# Question
Title: What is the easiest possible way to start teaching children how to play chess?
As a followup to What is the earliest possible age to start teaching children how to play chess?, I'm wondering: What is the easiest possible **way** to start teaching children how to play chess? The point is that at such an early age, it's possible, if not likely, that the best way to teach an adult would not apply to a young child. Any suggestions?

# Answer
The easiest way depends on age.

If they are really young, just start simple with how a plain board and introduce the pieces one by one (where they go on the board and how they move). Then put all the pieces on the board and show how the pieces move together.

If they are a little older, I would play show them short games with tactical ideas and mating patterns. No need to dwell too much on the opening yet or the endgame. Stick to the fundamentals first and make sure they have a firm grasp on that.

You probably will also find some tips on http://www.chesskid.com and http://www.chesskids.com
> 16 votes

# Answer
There are some fundamental differences between adults and children. Namely, the attention span to focus on a long game of chess might not be there. There are also some psychological differences: An adult (most likely) already knows what it means to win and lose, where children may not have grasped that concept yet. Adults also probably can grasp the concept of a turn-based game very easily, where young children might not as easily understand that.

So, yes, it will be quite different than teaching adults.

I don't profess to be an expert in child psychology, but I've been exposed to some rather interesting ideas via books. I recommend reading: Nurture Shock, Chess Child, and Chess is Child's Play.

If you like movies and chess, check out "Searching for Bobby Fischer" (PG), and "The Knights of South Bronx" (PG). Also, "Queen to Play" (unrated because it's French, but doesn't contain much controversial material that I can recall), is about a woman who gets into chess as an adult. Aside from being good movies, they might serve as inspiration or even as a way to get your spouse excited about chess and the kids.
> 13 votes

# Answer
Bill Kilpatrick and I wrote a book, which was recently published called, Chess Is Child's Play: Teaching Techniques That Work. This book teaches a parent to teach a child as young as four to play chess.

We made the lessons super simple, allowing the parent to learn the game along with their child, if the parent isn't familiar with chess.

We employ a “mini-game” strategy that is a lot of fun. With mini-games a parent and child can focus on one element at a time, learning and perfecting it before moving on. It has been my experience that younger and older children really enjoy playing these mini-games.

I have used these techniques to teach adults chess as well as young children. It really works well!

Here's the link to the book on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Childs-Play-Teaching-Techniques/dp/193627731X/ref=sr\_1\_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338048903&sr=8-1. Please do check out the reviews.
> 13 votes

# Answer
My 5 cents to Wes' answer.

I disagree about understanding of "turn-based game". From my experience it's easily possible. I agreed about duration of game. Long game will be broken! About win / lost, all children understand this, then tend to win of course and don't like to lost, tested :)! Children are small people. As adult they like playing.

I think *playing* of *playing chess* is a way to tеach and using chess to disclosure of intelligence of the child.
> 8 votes

# Answer
When coaching young kids, I have found that they love doing the simple checkmates (King and Queen v. King, etc.). They like beating the coach. There are some good books out there as well that are written at the kids level, but I even use some so called "adult" books that start at the beginning.
> 6 votes

# Answer
Start by playing with only pawns on the board. First person to the opposite side of the board wins the game. This was Magnus Carlsen's training method used by his father when he started to learn chess. It's much simpler for a child to understand this, and it's a highly effective method to learn about sacrifices, pawn structures and zugzwang.

My experience is that young children find it hard to grasp the movement of the knight. I would suggest to make a chess board out of a whiteboard or a similar material, as long as it's easy to draw and erase on it it's good enough. Challenge the child to find the shortest routes for the knight from A to B. Increase the difficulty when he/she has grasped n-ply solutions. To further increase difficulty you may add pawns as obstacles. Let the child draw possible solutions on the board.

This is just an idea, but I think it might be pretty effective for learning simple calculation and visualization.
> 6 votes

# Answer
My little brother learned chess with a video game called "Learn To Play Chess With Fritz and Chesster" (OT "Fritz und Fertig"). It teaches kids the basic moves of the pieces with mini-games, moving on to games with only some pieces, and finally with all of them. The sequels go more in-depth into basic, and then more advanced strategies. He went from not knowing anything about chess to beating everybody in the family at 10 years old after playing that series, so I would suggest at least giving the game a look to see how they teach and guide the players.
> 5 votes

# Answer
I suggest you get a spare set for the child to mess around with, let them see you playing a proper game, and wait for their questions.

I would expect that you just tell them rules (legal moves and aim of game) to start with.

There are a couple of books, Chess for Children and More Chess for Children that introduce simple strategies such as pinning and forking.

I think, overall, I'm saying "let the child dictate the pace".

\[This is my opinion, based on how I and my siblings were taught. None of us turned into prodigies, but we all picked up the basics easily and painlessly. If we had been given "Even More Chess for Children", we might have gone further with it.\]
> 3 votes

# Answer
I originally learned to play chess using a product called "No Stress Chess" http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Moves-1091-Stress-Chess/dp/B0007Q1IO4

This game has cards that the players can draw and then you are required to move that piece. This allows the player to focus on learning the moves and makes the strategy simpler as they are only concerned about what a single piece can do.

As the player increases in skill, they can hold multiple cards in their hand and then must pick one to play and then draw a new card. As the number of cards in the hand of the player increase they learn more about which piece they should move. Finally they are able to go and forget the cards and play chess for real.
> 3 votes

# Answer
As a kid's chess teacher I would say keep things fun.

1)**Talk in pictures**. Make them dream : chess is war, with a king, soldier, knights, fighting on a battlefield, call a fork a special secret weapon and so on.

2) **Use games**. For example when I wanna teach them the value of the pieces I play a market game where they would trade pieces and after 10 minutes we would see who's the richest.

3) **Compliment them a lot**. I like to go all like "wow you're a world champion" when they find something out. Carot works much better than the stick imo.

4) **Make them compete and earn prices**. Kids like rewards and competition for some of them. That way they'll do their hardest to get better and learn new chess tricks. Make sure though everyone is rewarded and congratulated.
> 2 votes

# Answer
For any beginner, the process will be a success if the instructor can relay the fundamental truth about chess: the game is, at it's core, numeric and is all about accumulation of small advantages. We all know what this small advantages consist of: material, piece activity, pawns, king safety, but that comes next. As the simplest pedagogical example of my main point, have the place place knight in the corner and count the squares it can reach. Then repeat when it's in the center. Let them reason (with your help) which N is stronger.
> 1 votes

# Answer
As others have suggested for younger children using chess minigames which focusses on only one or two pieces is a great way to engage them. I used this approach with both of my boys when they were around 5 years old. I found the book 'Chess is Child's Play: Teaching Techniques That Work' by Sherman and Kilpatrick to be excellent for teaching from age 4 up. Later I went on to run a school chess club for a few years for children aged 6-11 and found again that minigames were very popular with those children just getting to grips with chess.

The key is to make it fun. If it's not fun kids especially younger ones will lose interest very quickly.

Most software and online tools sadly don't support minigames which is why I decided to build my own and Acorn Chess was born.
> 1 votes

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Tags: learning, teaching, children
---


# Question
Title: Why does AlphaZero implement time steps in its input layers?
I'm trying to build my own chess engine using neural nets, and have been researching papers from Deepmind about their algorithm implemented in AlphaZero. Since chess is a game with perfect information (meaning the only unknown information in the game is what's going on in the opponent's head) and that each action resulting from a game state does not depend on the previous actions (except castling rules for example), why does AlphaZero have an 8-step temporal implementation in its input layer? In other words, its NN, aside from looking at the current game state, also looks at states from 8 previous moves in order to make a decision? AlphaZero's paper didn't have a say about this.

Also, the architecture that I'm trying to build is not a Reinforcement Learning model, but rather a supervised learning one based on the FICS game database of players with high ELO. Basically, I will train 2 separate models, one for white and one for black. Data for the white NN is taken from games where white wins, black NN takes black wins, drawn games are used for both, so that white moves in white winning games are considered "good", and vice versa. Is this a reasonable approach?

# Answer
> 1 votes
I don't know how to play Go at all, but the paper wrote:

> History features Xt, Yt are necessary, because Go is not fully observable solely from the current stones, as repetitions are forbidden

For chess, I'm unable find any mention about it in the paper other than:

> Unless otherwise specified, the training and search algorithm and parameters are identical to AlphaGo Zero (29).

The training process was identical, but the sentence made no mention about the input features.

If you study the papers more carefully, the input features for Go is:

```
st = [Xt, Yt, Xt−1, Yt−1,..., Xt−7, Yt−7, C]

```

It's a representation only for Go, not chess. The input features for chess outlined in the paper covers 50-move rules and repetitions already, so there isn't any need for time steps in the input layer.

Google didn't use timesteps for chess, but only for Go.

> Also, the architecture that I'm trying to build is not a Reinforcement Learning model, but rather a supervised learning one based on the FICS game database of players with high ELO. Basically, I will train 2 separate models, one for white and one for black. Data for the white NN is taken from games where white wins, black NN takes black wins, drawn games are used for both, so that white moves in white winning games are considered "good", and vice versa. Is this a reasonable approach?

Supervised learning is ok. It doesn't make sense to me for an ensemble of two models here. Why not just model it as a probability from 0 to 1?

**EDIT:**

You actually do need the entire game history in chess, for 50-moves and repetitions.

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Tags: engines, software, programming, alphazero
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# Question
Title: Has any other grandmaster gone as long undefeated like Capablanca?
Between 1916 and 1924, future World Champion J.R. Capablanca, as of 1921, experienced a period of eight years without a single tournament defeat. He was then regarded as one of the world's best defensive players, although he also drew more than other grandmasters of similar stature. Has any grandmaster or world champion since then had an equal or longer record of being undefeated?

# Answer
> 18 votes
From this Chess.com Discussion

> In terms of games played, it would be Tal with 95 games (46 wins, 49 draws) from October 23, 1973 to October 16, 1974. He also has the second longest streak of 84 games (47 wins, 39 draws) from July 1972 to April 1973. In terms of time, Capablanca was undefeated for 63 games (40 wins, 23 draws from February 10, 1916 to March 21, 1924.

