800+ players, a draw is always very likely. Carlsen and Caruana understand exactly how to steer a game to a draw.

Whoever gets Black would have a winning advantage before the game even started.

---
Tags: draw, time-control
---


# Question
Title: Can a human defeat an engine in a 10-game match if he is given the White pieces and draw odds in every game?
What would happen in a 10-game match between one of the strongest human player (Carlsen, Caruana, Aronian, Kramnik or Anand) and one of the strongest engine (Komodo, Stockfish or Houdini), but with the following two conditions:

* The human always has the White pieces in every single game.
* The human is given draw odds: a draw is counted as a White win (i.e. in the advent of a draw White gets 1 point and Black gets 0 point).

The games are played at classical time control: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61 has been made.

The engine is run on a powerful computer, gets 7-piece Lomonosov endgame tablebases, has permanent brain (ponder) on, and has a big opening book designed to avoid getting into drawish positions.

# Answer
**No.**

Chess computers are now fantastically strong. To put things in perspective:

In other words, Stockfish 10 crushes Stockfish 9 crushes Deep Rybka 4 crushes Deep Fritz which beat Kramnik. There's only one conclusion from this. Realistically, humans have no chance, and would be lucky to even draw a game.
> 6 votes

# Answer
In contrast to Rauan Sagit, I'm going to offer some reasons I think any human should (assuming they don't get lucky and play some computer-level games themselves) lose such a match.

* Elo differential: As of Nov.15, 2014, the highest-ranked engine on CCRL 40/40 is Komodo with an Elo of 3303 on relatively modest hardware of an Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4 GHz (Engine ratings were initially based on human ones, but you could debate how relevant it is to compare the two. We have no other metrics, though, so I'm going with this). The all time peak rating was Carlsen's 2882 - let's use him as our example and assume he is able to play consistently at a 2882 rating level. This is a differential of 421, and the central observation of the Elo rating system is that a rating difference of 400 points should correlate to a **95% probability of the higher rated player winning** (not counting the possibility of draws). Top GM games draw around 50% of the time, meaning that even if this rate stays the same, Carlsen will be fighting for draws with no practical possibility to push for a win. This means that, *at best*, you would be expecting him to stand a chance of *just* winning the match with him playing at a peak level consistently throughout the match.
* Time control: If the time control is short, humans are likely to blunder when at best computers will make sub-optimal positional choices. If the games are long, it becomes very hard for the human player to remain consistent until the end of the match.
* The engine (assuming the people setting it up actually want it to win) would have it's 'contempt for draws' set really high, meaning it would keep pushing on until the human cracked.
* The psychology of such a match (assuming that there is enough of a prize/prestige for the human to be taking it seriously) can be really taxing on the human player. Kasparov-Deep Blue were 6-game matches and Kasparov was finding to hard to maintain his mindset and mental stamina well before the end of these. Of course, there were other factors at play at the time, but a 10-game classical control match is very taxing.

I'd also point out that Rauan's last paragraph suggest a modification that would likely make it *too* easy for a human player to win. keeping the computer's calculated advantage relatively low after 30 moves should not be too difficult with appropriate opening choices. I think a better adjustment would be that if the score is 0.00 +- 0.05 for at least 5 ply *and* the human offers a draw, the machine must accept. Either that, or make the match take place over a long period of time, with one game every 3 months or so (in amongst other tournaments) to prevent fatigue.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Let's see what happens if we just look at the math.

According to the FIDE handbook, a rating difference of 422 points would mean the engine would get an average score of about 0.93 per game. Assuming that the human player is only going to draw and not win, that results in the computer winning about 86% of the time, and the human drawing 14%.

If the computer wins 86% of the time, the computer will win a 10 game match about 99.3% of the time. About 0.6% of the time, it will be a 5-5 tie, and 0.1% of the time, the human will win.

But this ignores the effect of giving the human the White pieces. This blog suggests the first-move advantage is worth about 35 rating points. That would put the computer's odds of winning a single game at perhaps 83% instead of 86%. Using those odds, the computer would win the 10-game match about 98.3% of the time, it would be a 5-5 tie about 1.4% of the time, and the human would win about 0.3% of the time.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Any top human would be annihilated under those conditions. Even a mobile phone can destroy any human in a ten game match even under those conditions. The only hope would be those conditions plus give the human an exchange odds in every game.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Yes, a strong Grandmaster can beat the strongest chess engine given these conditions. Still, these conditions highlight the fact that today, the best engine is much stronger than the best human player. Thus, the human player needs considerable odds in order to agree to the next human versus machine match.

Yet, imagine a strong Grandmaster (e.g. Elo \> 2700) agreeing to these terms (10 games with classical time controls, white in every game, draw means win for the human player). Then, imagine the human player losing the match. I think a human player would prefer losing a match without any odds than a match with odds.

In addition, perhaps more subtle conditions need to be offered to even out the gap in strength between the human and the machine. Since an engine is so excellent at pushing a small advantage to a victory, draw odds may turn out to be too rigid. For example, if the engine does not have more than 1.0 pawns advantage after 30 moves, the game is drawn.

