# Question
Title: High quality resource for Exchanged Slav defense?
I am preparing the Semi-Slav defense with *David Vigorito-Play the Semi-Slav ( Quality Chess, 2008 )*. The exchange line is covered well, but recently GMs try to steer clear from dull `...Bf5` lines and try `...e6 + ...Qb6` formation, leaving bishop on `c8` and "suffering" for the extra pawn they get with `...Qxb2`. This gives excellent chances to dodge the boring, drawish lines and to sharpen the game. Also, in the book there was an opening novelty *Kramnik* launched in a line I am very interested in. Since then theory must have advanced a lot in *Exchange Slav*, so I am asking if there is any modern high quality resource ( for players 2400+ ) that covers this line?

# Answer
Let me preface this by saying that I have not kept up with new publications in about a year, but there was nothing that I knew of before that.

My educated guess is that the only real "modern high quality resource ( for players 2400+ ) that covers this line" is going to be GM games. Here are my reasons for that:

1) Vladimir Kramnik-the most influential figure in chess opening theory over the last 15 years-played a significant novelty in this line. This means that other players, from the top level down to lower GMs (which is about the lowest you can go and still have the games be considered part of Theory without further examination) have probably taken to copying him and extending the line. Even if you did find a comprehensive book published 8 months ago by some mid-level GM, there could well be some game between two 2600s from 2 months ago which changes the outcome of a variation. A prepared opponent will surely know about that and the book will not.

2) You are at a level where, since you already have a solid foundation in the line, you are probably better off looking at the games that a book would present to you and drawing your own conclusions. People like Vigorito who are about your strength and publish books are basically doing the exact same thing you could be doing-applying computer analysis to positions, recognizing the ideas, and memorizing/writing down the result. People that play for a living and create theory will be more concerned with protecting novelties and using them to win games (thereby giving them to you for free) than adding them to a book to see a tiny bump in circulation.

I am not saying that there are no groundbreaking books by top players. Avrukh's repertoire series for White was incredibly well-researched and included dozens of novelties. Victor Bologan has written 3 influential books on various lines. These books are rare, though, and a large majority of theoretically-relevant openings do not have resources of similar quality. You can construct better opening knowledge by doing your own research.
> 5 votes

# Answer
If you are into ebooks, there are a couple of books related to this on the Kindle store, one of them seems specifically dedicated to Exchange Slav:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb\_sb\_noss/189-5866976-1535411?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=slav+exchange
> 1 votes

---
Tags: opening, theory, books, slav-defense
---


# Question
Title: Comprehensive list of ECO codes together with the list of moves
I am looking for a comprehensive list of ECO codes with various variations together with a corresponding list of moves. Basically something like:

```
B01 Scandinavian (centre counter) defence 1. e4 d5
B01 Scandinavian defence, Lasker variation 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. h3
B01 Scandinavian defence 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bf5

```

The best I was able to find is this resourse, but it is kind of bad, because all they can give me about Sicilian is this:

```
B20-B99 Sicilian defence1. e4 c5

```

# Answer
Here is the file used by Scid.
> 7 votes

---
Tags: opening
---


title: Is the Dutch positional or tactical

text:
# Question
Title: Is the Dutch positional or tactical
I have had mixed opinions on if it is tactical or positional, so I'm asking it here as an tiebreaker.

# Answer
> 3 votes
The Dutch has definitely a sound positional base, that is, with `f5` you take under control the center (`e4`), prepare to develop your knight behind a pawn (which is usually good as the squares diagonally to the pawn are now defended twice. This is the reason you play `c4` in the Queens Gambit and only after `Nc3` btw) and aim for fast counterplay or a solid setup.

If you want a solid setup and play in a position where it's all about maneuvering, the Stonewall is the setup you desire. It is sound positionally speaking, though you have to take care of the hole you leave in `e5`. In order to equalize, black has to find a concrete plan and good implementation, as these lines always give a slim but almost perpetual advantage for white. If you want to go for dynamic positions, choose the Leningrad setup, but bear in mind that you are taking some risk because of the early weakening of the kignside. The counterplay many times arise from fianchettoing the dark squared bishop and looking for an attack on the kingside, which you have to be precise when making it as it leaves your king somewhat open and sometimes weaker than the opponents.

There are very powerful upsides to playing the Dutch, one of them being that the most challenging attack for white involves a kingside fianchetto, so the opening preparation becomes somewhat easier in the main lines. The downside is that with `f5` so early on in the game, there are multiple gambit opportunities for white that, if accepted, lure black into positions where he must be able to defend precisely and for a long time before cashing in is material advantage (of course, there is always the option of declining the gambit, but some of them are as provocative as `2.g4`).