# Answer
> 2 votes
To answer this question you would first have to explain what you mean by "long".

If you define "long" as over the number of games played, then the next question is "which games do you count?" It shouldn't be surprising that if a grandmaster plays in their local weekend circuit against much-weaker players, they are almost never going to lose. For the record to have value then, one needs to impose restrictions on the strengths of the opposition. If you argue that you count all FIDE-rated games, then Bogdan Lalic reached 155 games undefeated. Alternatively if you require master-level opposition, then the record holder is current world champion Magnus Carlsen, who was undefeated over 125 games (or 122 games if you follow Carlsen and do not count three games against opponents rated over 500 points lower).

Alternatively, if you define "long" as "years without a loss", then Carlsen is not anywhere close to the record since his streak lasted for only two years. In this case you could argue for Steinitz, who was undefeated for 9 years winning 25 consecutive games in the process. However, that streak was only 32 games. Or you could argue for Bobby Fischer, who was undefeated from 1975 to 1992, during which he played 0 games. But at that point, why stop with Fischer? You could probably pick a random person off the street and they would've been undefeated for years.

In short, you need to define carefully what the scope of the record you're considering is. As far as I'm aware, the longest unbeaten streak is usually attributed to Carlsen, but there will be people who consider otherwise.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Sergey Tiviakov in the latest number of New in Chess (2017/3):

> It is a well-known fact that I am the official world record holder, as I played 110 tournament games without a defeat in the period 2004-2005. That streak lasted for 11 months. In that period I played a lot against world top players like Aronian, Radjabov, Ivanchuk and Carlsen (just to name a few).

Chessbase has now published Tiviakov's 110 games in a row without a loss: Ding defeated! Tiviakov celebrates!

---
Tags: history, statistics, grandmaster, capablanca, famous-events
---


# Question
Title: Which open source chess engine has the most positional understanding?
Most open source chess engines with hand-tuned evaluations are known for their innovations on search (Fruit, Stockfish).

I was inspired by HIARCS' generally more human-like play and the fact that neural network based engines like Leela suggest that we have more work to do when it comes to evaluation functions.

The reason is that I'd like to apply the same evaluation functions in a chess engine that I'm working on.

Which open source engines are out there are known for its deep positional understanding? Unfortunately, engines known for their positional understanding such as Shredder, HIARCS, and Komodo are closed source.

# Answer
> 4 votes
A really strong and great positional open source engine I have used is Rodent. The last version was Rodent IV and is available at http://www.pkoziol.cal24.pl/rodent/rodent.htm

Of course Chess Programming wiki continues to be a good place to research and discover engines and the following link shows only open source engines.

https://www.chessprogramming.org/Category:Open\_Source

# Answer
> 1 votes
Stockfish 12 is objectively the best in the free engines that is publicly accessible. Estimated Elo ~ 3230. There is another engine mildly more powerful however I don't believe its available and the difference is negligible. Stockfish has good positional awareness, aggression etc can be tampered with for interesting outcomes.

I look at Komodo Dragon as a strong closed source engine and the Armageddon feature where it treats draws as a loss is extremely good especially for training purposes.

Reality of it is almost all engines out perform human players in positional awareness , tactical and strategic play. Its like comparing brands of paracetamol. All the same and any differences are so minute we'd never notice them.

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Tags: engines, positional-play, evaluation
---


# Question
Title: Benefits of studying annotated grandmaster games
I've started reading about the 1960 Tal vs Botvinnik match and I'm planning on studying many annotated games like these. I was curious about what benefits I can get out of doing this. I've already noticed that I've become more able to read the moves and keep the position in my head. This has strengthened my calculation, but are there any other benefits? Will I start playing more accurately and like the players whose games I study?

# Answer
Tal vs Botvinnik 1960 is very good as Tal is quite verbose in commentary and what he was thinking about during the game. In addition to the benefits you mentioned, the annotations help you understand what strong players think about in different positions and how they approach the game. Particularly useful is the strong player's positional understanding and ideas in the middlegame. If you happen to play the same openings as those in the annotated games, then you also may get some insights in typical motifs of the opening.
> 6 votes

# Answer
Playing over many GM games is excellent. You get used to seeing good moves which improves your intuition at playing.

Annotation is helpful but only when you have a real question about what was done.

In general things that happen and are explained are rare and not that useful. Far better to study tactics than obsess about annotations.

I would suggest you play over all GM games in a tournament book but especially those that use the opening you have decided to focus on. NOTE: you should select ONE opening for white and black and master that opening not spread yourself too thin trying to learn several openings.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Playing through annotated game collections can be very useful. However in this regard I very much agree with Dan Heisman who advocates strongly for what he calls Instructive Game Anthologies. He distinguishes this from game collection books by a top grandmaster and says that the author of an instructive anthology is trying to use the game to demonstrate and highlight key ideas in order to help instruct the reader. Whereas game collections are often not trying to provide instruction and may contain deep analysis of sidelines that are hard to follow unless you are a very strong player.

Dan has a great list on his website where he puts in order a set of instructive game anthologies: https://www.danheisman.com/recommended-book-lists.html
> 1 votes

---
Tags: grandmaster, master-games, study, annotation
---


# Question
Title: What should a player do when their opponent asks to see your notation sheet during a game?
During an over the board tournament, an opponent frequently asked to see my scoresheet, stating that they had missed moves or otherwise messed up theirs. (They asked 5 or 6 times in a game with a time control of game in 25 minutes.) Trying to keep things friendly, I let them see my sheet. The first couple times I did not mind, but when it continued happening I found it annoying and distracting.

Thus the question: Am I obligated to let an opponent see my game record so they can make corrections to theirs?

Also, if I do show it to them, whose clock should be running as they make corrections?

# Answer
> 9 votes
> Am I obligated to let an opponent see my game record so they can make corrections to theirs?

According to USCF rule 15D3, it's suggested that you do so, but it's not mandatory unless the tournament director tells you to:

> The opponent is urged to comply with such a request, but this is not mandatory. If the opponent denies the request, the player may stop both clocks and see a director. A director who agrees that the request is appropriate shall instruct the opponent to lend the player the scoresheet. The opponent may not refuse as all scoresheets belong to the organizers.

The TD will probably allow it, unless there's some reason not to. Excessive requests may be denied and may even be penalized, according to rule 15D4.

> Also, if I do show it to them, whose clock should be running as they make corrections?

According to USCF rule 15D2:

> The clock of the player making such a request is running and shall continue to run until the scoresheet has been returned.

Under FIDE rules, the time control in question would be a Rapid game. According to FIDE rule A.3.2, which applies to rapid games:

> The player may at any time, when it is his move, ask the arbiter or his assistant to show him the scoresheet. This may be requested a maximum of five times in a game. More requests shall be considered as a distraction of the opponent.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Anyone initiating communication with their opponent should do so on their own time. Initiating communication with an opponent on the opponent's time (barring common sense exceptions, such as to warn them that they didn't hit their clock) warrants a warning, and repeated instances a game loss.

If your opponent is using their time to correct their sheet, that's generally a good thing for you, but if it really annoys you more than the time advantage is worth, you can refuse.

# Answer
> 2 votes
This answer is about the FIDE Laws of Chess effective from 1 January 2018.

There does not seem to be any explicit provision for a player updating their scoresheet using their opponent’s scoresheet, except where exactly one player has stopped recording moves due to low time (Article 8.5.2):

> If only one player has not kept score under Article 8.4, he must, as soon as either flag has fallen, update his scoresheet completely before moving a piece on the chessboard. Provided it is that player’s move, he may use his opponent’s scoresheet, but must return it before making a move.

Note that:

1. The player updating their scoresheet must have the move, so their clock should be running (assuming their opponent remembered to press it!).
2. This would not apply to a 25 minute game (see below).

I would expect that requests to see the opponent’s scoresheet, or at least excessive requests, would be considered distracting. This is supported by the “rapid chess” rules, which would apply to a 25 minute game. See Article A.3.2:

> The player may at any time, when it is his move, ask the arbiter or his assistant to show him the scoresheet. This may be requested a maximum of five times in a game. More requests shall be considered as a distraction of the opponent.

If asking the arbiter or their assistant six times in a game is distracting, then asking the opponent six times is definitely distracting.

You are definitely not obligated to let your opponent see your scoresheet if you don’t have one. In “rapid chess”, players do not have to maintain a scoresheet (Article A.2):

> Players do not need to record the moves, but do not lose their rights to claims normally based on a scoresheet.

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Tags: rules, tournament, scoresheet
---


title: Stockfish vs Leela zero

text:
# Question
Title: Stockfish vs Leela zero
In the TCEC Cup 7 , Stockfish and Leela Zero played the below position;

Is this a win for White or is Black able to defend this position? Black to Play

```
[Event "TCEC Cup 7"]
[White "Stockfish 11?"]
[Black "Leela Zero"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "8/5pk1/6p1/R5Np/7P/6PK/5r2/8 b - - 0 1"]

```

# Answer
The position appears to be a win for White. To win the position White needs to bring their king. So the first step of a the winning plan is to put the white rook to f4. The position after a rook trade is easily winning for White, so Black's response would have to be to defend f7 from the 7th rank. For instance: 1.Ra4 Re2 2.Rf4 Re7

Now White can bring their king: 3.Kg2 Ra7 4.Kf3 Ra3+ 5.Kf2 (not 5.Ke4 and 5...f6! draws) Ra2+ 6.Ke3 Ra3+ 7.Kd4 Ra4+ (7...f6 now allows 8.Ne4) 8.Kc5 Ra7 9.Kb6 Re7 10.Kc6 Ra7.

At this point White once again switches around the rook, blocking the black rook from the 7th rank: 11.Rb4 Ra2 12.Rb7 Rf2

With the way cleared White now tries to put their king to e8, finally breaking down the defense of f7. 13.Kd7 Kf8 14.Rb8+ Kg7 15. Rb4 Kf8 16. Rf4 Rd2+ 17. Kc6 Rc2+ 18. Kd6 Rd2+ 19. Ke5 Rd7 20. Nxf7 Rxf7 21. Ke6!

This is just an example line, Black can defend quite a bit longer however White will always break through eventually.