Edit:

Clarification. While a human player can theoretically win such a match, I think that the engine is more likely to win such a match, because the engine is much stronger. The engine in this case would have an excellent opening tree, would most likely not blunder a single time and would most likely identify and use every single blunder made by its human opponent.
> 0 votes

# Answer
I think the human will struggle to score just 1 point.

Engine elos are not even compariable human elos. I estimate the strongest engines are already over 1000 elo points stronger than humans like in go, and the engines in chess are much more refined. I think currently chess engines are a full rook stronger than the top humans.

Engines in go are not even refined as well as chess engines and they can beat pros with 4 stone handicap, which is basically a rook in chess.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: engines, draw, stockfish, houdini, computer-chess
---


# Question
Title: Explanation of my game. Can someone explain the "why" to me?
Ok, here's a game that I won. I was playing vs someone on chess.com, and playing as black. My PGN is as follows (with comments from the analysis engine):

```
[fen ""]
1. d4 e5 2. Nf3 {MISTAKE (-0.26) The best move was 2. dxe5}
(2. dxe5)
2... Nc6 {MISTAKE (+1.33) The best move was 2... e4}
(2... e4 3. Nfd2 Nf6 4. c4 c6 5. e3 d5 6. Be2 Be6 7. Nc3)
3. Nc3
3... Bb4 {INACCURACY (+0.98) A better move was 3... exd4}
(3... exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. g3 Bb4 6. Bg2 O-O 7. O-O d5 8. Nxc6)
4. dxe5 Nxe5 {MISTAKE (+3.60) The best move was 4... d5}
(4... d5)
5. Nxe5 Bd6 6. Nd3 Nf6 7. e3 b6 8. Qf3 Rb8 9. Qe4+ {BLUNDER (-4.53) From winning to losing. The best move was 9. Nb5}
(9. Nb5)
9... Nxe4 10. Nxe4 Qe7 11. Nxd6+ cxd6 12. f3 Qh4+ 13. Nf2 Qb4+ 14. c3 Qc5 15. Nd3 Qd5 16. e4 Qc4 {INACCURACY (-1.22) A better move was 16... Qe6}
(16... Qe6 17. Nf4)
17. Nf2 {INACCURACY (-2.60) A better move was 17. Nb4}
(17. Nb4 Qe6 18. Bf4 f5 19. Nd5 Qg6 20. exf5 Qxf5 21. O-O-O Bb7)
17... Qc6 {INACCURACY (-1.56) A better move was 17... Qe6}
(17... Qe6)
18. Nd3 {INACCURACY (-2.60) A better move was 18. Bf4}
(18. Bf4 b5 19. Rd1 Rb6 20. Bxd6 Qb7 21. Rd5 b4 22. Bd3 bxc3)
18... O-O 19. Nf4 {INACCURACY (-3.83) A better move was 19. Nb4}
(19. Nb4)
19... Re8 20. Bc4 {MISTAKE (-7.39) The best move was 20. Kf2}
(20. Kf2 f5)
20... d5 {BLUNDER (-2.20) The best move was 20... Qxc4}
(20... Qxc4)
21. Bxd5 Qc5 22. Bb3 d5 {MISTAKE (-0.87) The best move was 22... Bb7}
(22... Bb7 23. Nd3)
23. Bxd5 {MISTAKE (-3.69) The best move was 23. Nxd5}
(23. Nxd5 Be6 24. Be3 Qc6 25. O-O f5 26. Rad1 fxe4 27. fxe4 Rb7)
23... Bb7 24. Bd2 {INACCURACY (-6.92) A better move was 24. Bxb7}
(24. Bxb7)
24... Bxd5 25. Nxd5 Rbd8 {BLUNDER (-1.94) The best move was 25... Qxd5}
(25... Qxd5 26. Rd1 Qxa2 27. Bf4 Rbc8 28. Bc1 f5 29. O-O fxe4 30. f4)
26. O-O-O Rxd5 {INACCURACY (-1.14) A better move was 26... Qc4}
(26... Qc4 27. a3 f5 28. Ne3 Qa2 29. Nxf5 Rxd2 30. Kxd2 Qxb2+ 31. Ke3)
27. exd5 Qxd5 28. Be3 {INACCURACY (-2.55) A better move was 28. Rhe1}
(28. Rhe1)
28... Qxa2 29. Bf2 {MISTAKE (-6.58) The best move was 29. Rhe1}
(29. Rhe1 f6)
29... Re2 {BLUNDER (♔ MATE IN 2) From winning to losing. The best move was 29... Qa1+}
(29... Qa1+ 30. Kc2 Re2+ 31. Kd3 Qxb2 32. Bg3 Rxg2 33. Rhe1 Qc2+ 34. Kd4)
30. Rhe1 {BLUNDER (♚ MATE IN 1) From winning to losing. The best move was 30. Rd8+}
(30. Rd8+ Re8 31. Rxe8#)
30... Qa1#

```

And here are the "stats" from the game:

```
Strength    White   Black
Excellent   18  15
Good    1   5
Inaccuracy (?!) 5   4
Mistake (?) 4   3
Blunder (??)    2   3
Forced  0   0
Best Move   32.1%   26.7%
Avg. Diff   1.39    1.21

```

The analysis engine tells me what the mistake was, and what the best move was, but not really "why". I'm more interested in the mistakes and blunders at this point.