I'm quite new here, would be happy if someone can help out with putting up such a board for replaying. :)
> 2 votes

# Answer
Without running any analysis. I can't see any moves that are deemed "Strong" for black.

I ran a quick computer analysis through three engines and in each instance white is winning in the starting position;

**Results - Starting Position**
~Stockfish 12 : +2.32
~Leela Zero : +2.31
~Komodo Dragon : +2.44

The below is the best result for black is the below; which both Stockfish and Komodo Dragon as the best outcome for black in 5 lines.

```
[White "Stockfish"]
[Black "Leela Zero"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "8/5pk1/6p1/R5Np/7P/6P1/5r1K/8 w - - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "28"]

1. Kh3 Kf8 2. Ra7 Kg8 3. Rc7 Kf8 4. Rc8+ Kg7 5. Rc7 Kf8 6. Rb7 Kg7 7. Rd7 Kf8 8. Rd8+ Kg7 9. Rc8 Re2 10. Rc7 Rf2 11. Rb7 Kf8 12. Rd7 Kg7 13. Ne6+ Kf6 14. Nd8 Kg7 *

```

**Results Finsihing Position**
~Stockfish 12 : +2.63
~Leela Zero : +2.64
~Komodo Dragon : +2.66

**Note:** *I just interpreted whites first move to make things easier my side for analysis etc. Does not change the described position.*
> 0 votes

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


# Question
Title: Alternatives to the paid analysis on chess.com
On chess.com we get only one full depth analysis in a day, which is very little. Is there a way to analyze more chess games and get all the accuracy metrics as well? Are there any other website which can help me do this analysis? This is because I want to analyze my games and learn from my mistakes.

# Answer
> 4 votes
If you have a lichess.org account you can analyze both games you played yourself there or games you imported. I think currently the limit is 25 of your games played in the site and (not 100% sure) half of that for games you did not play on the site, so either games from other players or ones that you imported.

Not sure exactly which stats you want however it gives you the number of blunders, mistakes and inaccuracies, as well as your average centi pawn loss which is a rough measure of how good your play was on average. Then you can for example use the "Learn from my mistakes" feature to see the positions where you made a mistake, and try to find a better move. Or you can simply look at the computer line in that position.

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Tags: beginner, websites
---


# Question
Title: What is the point of delaying the exchange in the Rossolimo?
```
 [fen ""]

 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. O-O (4. Bxc6) Bg7 5. Re1

```

Is there any point in maintaining the tension? Does it force any adjustments from Black? Is the timing irrelevant or is White really waiting for something?

# Answer
> 8 votes
The underlying reasons for delaying BxN are -

1. Preserving options
2. Saving tempi

Suppose in the final position black plays a6 forcing white to make a decision. Bf1 is a perfectly good alternative to BxN. It is one which will lead to an entirely different game, one which white may prefer.

In any case it makes some sense to wait for black to commit with a6 because then BxN comes without the loss of a move that playing it unprovoked would involve and it has provoked a weakening of the b6 square.

Again looking at the final position above, an immediate BxN leaves black with a choice of recaptures, either bxc6 or dxc6. White may not like the position after dxc6, in which case it makes sense to wait until black plays d6 first before exchanging. Alternatively white might not like the possibility of BxN bxc6 followed by d7-d5. Again if white waits for d6 then a tempo has been saved.

Keeping options open and saving time are features of the way stronger players play. Prematurely closing down options and squandering tempi are what weaker players do.

# Answer
> 6 votes
A trade of c6 will not happen in all variations, so White keeps his options open (as the saying goes, to take is a mistake!) but even if that were the case there's no need to trade immediately if White considers that all of Black's moves that prevent the trade are bad.

There is no reason to assume that capturing immediately should be the default. We should looking for reasons to do it, rather than for reasons not to do it and exchange if we find none.

# Answer
> 5 votes
Both moves have their advantages and disadvantages. In the system you gave with 3...g6, 4.0-0 doesn't commit to capturing on c6. White may do this anyway at some point, but he also has other plans. For example, one line runs 4...Bg7 5.Re1 Nf6 6.e5 Nd5 7.Nc3 Nc7 8.Bxc6 dxc6 9.Ne4. So in this particular example, White does end up capturing on c6, but the position has clearly changed a fair bit since the 3rd move.

Meanwhile, the upside of 4.Bxc6 is that it makes it (arguably) slightly poorer than usual for Black to recapture on c6 with the d-pawn. Overall in OTB play, 4...dxc6 is still played about 1.77 times more often than 4...bxc6, and in correspondence the ratio is around 1.84. Nevertheless, the idea is that ...dxc6 enables White to castle queenside (one key reason is that the b-file remains closed). And White can take advantage of this thanks to his king still being on e1. One line goes 4...dxc6 5.d3 Bg7 6.h3 Nf6 7.Nc3 0-0 8.Be3 b6 9.Qd2 e5 10.Bh6 Qd6 11.0-0-0, with interesting play.

So if White wants to immediately capture on c6 (either on the 4th or 5th move), then it makes sense to go for 4.Bxc6. Even if he's not planning to castle queenside in the event of 4...dxc6, the bluff could persuade some players to play 4...bxc6. Meanwhile, if White intends on leaving the tension between the b5-bishop and c6-knight for a while, 4.0-0 is clearly the way to go.

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Tags: sicilian-defense
---


# Question
Title: Using a check-preventing piece to protect the checkmating piece
Let's say that a piece is protecting my king from check, i.e. blocked or pinned. For example, my rook is in the way of my opponent's queen in checking my king. Can I checkmate their king with another piece, let's say my queen, if my check-preventing rook protects my queen, even though I could technically not move that rook?

# Answer
> 5 votes
Yes- if they captured your queen, then it would count as them going into check:

(from this, ironically listed as a "Related" question here)

> Besides making sense, it's also explicitly stated in the rules of the game:
>
> 3.9 The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained from moving to that square because they would then leave or place their own king in check. No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.
>
> Source: Laws of Chess on the FIDE site

---
Tags: rules, checkmate, check, kings
---


# Question
Title: Shogi without Japanese characters (kanji)
On Wikipedia all the rules of Shogi are described, but as a reference I find that the Japanese characters (kanji) get in the way and the explanation is otherwise very wordy and unconcise. Is there an online resource that describes Shogi where kanji are not used or are only given as supplemental (instead of essential) information, or can someone give such a description as an answer?

Ideally the description would be as concise as possible and have diagrams where appropriate (board setup, piece movement).

# Answer
> 3 votes
There was an old chessbase article that presents the shogi board with western chess style pieces.

It links to this **introduction to shogi for chess players**, which might be exactly what you are looking for.

But I would also second what Tony Ennis is commenting: You'll very quickly get used to the Kanji, it probably makes sense just to accept the slightly steeper learning curve the first two, three days.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I think a turn-based multi boardgame site called brainking supplies information which is close to what you want. http://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=69

# Answer
> 0 votes
The international piece sets are also supported on the lishogi and pychess sites, which are based of the lila code.

Other piece sets can be designed by using userstyles.

---
Tags: shogi
---


# Question
Title: Are there starting positions in dobutsu shogi that are farther from a win/loss than the standard one?
In dobutsu shogi, the usual starting position is a loss for the beginning player in (at most) 78 turns (from first move until (and including) lion capture or ascension).

But are there perhaps other (starting) positions that are farther from win/loss than the standard one? I would be most interested in positions with all (starting position) or most of the pieces on the board and on the back rank.

# Answer
The following starting position is a win in 123 (according to the software I am using):

```
1. setup S/cel/---/---/CGL/eG
1. show board
  ABC
 +---+
1|cel| e
2|   |
3|   |
4|CGL| *G
 +---+
1. show lines
Gb4-b3 : #123  (100.00%)
G  *c3 : 0     ( 0.00%)
G  *b3 : 0     ( 0.00%)
G  *a3 : 0     ( 0.00%)
Ca4-a3 : #-102 ( 0.00%)
Lc4-c3 : #-44  ( 0.00%)
Lc4-b3 : #-44  ( 0.00%)
G  *b2 : #-20  ( 0.00%)
G  *c2 : #-16  ( 0.00%)
G  *a2 : #-16  ( 0.00%)

```
> 2 votes

# Answer
The standard dobutsu position gives a win for the second player. It is a well known concept of zugzwang that emerges out of forced lines.

Running Fairy Stockfish (on the pychess variants site analysis section) in the normal dobutsu backrank configuration gives a -9.8 evaluation after running it on a bigger depth.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: chess-variants, shogi
---


# Question
Title: On how to learn Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) or Shogi (Japanese Chess)
I learned international chess using the tutorials in Ubisoft's Chessmaster, alongside doing tactical and strategical exercises from books, studying master games, and from playing.

I want to learn how to play Xiangqi or Shogi. What resources would you recommend? I am particularly interested in software like Ubisoft's Chessmaster, i.e. interactive tutorials with the ability to play against a range of computer players at different levels.

P.S. I'm based in the UK, where there aren't any relevant clubs nearby, and English language resources are a must

# Answer
> 4 votes
I learned shogi from this book. http://www.amazon.com/Shogi-Beginners-John-Fairbairn/dp/4871872017/ref=sr\_1\_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446638715&sr=1-1&keywords=shogi+for+beginners

snippet: http://www.bromsgrove-abstract-games.org.uk/shogi.pdf

I bought a shogi set from The Shogi Association (A UK group). The fellow running it at the time (George Hodges) has since passed, I believe.

I also was fortunate to have a friend in Japan. He brought me back a Japanese language puzzle book. I don't recall the exact name, but they are mate-in-x puzzles where one must use all the pieces in hand. Maybe they are called tsume puzzles? I saw the name referenced on that Amazon link.

It's a great game!

# Answer
> 6 votes
I learned Shogi from these videos. It goes from absolute beginner to analysis of grand-master games.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Try below Ebook, all free for download. http://xiangqielephantgame.blogspot.my/p/download-free-ebook.html?m=1

# Answer
> 0 votes
There aren't any english resources for learning xiangqi other than the webpage mentioned above. There is a Malaysian titled player who produced xiangqi content in English. The link for his video resources on xiangqi can be found here: Link

There are a few xiangqi players on the pychess.org site's discord who are willing to help out in xiangqi studies and openings. But overall the game is less popular outside China.

---
Tags: learning, chess-variants, xiangqi, shogi
---


# Question
Title: Does practising Lichess coordinates help with reading chess books chess games faster?
Some strong players are able to read entire chess games from a book, as they are very familiar with the notation of the chessboard and theory.

For amateur online players, this can be a difficult task and one of the factors that can stop improvement in understanding deeper positional ideas which are explained in this chess notation heavy chess books.

Does practicing coordinates help improve reading? The top scores of titled players are 85 squares in 30 seconds, whereas I average 45 squares in 30 seconds.

# Answer
I did the test and got 50 squares in 30 seconds. Part of the reason was that it takes some time to move the mouse, but it seems you're quite close to me in speed. I'm also a titled player that can read games from books, so I don't think this is where your problem is.

I'd suggest practicing blindfold chess. Just try playing it a bunch of times with someone, and over time you should get better at it. This helps with reading games from just the notation, since it's the same type of skill being applied.

You mentioned strong players are familiar with theory. This is true, and it includes knowledge like typical opening moves and pawn structures. If the game you are going through (without a board) reaches a position with a structure you're familiar with, or features sequences of moves you've seen many times before, then it's easier to keep track of. If you asked a strong player to read through a game where the 32 pieces start in completely random squares on the board, they would have a harder time since nothing will be familiar.

So to improve your knowledge of theory, the answer here is to just study books on openings, middlegames, etc. Obviously the main purpose of this would be to improve your chess as a whole, and the increased abilities to read games will come as a byproduct.
> 6 votes

---
Tags: notation, lichess
---


# Question
Title: Did Maria Teresa Mora Iturralde beat Capablanca 2.5-0.5?
(Possibly better suited on the Skeptics SE, but the claim is completely related to chess)

> In 1922, she exceeded all expectations. Maria Theresa became the only woman to ever to have competed with men in the Cuban championship and won. After that, the only World competitions she entered were women only — first in Buenos Aires 1939 (coming in 7th), and in Moscow 1950 (winning 4 and drawing 4). She entered the Cuban Women’s Chess Championship which she dominated as winner from 1938 to 1960, when she retired. In 1950, Maria Theresa was named the first Latin American woman to be given the Women’s International Master title. **When Capablanca and Maria Theresa finally competed against each other, it was a three game series. She won twice and had a draw for the third game.** Nobody could have imagined the pupil would beat the teacher. In typical early 1900's fashion, she was remembered to have said “¡Ay qué pena, le he ganado!” (“oh how embarrassing, I’ve won”).

Source

Considering that Maria Teresa finished well behind Vera Menchik in Buenos Aires 1939, and that Vera Menchik's record against Capablanca is 0-9, I find it hard to believe that Maria Teresa actually did beat Capablanca 2.5-0.5. There certainly is no record of these games in the Chessgames database.

Still, it's possible that the Chessgames database is incomplete, so I would like to confirm if the claim is indeed true (or untrue).

**Edit**: if the claim is true, I would very much like to see the moves in the games.

**Edit #2:** it seems the author of the source cannot verify the claim either, and has added a disclaimer to the bottom of the article.

# Answer
I have looked at sources in Spanish (mainly Cuban) and most of them purport the same story (similar to that presented in the question) copied and pasted. However, a couple of sources present a somewhat different story.

An article in the journal *Tribuna de La Habana* says (my translation):

> With humility and pride she always kept in her memory the two victories and one draw she obtained against her virtuous teacher, José Raúl Capablanca. They say that, when asked about it, with shiny eyes she accepted to acknowledge those meritorious results, although she then explained to the inquirers that they had been possible during simultaneous games.

Another article, in the cultural magazine *La Jiribilla*, mentions the story of the comment "Such a pity, I won!" But according to it, this didn't occur after wining Capablanca, but during a team tournament in 1960. I translated the relevant part of the article. The story was told by GM Silvino García:

> "I remember the First National Championship between State Organisms —Silvino said,— a team tournament that was played in 1960, when I was making my first steps.
>
> "María Teresa defended the first board of the Ministry of Education, where she worked, and had in front of her one of the strongest chess players in the country at the moment.
>
> "She played a brilliant game, till she obtained the victory.
>
> "Her opponent blushed, a bit because of tension, a bit for having lost against a woman. In accordance to the tradition, he congratulated her and then María Teresa, with that simplicity of hers, said to him in a low voice: Oh, such a pity, how I won you!"

**EDIT**

One of the games was won by María Teresa during an exhibition given by Capablanca against 28 players at the Institute of secondary Education of La Habana on May 3rd 1941.

```
[FEN ""]
[Event "Simultánea Havana, Cuba"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1941.05.03"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Capablanca, Jose Raul"]
[Black "Mora, María Teresa"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C25"]
[PlyCount "88"]
[WhiteElo ""]
[BlackElo ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 exf4 4. Nf3 d6 5. d4 g5 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. O-O Bg7 8. d5
Ne5 9. Bxd7+ Nxd7 10. Nd4 Ne7 11. g3 Ng6 12. Nf5 Be5 13. Qh5 Nc5 14. Bd2 Qf6 15.
Rae1 O-O-O 16. Nh6 Kb8 17. h4 gxh4 18. gxf4 Bd4+ 19. Kh2 Rde8 20. f5 Qe5+ 21.
Kh1 Qg3 22. Rf3 Nf4 23. Qg4 Qxg4 24. Nxg4 Nh5 25. Kg2 Ng3 26. Rf4 Rhg8 27. Kh3
Bxc3 28. Bxc3 Rxe4 29. Rexe4 Ngxe4 30. Kxh4 Nxc3 31. bxc3 Kc8 32. Kh5 Kd8 33. c4
Nd7 34. Nh6 Rg7 35. Rf3 Ke7 36. a4 Nf6+ 37. Kh4 Rg2 38. a5 Rh2+ 39. Kg5 Rh5+ 40.
Kf4 Rxh6 41. Re3+ Kf8 42. Kg5 Kg7 43. Re7 Rh5+ 44. Kf4 Rh4+ 0-1

```
> 4 votes

# Answer
I have found a source in Spanish that is like the cuban enciclopedia and tells that those games were played in simultaneous games. https://www.ecured.cu/Mar%C3%ADa\_Teresa\_Mora\_Iturralde
> 3 votes

# Answer
The databases are going to be entirely incomplete. She became the Cuban Champion early in the early 20's but there isn't a single game recorded anywhere.

The only documented game I can find of her is against Capablanca. This isn't overly surprising as she was privately tutored by him. So there is absolutely no doubt that they were known to each other or that they played games against each other. A remarkably dull game to be honest.

```
[Event "Capablanca Simul"]
[Site "Buenos Aires"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Capablanca"]
[Black "Iturralde"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C62"]
[PlyCount "61"]
[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 d6 4. Bxc6+ bxc6 5. d4 Bg4 6. dxe5 dxe5 7. Qxd8+ Rxd8 8. Nfd2 Nf6 9. f3 Be6 10. b3 Bc5 11. Bb2 Nd7 12. Nc3 O-O 13. Nd1 f5 14. Ke2 Rf6 15. Ne3 f4 16. Nec4 Rg6 17. Kf1 Rh6 18. h4 Rh5 19. Ke2 Bf7 20. Na5 Rh6 21. Ndc4 Re8 22. Rad1 Bxc4+ 23. Nxc4 Bd6 24. Ba3 c5 25. Rd2 Rg6 26. Kf2 h5 27. Rhd1 Ree6 28. Na5 Kh7 29. c4 Rg3 30. Nb7 Reg6 31. Kf1  1-0

```

Regarding the following paragraph;

> Considering that Maria Teresa finished well behind Vera Menchik in Buenos Aires 1939, and that Vera Menchik's record against Capablanca is 0-9, I find it hard to believe that Maria Teresa actually did beat Capablanca 2.5-0.5.

I think that assessment is more than reasonable and probably accurate. I find it extremely unlikely however if she was taught by Capablanca she would be familiar with his play style which would provide some competitive edge.

The Queens Gambit is a fantastic show; however it has drummed up a mountain of hack journalism I have seen articles that the show is based on Judit Polgárs life...instead of the book that came out in 1983 when she would have been 5 or 6? More likely the article is just capitalising on this wave and she is probably the most notable female chess player from Cuba *(going to get in trouble for that comment)*. Strongly suggest re-reading the article through an objective lens. There is little fact or evidence to support any claims and seems to pushing an agenda.
> 2 votes

# Answer
I see that some participants have posted here two of the games played vs Capablanca in simultaneous. I found other of her games in chesgames.com but against other people, these were official games, some of them at World Women championships. https://www.chessgames.com/player/maria\_teresa\_mora\_iturralde.html
> 0 votes

---
Tags: history, capablanca, women
---


# Question
Title: What are the most characteristic signatures if an opponent cheats in online game by using an engine?
Sometimes I feel that a human, particularly a human of about my elo rating, would not ever play so.

I never used an engine in my life for cheating, but I think it is not so hard.

I think, most of the cheaters does not automatize "well". Thus, he has no way to step with the engine on the spot, instead if he switches to it, he needs to duplicate the state. This gets some time - maybe a minute - for him. After that, he starts to play astonishingly well.

If I experience this pattern, I report it, but there is a bitter feeling. Obviously reporting someone beause I lost is no good. I think I should do this only if I am sure, but I can never be sure.

There are rumors that chess.com has some very sophisticated technology to detect engine cheaters, but I doubt that they could really do it. I believe that they do their maximum (like utilizing some AI to measure the "human-ness" of the steps of the players), but I think anything what they could do, can be easily gamed (like using the engine only for some, critical steps of the party).

Do maybe some other patterns exist, which could raise the doubt?

# Answer
There are a range of factors sites use;

Such as play style, move depth , skill level vs move skill level. Engines are emotionless and are willing to just commit.

Things such as ;

* Move depth not comparable to skill level
* Move Time being consistent eg 5 seconds per move (hard to demonstrate her)
* Consistent string of flawless games

**Move depth not comparable to skill level**

I have the following of a game played recently in an club vs club tournament on Lichess. This juniors game was detected as having cheating in it. Whilst it was being played people were suspicious by the two particular moves highlight below.