I'm really just trying to learn right now...any thoughts or advice are really appreciated.

# Answer
This is a game between beginners. Nothing wrong with that, but there is not much point at this level giving a very deep explanation as to the "why". Both players should pay more attention to

* **not blunder pieces in one move**
* **not miss mate in one move**

Concretely:

1. From move 1 to move 4 a pawn was hanging on e5. White could/should have taken it earlier and black should not have allowed that (not move it there in the first place and later prevent it from being lost by either moving it away playing e4 or by capturing exd4.
2. 4. ...Nxe5 is a big mistake as it just drops a piece. Always check and double check if your pieces are attacked.
3. 9. Qe4 just drops the queen. As above with every move you make, check whether your opponent can capture something (particularly if it is your strongest piece...)
4. 20. Bc4 is another big mistake as it drops the bishop. Black should have responded with 20...Qxc4 winning a full piece for nothing.
5. 22....d5 is a mistake because it drops a pawn.
6. 24 Bd2 is a big mistake as it drops another piece. Admittedly this is a bit more tricky to see. Basically the bishop on d5 is protected only once by the knight on f4, because the pawn on e4 is pinned to the king, so you cannot recapture e4xd5. Black could have played 24...Bxd5 25 Nxd5 Qxd5 winning a piece.
7. 29. Bf2 is a mistake because after 29...Qa1+ black will eventually win the pawn on b2 and the white king will be without protection in the middle of the board. For instance 29...Qa1+ 30. Kc2 Re2+ 31. Kd3 Qxb2 etc. A better move would have been 29. Rhe1 which prevents the black rook from entering with check via e2. Admittedly at your current level, this is not a big oversight unlike the other mistakes and I would not yet worry about it.
8. 29....Re2 is a terrible mistake because it would lose to back-rank mate after Rd8+. *Back rank mate* is an extremely common tactics and you have to be aware of it at all times. You need to have the typical position (=three pawns in front of castled king and opponent queen or rook) ingrained subconsciously in your chess brain.

---

So in summary:

Pay more attention to hanging pieces (both yours and your opponent's and learn some basic tactics.
> 5 votes

---
Tags: learning, strategy
---


title: Question about the move h5

text:
# Question
Title: Question about the move h5
I recently played a chess game whose link is: https://lichess.org/pCFw1h2w/black#5

After running a computer analysis, I found that in this position:

I know that even though Stockfish does not tell me so, up to the 9th move, I made several small inaccuracies among which the 6th move ( 6. ...Bg6) which I think was worse than 6. ...Bh7.

Now here is where my question arises.

On the 8th move I did not play 8. ...Ne7 yet because I thought that then White would play g5 and the great square f5 for my knight would be off-limits. So I played 8. ...Nd7 first without committing to anything yet. Now on the ninth move I would like to move my knight to e7 (with the idea I mentioned before). So what I played was 9. ...h5 in order to prevent g4 from White. However, Stockfish says h5 is not a good move. Why?

I an unable to understand why according to Stockfish I could directly play 9. ... Ne7 and White's expected answer 10. g4 is marked as a mistake, which I cannot explain. The line which is given for Black does not provide a good square for Black's knight on e7 (which remains stuck there) and yet Black has an advantage. Why?

# Answer
> 6 votes
f5 is a decent square for your knight, but it is not doing all that much from there either. Ok, it is attacking d4, but that pawn is overprotected by knight and queen, so nothing to worry about for white.

I am not a Caro-Kann player, but I believe a much more natural plan is trying to push c5 exchanging the d4 pawn after which the pawn on e5 gets weak.

Even if you get in Nf5 first, I don't see how you would proceed without playing c5 as black.

Regarding the move h5. Yes it does prevent g4 for the moment, but it also weakens the square g5, which can be occupied by white knight and bishop. For instance after h5 castling short is almost impossible for black, because after white Ng5, Qh7 mate is very difficult to prevent.

After Ne7, immediate g4 is not good, because

1. it weakens the white king
2. it only prevents Nf5 which is not all that dangerous anyway (see above)
3. if you want to prevent the black knight from occupying the square f5, you could just wait until black moves Nf5, then play g4 and you would gain a tempo, because the knight would have to retreat to e7.

# Answer
> 3 votes
h5 is a horrible move, weakens your dark squares and gives white control of g5 for no reason.

Not sure why you are afraid of bad moves. After ne7 g4 does absolutely nothing except weakens white's position severely.

Your knight shouldn't be on f5 in this position. After c5 white cannot recapture d4 with his c pawn so his e5 pawn will be under fire and the only way to protect that with a pawn is f4 which is not great due to him already weakening his king side position with h3.

As a general rule of thumb you shouldn't be making weakening pawn moves without a clear purpose. You especially shouldn't be making weakening pawn moves where you plan to castle your king.

---
Tags: analysis, computer-chess
---