This highlighted moves are something you would expect to see of players rated 2000+ and isn't a natural move to find especially for juniors. The human brain sees the rook move and discards it almost immediately as a Rook trading for a Bishop. I have reviewed the games since and found that the move list was 1 for 1 the entire time for black against StockFish 10

```
[White "White "]
[Black "The Suspect"]
[Event "Hyper Aggressive Sacrifices (Blitz 3|2)"]
[FEN "2krr3/ppp2ppp/2n3b1/4n3/2P3P1/P3PN1P/1P1NB3/2KR1R2 b - - 0 18"]
[StartFlipped "0"]

1... Rd3! 2. Bxd3 Nxd3+ 3. Kc2 Nf2+ 4. Kc1 Nxd1 5. Kxd1

```

Another Example from the same game;

```
[White "White"]
[Black "The Suspect"]
[Result "0-1"]
[FEN "2kr4/ppp2ppp/6b1/8/2P1P1P1/P3rB1P/1PKN1n2/3R4 w - - 0 24"]

1. Rf1 Rxf3! 2. Nxf3 Bxe4+ 3. Kc3 Rd3+ 3. Kb4 Rxf3 3. Re1 Nd3+ 0-1

```
> 4 votes

---
Tags: engines, online-chess, cheating
---


title: Calculation skills beyond 2000 Elo

text:
# Question
Title: Calculation skills beyond 2000 Elo
```
[Title "Black to move and win - rated 2179"]
[FEN "2r2r1k/1pq3bp/p3p1p1/P4n2/1P1P4/2P1P2P/3BB1Q1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1"]

```

I've been trying to work on my chess a bit more seriously since about mid-March (I devote about 1 to 1.5h per day to training and frequently play rapid games which I analyze afterwards). I have no problem accumulating skill and knowledge in areas like positional play, endgames, or openings, but my tactical ability seems to stagnate. I know, I should be patient, but I think I've noticed some disorderly thinking patterns in my calculation that I would like to rectify. Let me illustrate this with an example. I have attached a chess puzzle I tried to solve this morning. It is rated at 2179. Although I have solved puzzles rated higher than this, I usually hover between 2050 and 2100 for the standard tactics. In the position above, it is black to move. The solution goes as follows.

```
[FEN "2r2r1k/1pq3bp/p3p1p1/P4n2/1P1P4/2P1P2P/3BB1Q1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1"]

1... Nh4 2. Qh2 (2.Qg4 Rf2!! 3. Kxf2 Qh2+ 4. Kf1 Rf8 {with mate to follow}) Qxh2+ 3. Kxh2 Rf2+ 4.Kh1 (4.Kg1 Rg2+ 5. Kh1 Rf8 6. null Rff2) Rcf8 5. e4 R8f3! 6. Bxf3 Nxf3 7. Bf4 Nxe1 8. Rxe1 Rxf4 -+

```

The first issue that I notice with my thinking is that I am too slow. I know that many chess trainers recommend that you should calculate more slowly to produce useful variations and not miss important nuances, but that doesn't seem to help me in thinking more productively. I will try to explain my thought process to show you what I mean. In the beginning, my main candidate moves were 1. ... Nh4 and 1. ... Bh6 (I also very briefly looked at taking on d4, but quickly disregarded it for obvious reasons). My first look at 1. ... Nh4 went as follows: I saw 1. ... Nh4 2.Qh2 and thought: ok, probably white is fine here. Then I went back to 1. ... Bh6. I liked this move because it played against the weakness e3 and emphasized white's dark-squared weaknesses. The threat is, of course, Nxe3. Next, I thought white has to protect e3 somehow, with 2.Bd3 or 2.Bh3. However, I now saw that 2. ... Nh4 would be crushing. It took me quite a while (too long in my opinion) to realize that white can simply play 1. ... Bh6 2.Qh2 and defuse the situation. Back at the original position, it now seems logical to look again at the other candidate move, 1. ... Nh4. However, calculating variations isn't like writing an essay, and the structure that I attempt to create here by verbalizing my thoughts is not necessarily present when I look at the position. So, instead, I explored a bunch of useless ideas that I cannot recall. In the end, I returned to 1. ... Nh4. The first useful thing I saw was 1. ... Nh4 2.Qh2 Qxh2+ 3.Kxh2 Rf2+ and now 4.Kg3 doesn't work (although, again, I made an error in my calculation). Black has to play Rcf8! now. I only considered 4. ... Rg2+?? and only thought 5. Kh4?? Bf6#, but white can simply escape with 5. Kf4 via e4 and d3. Nevertheless, upon seeing this line, I considered 1. ... Nh4 more seriously. Another calculation error I made was 1. ... Nh4 2.Qg4 and now I missed the brilliant 2. ... Rf2!! and instead thought 2. ... Bf6?? followed by 3. ... h5 would seal the deal. White can, however, simply respond with 3.Rf1 h5 4.Qf4. Anyways, so I played 1. ... Nh4 after 12 minutes of thought, thinking I would get at least a very good position on the second row the possibility to play Rf2 Rcf8 Rg2 Rff2. One variation I thought about, for instance, was 1. ... Nh4 2.Qh2 Qxh2+ 3.Kxh2 Rf2+ 4.Kh1 (4.Kg1 is obviously bad) Rcf8 and now my threat is to go Rg2 and Rff2. After 4. ... Rcf8 5.e4 I simply played 5. ... Rg2 without thinking and failed the problem, missing 5. ... R8f3!.

Here is a quick summary of my thoughts:

* It took me 12 minutes to solve the problem, but I failed at the fifth move because I moved too quickly
* I calculated too slowly. I did not see 1. ... Bh6 2.Qh2! fast enough.
* I did not see the actual point of 1. ... Nh4, which is 2.Qg4 Rf2!!

No doubt, would have someone pointed out at various crossroads that I should consider this or that move, I would have found the right continuation. I specifically chose this puzzle because it exemplifies what is wrong with my tactical thinking. I'm very good in much more forced positions with fewer branching options and can calculate a win within a matter of seconds. So, in my opinion, my main issues are as follows:

* I do not think productively enough. That is, I do not produce sensible options at a fast pace and instead linger too much with suboptimal alternatives
* I lack imagination. Sometimes I just don't see the idea until it is shown to me (or I have been thinking for a very long time, like 20 minutes).

So, having read this extensively long post, what do you think I can do to improve my tactical thinking?

# Answer
As somebody, who's tactical ability is hopefully still above 2000, let me contrast your description with my own thought process:

I only considered 1...Nh4. 2.Qg4 Rf2 I saw basically instantly. 2.Qh2 Qxh2 3.Kxf2 Rf2 and I thought white is in trouble. Mostly because of the clumsy bishops that don't allow him to untangle quickly and challenge the second rank rook. 4.Kg3 Rg2 and white can't take the knight. This was necessary to see because losing a piece is no good. 5.Kf4 Rf8 and Rff2 seems very good for black.

This all happened quite quickly (\<1min) and I think I would have found it in a Blitz game and played it with roughly the same calculation. Of course it was sloppy (I didn't see the e4-Be3-idea) and in a real game or during training I would have tried to push all variations further.

I see several differences between your thought process and mine:

* My assessment of the rook coming to the cluttered second rank likely meaning trouble for white was more accurate.
* I calculated each variation only to the point were it seemed clearly good for me and not to a win. Partly that's lazy, but partly it allows me to close lines of investigation quickly and to not get confused. It's always possible to go back and find even better moves once you've solved the lines where white initially seemed to be better or completely ok.
* The idea Rf2 is part of my tactical arsenal.

As to how you get there and beyond:

* I would recommend the Aagaard books like Attacking Manual, Calculation, Positional Play etc.
* But apart from these I would also do purely tactical training, where you get one of those little tactics books with a couple of hundred combinations and then you go through it several times until you remember each solution instantly. Then on to the next one. This is the "Woodpecker method", it's not hard to do and it leads to you to actually just "knowing" a lot of tactical ideas.
* I also think that playing blindfold games would teach you to get more practical in your approach.
> 8 votes

# Answer
c rook is blacks worst piece. Bh6 does little to activate c rook whereas moving the knight immediately starts f rook and once that moves the c rook comes too. And I was surprised to see in solution how quickly it does activate, amazing. Also Bh6 seems dodgy as may be tactical checks onto the now open black king diagonal king and black does have weak pawn. Nh4 just seems to go at whites horrid king side and I think you should play the move reasonably quickly as then opponent cannot cover all bases thinking on your time. Then you can find the subtleties thinking on his time. Nh4 is going to terrify him sure. I actually saw whites Qg5 reply and thought well he is coming forward leaving less king defense then I spotted the Queen h2 after Rf2 tactic and so I would see a small plus with little downside and lots of scare for white. I used to be seriously awful at 5 min blitz thinking too deep and now I o
> -1 votes

---
Tags: tactics, calculation
---


# Question
Title: Is it better to start without a queen or without any pawns?
I think that this question really can be answered rigorously with good analysis. It is opinion-based, but not completely since some results in this direction can be obtained, and strict and general guidelines can be given, along with good heuristics and reasons for the advantage of one or the other side. So, let us go straight to the description of a question.

Some of you wrote about some system of points I really did not know of, that assigns values to figures, according to their "strength". Of course, it all depends on the positions in the game and on the tactics and strategies, but, I have a legal question to ask.

Suppose that two players are starting the game, and that they are equally good (in this context, meaning that all the strategies that one player knows of the other one knows too, and vice-versa). One is starting the game without 8 pawns and with a queen, and the other one is without a queen and with 8 pawns. Who, generally, has the advantage?

```
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/8/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNB1KBNR w - - 0 1 "]

```

I think that this can answer this can be determined through very rigorous and sufficient analysis. It seems also that there is a tendency to favor the side with a queen and without pawns, but I do not see exactly why, and do not understand the reason for that?

Can it be explained, with sufficient analysis of the problem, the main issues of both sides, with givem heuristics about what would (or should) happen later in the game? Is there really a real advantage for one side, and why?

**Edit**: Now, after some thinking, I am of the opinion that this question is harder than it might seem to be, and, although much can be written and said about this starting configuration, I think that general consensus will not be so easy to establish. I am of the opinion that the White one is, generally, in advantage, but am unsure on how to prove that, and, someone with much more experience and games behind him/her could obtain some precise and thorough analysis. If someone is in close contact with masters of chess, and can ask them about an opinion, we could be closer to some conclusions. As for me, the more I think about this problem, the more hard it becomes to me.

# Answer
> 8 votes
Other than the computer evaluation proving that the Q is better, the biggest problem here is that black basically starts out fully developed since his pieces already have amazing scope, and can quickly coordinate his forces, and attack.

# Answer
> 6 votes
The queen is better. Other than being worth 9 points (compared to the pawns' combined worth of 8 points), the queen is a single powerful unit. White can only move each of his pawns one at a time, making them collectively not nearly as strong as the queen. If White attempts to use all of his 8 pawns to combat the queen, it'll take him 8 moves on each "iteration" of moving all the pawns. The queen can do serious damage in this time.

For what it's worth, Stockfish gives roughly a -7 evaluation for the position you posted. Maybe this is a bit too high, but nevertheless Black's clearly winning.

# Answer
> -1 votes
Black with Queen is computed as massive advantage. Therefore if white gets Queen he could get a quick or not so quick mate due to the extra tempo which counts a lot at game start. Surely this has been computed and it must give a bigger advantage to Queen team if not actual mate.

---
Tags: strategy, tactics, puzzles, point-value
---


# Question
Title: What are the percentage rates for each promotion type?
I could not find the database which has this, but I would like to know what percentage of promoted pawns ends up being a queen, rook, bishop, or knight

# Answer
Here are the percentages for each promotion type according to different sources:

```
|Promotion type  | ChessBase | TWIC | ICCF |
--------------------------------------------
| Queen          |      96.9 | 97.3 | 96.1 |
| Rook           |       1.1 |  1.1 |  1.7 |
| Knight         |       1.8 |  1.3 |  1.7 |
| Bishop         |       0.2 |  0.3 |  0.5 |

```

Details:

* ChessBase: Percentages from 2006 ChessBase, with 3.2 million games, obtained from Wikipedia.
* TWIC: Percentages calculated using my own script from 1.4 million games published in The Week In Chess, issues 920 (Jun. 25th, 2012) to 1358 (Nov. 16th, 2020).
* ICCF: Percentages calculated using my own script from 0.8 million games made available by the International Correspondence Chess Federation, from the 1970s to 2018.
> 7 votes

---
Tags: database, statistics, pawn-promotion
---


title: Puzzle - Mate in 5 - #001

text:
# Question
Title: Puzzle - Mate in 5 - #001
I've been writing some chess puzzles lately and I thought I would post some of them up here. I'm quite fond of this one so I thought I would share. I traditionally am not a fan of problems that are a "Mate in X," especially when it's in five, but the position, I think, is aesthetically pleasing. The real problem isn't the mate, in my opinion, it's setting it up.

```
[Event "Forced Mate in 5"]
[Date "2020.11.05"]
[White "White"]
[Black "Black"]
[WhiteElo "2622"]
[BlackElo "2622"]
[Annotator "Bateman, David"]
[FEN "2r1qbnr/1b4p1/p2pNk1p/npp1pP2/4P1Q1/2PPB3/PP4PP/RN3RK1 b - - 0 1"]
[SourceVersionDate "2020.11.19"]

1... Bc6

```

**White to move and force mate in 5 moves.**

I'm inspired by a number of games, but primarily Alekhine vs Janoski, 1924 New York.

*Note: Only recently have I learned that problems and puzzles are accepted here and I believe it to be a better community for them.*

# Answer
Nice mate!

```
[Event "Forced Mate in 5"]
[Date "2020.11.05"]
[White "White"]
[Black "Black"]
[WhiteElo "2622"]
[BlackElo "2622"]
[Annotator "Bateman, David"]
[FEN "2r1qbnr/1b4p1/p2pNk1p/npp1pP2/4P1Q1/2PPB3/PP4PP/RN3RK1 b - - 0 1"]
[SourceVersionDate "2020.11.19"]

```

> 1... Bc6 2. Bg5+ hxg5 3. Qxg5+ Kf7 4. Nd8+! Qxd8 5. Qg6+ Ke7 6. Qe6#

> The mate is identical if 4... Rxd8 is played instead. The key idea is to force a piece onto the d8 square in order to cover the two squares the queen on e6 cannot cover - f8 and d8.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: endgame, problems
---


# Question
Title: Tricky continuation to the Fried Liver "refuted"
Suppose white gets the following opening:

```
[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bc4 Nf6
4. Ng5 d5
5. exd5 Na5

```

This is what I call Fried Liver Refuted, instead of Nxd5 we get instead Na5. **From this position does white have some tricky continuation?** By tricky I mean some sharp snappy line with some traps in it. It seems like after Na5 white runs out of tricks, but is this true? Some tricks in this position would be really fun to implement; most players only study this line up to this point because it is preached that Na5 is the best move for black and after it white runs out of punches, so a couple of tricks would most likely find black with is guard down.

# Answer
I believe you should go for **9.h4** in the main line:

```
[FEN ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6 8.Bd3 Nd5 9.h4

```

White is trying to keep his pieces on active squares at all costs.

There is a lot of complexity here, e.g. in the line 9...h6 10.Qh5 Qf6 11.Nh7!? Rxh7 12.Bxh7 g6 (don't play 11.Nxf7 hoping for 11...Qxf7 12.Bg6, black has 11...Nf4).

The line 9...Nf4 10.Bf1 h6 11.Nf3 Bd6 12.d4 exd4 13.Qxd4 Ne6 is not as tricky, but white has a pawn and Stockfish says white is a little bit better, which is all you can hope for these days.

In both cases, *preparation will help*, as there are no normal moves in positions like this. And that's the only kind of "tricks" that are available here I think.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I mean, this is the main line and for a reason. But I would be very surprised if most people's repertoire ended here, this is where it begins. The line goes 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6 And now White has a number of options. In all of them White stays up a pawn however Black gets some counter play. (and there isn't a great line to give back that pawn for initiative, not much to play for tricks) The two main moves are 8.Be2 and 8.Bd3. The line might continue 8.Be2 h6 9.Nf3 e4 10.Ne5 and Black will keep some lead in development and try to attack.

The idea of the other move then is to gain access to the e4 square, if 8.Bd3 h6 9.Ne4. However this move blocks the d pawn so White will need to move that bishop again at a later time. Both of these lines can be very complicated and sharp so White has to be careful.
> 11 votes

# Answer
5....na5 is inferior and certainly no refutation of the fried liver.

Not going to tell you the correct move to win with black. Leaving that as an exercise to the student who will probably look it up or might find it by running an engine.
> -9 votes

---
Tags: tactics, attack, opening-traps, fried-liver-attack
---


# Question
Title: Automatically claiming draw when low on time
Suppose X and Y are in an endgame:

* X has a rook and 400 seconds.
* Y has a rook and 40 seconds.

Y obviously cannot claim draw because X can theoretically win, even though a minimally careful play would result in a draw.

X will play to make Y's time run out, but has to avoid the 50 move draw and the threefold repetition draw.

Now, since Y is hard pressed on time, he may not notice that a position has been repeated three times. More inexperient players may even overlook that the 50 moves have been made. In this scenario, will Y actually have missed the chance to get the draw? Or can Y tell the arbiter that he wants to have the draw if any of those events occur, even if Y misses it?

Lichess has an option to claim draw on threefold repetition when time remaining \< 30 seconds, thus I'm wondering if there is something of the sort for on the board games.

# Answer
> I'm wondering if there is something of the sort for on the board games

The closest thing to this according to the latest FIDE Laws of Chess is article 9.6:

> 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.

However this process is not automatic. For either of these scenarios to play out then either the arbiter has to be watching and counting or the moves have to be recorded by at least one of the players and then brought to the arbiter's attention.

In general a game is drawn after 3 repetitions or 50 moves without a capture or pawn move only if one of the players makes a valid claim backed up by a recording of the moves.

See:

> 9.2.1 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):
> 9.2.1.1 is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or
> 9.2.1.2 has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.

and

> 9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if:
>
> 9.3.1 he writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move which will result in the last 50 moves by each player having been made without the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or
>
> 9.3.2 the last 50 moves by each player have been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.

but note:

> 9.4 If the player touches a piece as in Article 4.3, he loses the right to claim a draw under Article 9.2 or 9.3 on that move.

So, you can't retrospectively claim a draw under 3 fold repetition or the 50 move rule.

Note that if there are no increments then in special circumstances you may be able to claim a draw when low on time in endgames like KR vs KR.

Here is what the rules say:

> III.2.1 The Guidelines below concerning the final period of the game including Quickplay Finishes, shall only be used at an event if their use has been announced beforehand.
>
> III.2.2 These Guidelines shall apply only to standard chess and rapid chess games without increment and not to blitz games.

Important to note that these rules ***never*** apply to blitz games, only standard and rapid. Also important to note that they only apply if announced beforehand. This will rarely happen.

Then:

> III.4 If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue.
>
> III.5 ***If Article III.4 does not apply*** and the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the chessclock (see Article 6.12.2). He may claim on the basis that his opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been making no effort to win by normal means:
> 5 votes

# Answer
In a physical game, X and Y will normally just shake hands for the draw.

However, if X insists on trying to "flag" Y, then Y can invoke the Quickplay Finish guidelines from the Laws of Chess (2018 edition), provided they are used in that tournament:

> III.1 A ‘quickplay finish’ is the phase of a game when all the remaining moves must be completed in a finite time.

> III.5 If Article III.4 does not apply and the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the chessclock (see Article 6.12.2). He may claim on the basis that his opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been making no effort to win by normal means:

> III.5.1 If the arbiter agrees that the opponent cannot win by normal means, or that the opponent has been making no effort to win the game by normal means, he shall declare the game drawn. Otherwise he shall postpone his decision or reject the claim.

Any sane arbiter will then judge the game to be a draw (or at least keep observing until it's obvious that Y is good enough to not just drop their rook).
> 3 votes

# Answer
In many over the board long time control games if there's no more time to be added (so no extra time after 40/60 moves or anything) you can request a 5 second increment or delay. This counts as draw offer and if the opponent doesn't want to draw the game continues with those 5 second increment and the opponent getting a two minute time bonus. In a position like this that would be the obvious course of action.

If the tournament does not allow that: there is a 5 time repetition and a 75 move rule that states that if the arbiter notices that a position has been repeated 5 times they MUST intervene and end the game as a draw. So 3 time repetition means you can claim, 5 time repetition means the arbiter themselves must intervene.

In either case I would probably stop the clock and ask the arbiter what the exact rules in the tournament are. At worst you give your opponent a two minute time bonus by doing so.

EDIT: To provide some sources: "FIDE Handbook Guidelines: III.4 If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue."

Concerning 75 moves rule: "50-move rule: 5.3.2 A player may claim a draw if the last 50 moves have been completed by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.

75-move rule: 9.6.2 The game is drawn if the last 75 moves have been completed by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture."
> 2 votes

---
Tags: rules, time-control, otb-chess, claim-draw
---


title: Why is flagging considered a win?

text:
# Question
Title: Why is flagging considered a win?
Let's say I totally dominate my opponent, but simply run out of time, then I lose the game right? But doesn't it make more sense to be given 51% of the rating adjustment (not 50/50 as for a draw).

The criteria would be simple, that is if a user is in a completely winning position by stockfish evaluation (mate in X) or they are up 5+ material points.

I feel like losing rating when you dominate a GM who is rated 500 points higher than you in a 1+0 bullet game just because they moved very fast (and randomly) at the end is a bit unfair. Is there a historical reasoning for not applying such rules?

# Answer
> 54 votes
I feel like you somewhat misunderstand the concept of a time control. The clock is a part of the game. If you are up a piece in a complicated position with five seconds left on the clock that may well be a losing position for you. Sure, the engine may show you +4, but the clock is an important part, especially in blitz.

Importantly, if you spent all your time getting a good position while the opponent played quickly to conserve their time, then they performed better, because they got to a still tricky position while using less thinking time.

If you don't like this flagging mechanic (I for one do not), increment exists for a reason. There is still some time management there, as playing on just the increment means you don't have time to think deeply. However, it allows you to keep playing instead of losing on time. If you play without increment, it is your decision, but then you have to be up to take the consequences.

# Answer
> 24 votes
Let's look at the title question from the perspective of engine chess, which is more objective in the sense that you can get two engines to play tens of thousands of games against each other at whatever time control you desire.

If you look at the latest season of the unofficial world computer chess championship, you'll find that the strongest engine is Stockfish, and the weakest is Bagatur/A0lite. A match between the two engines on equal hardware & time control won't be much of a match - in a 100-game match I'd be surprised if Stockfish doesn't score 95% or more. The gap is just that large. Let that sink in for a moment: in an equal match, Stockfish is expected to win with both colors, again and again and again.

*However*, if you allowed Stockfish only 1 second a move while giving Bagatur/A0lite an hour a move, then it's no longer so certain that Stockfish will beat Bagatur/A0lite. In fact, it might very well lose. See the result of similar testing in the past, where Stockfish had only 0.3% of its opponent's time.

You can see the absurdity of it all. Let's say I sit down to play a blitz match with Bagatur against Stockfish at time controls of 5 minutes per game. Stockfish plays a move. I let Bagatur think for two days, then come back and make a move. Stockfish says I lost on time. I counter with "I flagged, but flagging isn't considered a win". If Stockfish were a human, how do you think it would respond?

**tl; dr**: the clock is part of the game. If you get a good position, but have to spend too much time to reach that good position, you might not be winning.

# Answer
> 20 votes
Because not having it would result in some perverse incentives. In particular, in any game where a draw is an acceptable outcome, the optimal strategy without flag drops being losses would be to *never make a move and simply wait for the flag*.

With any partial approach like you propose, the optimal strategy would instead be to try to force such a situation (far easier than actually winning - your "+5 on material" suggestion is especially bad for this, because you end up with situations in which the stronger player has a forced mate that involves, say, a rook sacrifice that takes them to -6 on material, at which point the weaker player can simply let that happen, then wait for the flag. Your rule, in particular, would make a fair number of winning positions into losing positions.

It is also worth noting that there already *is* a partial form of this rule in place: if there is no sequence of legal moves by which the player with time left on their clock can checkmate the player whose flag dropped, then the game is a draw. This avoids the above issue, because in such a situation, a draw is already your worst possible outcome, so the perverse incentive is avoided.

# Answer
> 13 votes
Since you specifically asked for historical reasons: Think about your two proposed criteria in the context of the year 1800 or 1900.

* Using engine evaluation is obviously out of the question. So is "asking a better player", because you may often not have one at hand (physically, due to limited means of telecommunication!).
* Using material count is at least possible. But keep in mind that back in the day, people generally liked to play chess in a much more "romantic" way than today. In other words, less fear of sacrifices. Determining the outcome of games by mere material count probably had very few fans when the rules started to be formalized (and as any strong player will confirm, the romantics wouldn't be entirely wrong, as material is only *one* of many factors of the evaluation of a position).

# Answer
> 9 votes
Except for exceptional circumstances, only three results are considered valid for a chess game (and the corresponding rating change): win, draw or loss.

Your suggestion would come with a huge problem: what exactly counts as flagging? How big should your advantage have been for your opponent's victory to not count as a "real" victory? Who should evaluate that advantage? Would it be fair to take 20 seconds per move on a 3-minute game and still claim you dominated the match?

As other answers have pointed out, the flag is a part of the game. If you don't like losing on time, then you probably shouldn't be playing 1+0

You won't lose much rating for losing to a GM, whether by flagging or not, by the way.

# Answer
> 8 votes
It's considered a win because that is what it is by definition from the rules of timed games.

When you enter a game you commit to its rules; in this case one of those rules is that the time you have to force mate or other result is constrained by the clock, and you must adapt your strategy to meet that constraint.

In the example you have given, you have not met that constraint and been outplayed by the opponent who has dominated on time.

The simple solution is to adapt your game strategy to the timed format or play another format instead.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Why does a football team lose when the clock runs out?

Time is a key factor in playing chess. Else you would be back in the olde days when players could take days or weeks or longer before they moved.

Even postal chess has time limits.

Time limits is fair for both sides. If you played faster thereby not dominating you would not have won. Why should you be special and not have the clock run out on your team just because you did not get to kick that final field goal?

# Answer
> 1 votes
There is simply no other practical "punishment" for overstepping the time limit. You cannot remove a piece or something like that. In fact, the only punishment for other infractions which are not grave enough to warrant declaring the game lost is a time penalty, which clearly doesn't apply here.

It's not that clear-cut though: In order to win, you must have enough material left to mate your opponent. If you are left with the bare King, even when your opponent oversteps the time limit all you get is a draw.

---
Tags: time-control, time-management, winning, claim-draw
---


title: Pawn gambits "For The Win"

text:
# Question
Title: Pawn gambits "For The Win"
Possibly confirmation bias, but I often find a game I've won involved the loss (intentional or otherwise) of a pawn, which has opened up a file for rook attack, particularly on b/g files. Is there any catch-all term for this sort of gambit other than this title? I wonder if anyone has statistically analysed this type of scenario.

# Answer
> 8 votes
It is called a clearance sacrifice:

> In a *clearance sacrifice*, the sacrificing player aims to vacate the square the sacrificed piece stood on, either to open up lines for his own pieces, or to put another, more useful piece on the same square.

# Answer
> 4 votes
To mine knowledge its called "opening lines against king" in many languages this term used - no other specific name that I would have heard of in any language I know.

# Answer
> 1 votes
No.

There is no specific word for a gambit that does that to open files to then win.

It would be the result of a general "gambit" giving up a pawn.

I note that you said lose a pawn unintentionally and then win. That is not a gambit that is two beginners playing like beginners.

---
Tags: pawns, terminology, gambits
---


# Question
Title: Why do some UCI engines restrict input moves to 23 when using the command prompt?
I am using some UCI engines from a command prompt. Most work fine (i.e. Stockfish, Houdini, Komodo) but when I use e.g. SOS (ver.5.1) or Hermann (Ver.2.8), I cannot seem to type any more moves after move 23. For example:

`position startpos moves f2f4 g8f6 e2e3 d7d5 g1f3 g7g6 c2c4 f8g7 b1c3 c7c5 c4d5 f6d5 d1b3 d5c3 b2c3 e8g8 f1e2 d8c7 e1g1 c8e6 e2c4 e6c4 b3c4 b8d7 c1a3 a8b8 d2d4 b7b5 c4b3 a7a5 a1d1 c5c4 b3b1 d7f6 d1e1 f6d5 b1e4 f8d8 a3c5 d5c3 e4e7 c7e7 c5e7 d8d5 a2a3 b8e8`

After b8e8, I just cannot type any more moves. Tried this on different computers running different O/S's.

# Answer
I suspect this is due to the length of the command; the one in your question is 254 characters long, close to 28 = 256 which *might* be a maximum command length for some engines.

I do not know a solution for this, but it seems possible to use the `position` command with a FEN string, for example as used in this question.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: uci
---


# Question
Title: Is there any GUI for Stockfish which allows comments in macOS Big Sur?
Currently I use the built-in Stockfish app that's in the Apple Store. But unfortunately, I can't put comments in the moves. I would really appreciate it if you can give me good recommendations other than ScidvsMac, because after updating to Big Sur, it doesn't work anymore.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I found ChessX to be working well. I can put comments in the moves. But I still don't know how to make the depth of Stockfish to run more than 20! It only runs for 3 seconds, then it stops. If I can figure out how to make it run longer, I would be happy with ChessX.

Edit: You can slide the bar at the bottom right corner to make the search deeper

---
Tags: stockfish, macos
---


# Question
Title: Fastest way to get both kings to the other side of the board?
Say that both players collaborate to get White's king to the eighth rank and Black's king to the first. What's the shortest sequence of moves that achieves this?

# Answer
> 4 votes
It can be proven that **10 moves, or 20 plies,** is the least possible.

```
[Title ""]
[FEN ""]

1. f3 f6 2. Kf2 Kf7 3. Kg3 Ke6 4. h3 h6 5. Kh4 Kf5 6. Kh5 Kf4 7. Kg6 Kg3 8. Rh2  Rh7 9. Kxh7 Kxh2 10. Kh8 Kh1

```

Here is the proof, listed in a logical order.

**Observations Of Proof**

1. Both kings must make at least seven moves to get to the other rank, so that's 14 plies off the bat.
2. Each side must move a pawn move to release a king, which costs 2 plies in further total.
3. Each side must move a piece to unguard a square for the other king, also costing 2 plies.
4. Finally, at least one more pawn move by both sides is required in order to let each king bypass the pawn structure, and that amounts to 2 plies.

In conclusion, 14+2+2+2=20 plies, so it is indeed the minimum possible.

---
Tags: problems, records
---


# Question
Title: What are some ways to get better at Antichess?
I have recently found out about a new chess variant called antichess. I was wondering how to get better at it. Are there any opening moves or strategies in antichess that might help beginners in this chess variant better learn the game? If so, please explain in detail.

# Answer
A strategy that I use when trying to get better at antichess is to open up your bishops. Once you to that, you are able to get your opponent in a pawn trap, making them continuously attack your pieces.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Watch for your opponent’s weaknesses and prevent your pieces from being able to clear through your opponent’s pieces. Opening up your bishops is usually a bad thing, as your opponent can use your bishop to win.
> 0 votes

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


# Question
Title: How many moves of head start does white need for a guaranteed win?
As we all know, it is not known whether white can always win in chess with optimal play. If, however, white got to make two moves before black made their first move would they be able to win with perfect play? What would those first two moves be? How about if white gets three "headstart moves"?

If white is allowed four moves of head start then it is clearly a forced mate as can be seen from the fact that a scholar's mate can be achieved in four moves if black waits patiently.

I feel like three moves would be enough of a headstart, even though mate can't be achieved immediately, though I could be wrong. Any ideas or strategies are appreciated.

# Answer
> 13 votes
There is a similar ancient question, but this isn't a duplicate since White may move anywhere.

For an **upper bound,** I can prove a guaranteed win for White in **5 moves.** Indeed, it is reminiscent of Scholar's Mate.

```
[FEN ""]

1. e3 null 2. Bc4 null 3. Qf3 null 4. Nh3 null 5. Ng5

```

With Black to move, as White has now used up their five given moves, Stockfish announces a **mate in 6.**

```
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/6N1/2B5/4PQ2/PPPP1PPP/RNB1K2R b KQkq - 0 1"]

1... d5 2. Qxf7+ Kd7 3. Qxd5+ Ke8 4. Qf7+ Kd7 5. Qf5+ Kc6 6. Qb5+ Kd6 7. Ne4#

```

(If Black plays 1... d6?, then it is instead a mate in four with 2. Bxf7+ Kd7 3. Be6+ Ke8 4. Qf7#.)

The problem for a setup four is that, with the Scholar's Mate setup, f7 needs to be attacked thrice, which doesn't seem possible. Additionally, there is no obvious way to do it without Scholar's Mate.

# Answer
> 3 votes
If I had to guess I'd say that one extra move for White (normal chess) is objectively a draw, 3 extra moves is probably a win, and 2 extra moves is a tossup.

The problem is, for anything short of 4 extra moves, there's no way to definitively prove any of the above results. Yes, Stockfish gives some evaluation that's much better for White, but unless it can calculate a forced mate then there's no absolute certainty.

There's also the issue that engines prune the search tree a lot in order to be fast. So when an engine says it's at "depth 30", it's not actually covering every variation up to 30 ply that has a chance of affecting the evaluation. Doing that would take very long, even with optimizations such as alpha-beta pruning and a transposition table. So technically if you're searching for a guaranteed win, you couldn't even trust an engine that says "mate in 50".

We can look at it more theoretically. In chess the average number of possible moves in a given position is 30, but to be very generous let's use 20 (because maybe White can launch a mating attack early on). And let's assume that with 3 extra moves, with a ton of luck White might have a forced win in 40 ply. So to calculate everything 40 ply ahead, this would be 20^40 positions. Let's assume alpha-beta pruning turns the exponent into around 3/4 of what it was: 20^30. Now, let's say the transposition table increases the speed by a factor of around 5 (that might be slightly generous). So we're left with 20^29.46..., or about 2.1 * 10^38.

So in the best case scenario of White actually having a forced win with 3 extra moves (and it only taking 40 ply), maybe you'd need to calculate something on the order of 10^38 positions to be definitively sure. This is obviously an extremely rough estimate, as the actual number might be a lot lower (again, in the best case scenario). For example, if White is trying to mate Black, the branching factor could be lower due to Black having only moves at certain times. Also, you could try only considering the best few moves for White in each position. However, it's likely Stockfish is already doing pruning somewhat similar to this for White and Black, and so far it finds nothing after depth 40 for a few different positions I set up with 3 extra moves.

You could argue that a win might exist in something much shorter, such as 30 ply instead of 40 ply. I think this is very unlikely though, considering Stockfish gives an evaluation of +1 and change, when it's over depth 40. Sure, like I said it could absolutely be missing something, but I'm not using Stockfish for a proof here. I'm just mentioning it to say that a very quick win likely doesn't exist, and then if that's the case it will be near impossible to prove a longer one does due to the discussed time complexity.

---
Tags: opening, checkmate, chess-variants, puzzles
---


# Question
Title: Why is Tal talking about 10. Qf7 when 10.... N5f6 is possible?
I am picking from the book "Attack with Mikhail Tal" Chapter 1, pg 6. Tal annotates the steps and his thought process on the Tal-Larsen 1965 match.

```
[FEN ""]

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Nf3 dxe5 5. Nxe5 Nd7 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qh5+ Ke6 8. c4 N5f6

```

Tal continues with 9. d5+ Kd6 10 Qf7 Ne5. I am stuck on the Qf7. Why is Qf7 possible when there is 10... N5f6? What am I missing here?

Here is the original excerpt.

# Answer
> 5 votes
You made a mistake when transcribing move 7. It is **7. Qh5+**, not **7. Qf3+**. Move 10 is then **Qh5f7**, which is not blocked by the Nf6.

```
[FEN ""]

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Nf3 dxe5 5. Nxe5 Nd7 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qh5+ Ke6 8. c4 N5f6 9. d5+ Kd6 10. Qf7 Ne5

```

---
Tags: books, attack, annotation, tal
---


title: Another Unusual Mate in One

text:
# Question
Title: Another Unusual Mate in One
Here is another mate-in-one of my own i.e. a not quite usual one...

```
    [title "Mate in one"]
    [FEN "3b4/R3P3/2kPR1n1/P1p1n3/4K1p1/2Nr4/5p2/1b6 w KQkq - 0 1"]

```

Imagine, you walk into a chess club, an abandoned chessboard hangs out on a table. You take a look at the position. You don't know where white or black is, who to play, yet one thing is certain: there is checkmate in one move...

# Answer
> 22 votes
There are two checkmates per orientation:

```
    [title "Mate in one"]
    [FEN "3b4/R3P3/2kPR1n1/P1p1n3/4K1p1/2Nr4/5p2/1b6 w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. exd8=N#

```

and

```
    [title "Mate in one"]
    [FEN "3b4/R3P3/2kPR1n1/P1p1n3/4K1p1/2Nr4/5p2/1b6 b KQkq - 0 1"]

1... Rxc3#

```

and

```
    [title "Mate in one"]
    [FEN "6b1/2p5/4rN2/1p1K4/3n1p1P/1n1RPk2/3P3R/4b3 b KQkq - 0 1"]

1...c6#

```

and

```
    [title "Mate in one"]
    [FEN "6b1/2p5/4rN2/1p1K4/3n1p1P/1n1RPk2/3P3R/4b3 w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. e4#

```

# Answer
> 5 votes
It looks like

> e7xd8=N (by White)

is checkmate, but so is

> Rd3xc3 (by Black)

So perhaps there's more to this puzzle than meets the eye ...

# Answer
> 4 votes
That's a nice archaeological find. However, I'm not so sure there is in fact a checkmate in just one "move". Of course, there is a (unique!) checkmate for both colors in all orientations considered by @Brian Towers, which makes this a very nice problem indeed. But what about the *other* orientations?

You may protest that there's a rule that the bottom right corner must be a light square, but I think you're going to have to consult a historian to determine whether this rule was in effect in this particular late 19th century London chess club, and in particular whether the game could have continued without rotating the board if the players noticed their error during the game. You likely also need to consult a medium in order to determine whether one of the players noticed it. So, I think this rule doesn't mean we can exclude other orientations.

You may argue that the other orientations are excluded because there's a pawn on the side of the board. Not quite. First, a pawn can never legally be put on the first rank, so that excludes one orientation (white being to the left of our current view). But this is not true for the eighth rank. Promotion of a pawn is done by first moving the pawn to the promotion square on the eighth rank, and then replacing it with another piece. So, it is possible for a pawn to be on the eighth rank in a legal game. Of course, in the current state of the board the move is not yet completed, but that doesn't matter. We already know that in the other orientations the game was ended before the checkmate (as we still have to make one move), so the same could happen in the middle of the promotion move. I certainly have seen the board being left abandoned in such a state at my own chess club.

It could be possible that we can show the position is unreachable via retrograde analysis, but that seems very difficult, so I'm just going to leave that to others and just say that I don't know how to prove this one way or the other.

Ok. So, let's assume the pawn on the side from our orientation is mid-promotion. Now suppose white wanted to promote into a knight. This is check, but not checkmate, as black can take the knight with the bishop. However, black cannot give mate here while getting out of check at the same time. So, neither player can give checkmate in one move. (technically, I have shown this is not possible in one half-move, but I believe the technical term "Mate in *one*" is generally understood to refer to *one half-move*)

In conclusion, I believe I have made a decent argument for why there exists a scenario where this position has been reached from a perfectly legal game (under the rules in this particular chess club), yet there exists no mate in one. Hence, however unlikely my scenario may be, I must conclude that I cannot be certain that there is checkmate in one move.

---

That said, I don't think my problem hurts the essence of your ~~archaeological find~~ clever composition. As long as the promoted piece can deliver checkmate as well, we can be certain that there is a mate *within* one move.

I think just placing a pawn between the bishop and the pedantic promotion square would do:

```
    [title "Mate in one"]
    [FEN "3b4/R3P3/1pkPR1n1/P1p1n3/4K1p1/2Nr4/5p2/1b6 w - - 0 1"]

```

I believe this does not change the checkmate moves in the other orientations, or even their uniqueness. It does make the checkmate for white easier to find in the other orientations, but I think the new orientation you get in return is more than worth it. Maybe there are retrograde arguments against this position, I'm not sure.

# Answer
> 1 votes
If we assume that the players were not bad at chess, then the move before this move, that player had to have something more important to do than checkmate their opponent.

If we take the board orientation as black moving upwards, with the white king at e5 and black rook at (e.g.) a6, then black moves rook to e6, check, white moves king to d5, black moves pawn to c6, mate.

If it was white's turn, for either orientation, there is no move that black would have made on the previous turn besides checkmate. Likewise if black is moving down, white would have mated black on the previous turn.

I think the only solution is black moving up, pawn to c6.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Looks more like black plays rd4++ and mates white.

---
Tags: checkmate, problems, puzzles
---


# Question
Title: Chess books about how to deal with time troubles
Do any of you know if there is any book that is written about the theme "How to deal with time troubles"? It does not need to be only about time management, but at least if it has something on that topic it would be great to have the title of it. If there are any examples from real games it would be excellent.

# Answer
There are a lot of books that tackle the problem of time trouble at least somewhat. I would recommend The Seven Deadly Chess Sins by Jonathan Rowson. It's not solely about time trouble but touches upon time trouble often enough to be definitely useful in that regard.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Books no.

This is a matter of proper practice along with general knowledge from books and experience from playing at slower rates gradually increasing faster as you improve.

Playing blitz will definitely harm your ability. You need to play 'fast' but train yourself to take some time to pick a move. Ten seconds must wait and then play is good. You need to get in the habit of being able to move quickly but not instantly and to not waste time on moves so that you get into time trouble.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: books, time-management
---