**Conclusion:**

The Dutch is a sound positional opening. Wehther you want to play positional chess or tactical chess depends almost entirely on your (black) side: go for a Classical (half positional-half tactical), a Stonewall (highly positional) or a Leningrad (highly tactical). However, the player must know a fair amount of theory to be safe.

**Edit:** You may also look the Dutch as a flipped Sicilian, as the pawn structure is similar. This is also in favor of the Dutch being positionally sound. However, don't look further, as the plans and maneuvers in the openings are in general completely different.

---
Tags: opening, dutch-defense, style
---


# Question
Title: Playing the Queen's Indian. Which kind of players?
In general, the Queen's Indian is not much seen at top levels when arising from the ECO move order:

```
    [FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6

```

However, many games transpose from the Nimzo-Indian defense:

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

```

When at some point black plays `b6` in order to fianchetto his light squared bishop. Now, these two openings have different basic plans and different kinds of players are adept at them: the Nimzo-Indian is known to be a reliable weapon against `1.d4` and the Queen's Indian is thought to be a little too passive.

The doubts I have are:

1. Which kind of players like switching between those two defences?
2. What is the goal of said transposition? (e.g. why not follow the main line?)
3. Why are such different conceptual openings usually transposed, when in certain lines not even the plans or pawn structure is the same?

# Answer
Many Nimzo players already have the Queen's Indian Defense on their repertoire to deal with `3. Nf3`. Such players may transpose between the two defenses whenever they have the opportunity and feel like switching.

To be more precise, it is after `4. Nf3` that black has the option to enter a QID/Nimzo hybrid with `4... b6`.

```
    [StartPly "8"]

    [FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nf3 b6

```

Nimzo-indian set-ups with a black `b6` without a white `Nf3` are still classified as Nimzo-Indians.

A reason to play `b6` in a purely Nimzo-Indian position is that it usually leads to slower games where you can outmaneuver your opponent in the long run. A famous example is Garry Kasparov vs Vladimir Kramnik (2001), where black had to win to level the match.

```
      [FEN ""]
      [Event "Botvinnik Mem Rapid Match"]
      [Site "Moscow RUS"]
      [Date "2001.12.08"]
      [EventDate "2001.12.08"]
      [Round "6"]
      [Result "0-1"]
      [White "Garry Kasparov"]
      [Black "Vladimir Kramnik"]
      [ECO "E44"]
      [WhiteElo "2838"]
      [BlackElo "2809"]
      [PlyCount "104"]

      1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 b6 5. Nge2 Bb7 6. a3 Be7
      7. d5 O-O 8. Ng3 Re8 9. Be2 Bf8 10. e4 d6 11. O-O Nbd7 12. Be3
      c6 13. Qd2 Rc8 14. dxe6 fxe6 15. f4 Qe7 16. Rad1 Rcd8 17. Kh1
      Qf7 18. Qc2 Kh8 19. b4 e5 20. Nf5 d5 21. exd5 cxd5 22. Nb5 Qg6
      23. Bf3 Rc8 24. Qb1 e4 25. Nh4 Qf7 26. Be2 a6 27. Nc3 dxc4
      28. Qb2 b5 29. Nf5 Nd5 30. Nxd5 Qxf5 31. Nc3 Nf6 32. h3 Rcd8
      33. Rxd8 Rxd8 34. Rd1 Rxd1+ 35. Bxd1 Qd7 36. Be2 Bc6 37. Qc1
      g6 38. Qg1 Bg7 39. Bd4 Kg8 40. Be5 Nd5 41. Bxg7 Qxg7 42. Nxd5
      Bxd5 43. Qc5 Qa1+ 44. Kh2 Bf7 45. Bg4 Kg7 46. Qc7 Qf6 47. Bd1
      h5 48. a4 Qd4 49. Bc2 e3 50. f5 e2 51. fxg6 e1=Q 52. Qxf7+ Kh6
      0-1

```

Vladimir Kraminik in New in Chess(2002/1), comment after `4... b6`:

> At the board I decided to play the strange set-up that follows in order to keep all the pieces on the board and keep the pawn-structure flexible. Garry said after the game that he had a much better position. Well, it is clear that if you want to win against Garry Kasparov with black you have to make some concessions and play a worse position.
> 5 votes

# Answer
A person (from almost a century ago), for whom the Queen's Indian defense was a favorite, was (then) World Champion, Jose Raul Capablanca.

He was a "slow" positional player, not known for (although certainly capable of) sharp tactical play.

See also, this question.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: opening, nimzo-indian, queens-indian, style
---


title: What is a blunder?

text:
# Question
Title: What is a blunder?
I am looking for a precise definition for a blunder. Computers often flag moves as blunders for any move that loses a point advantage or more. But what if I am completely winning and I decide to simplify the game by "sacrificing" my material plus. The computer may say that I lost more than a point advantage, but am I not more likely to win? There is also the scenario where a move may improve your position as evaluated by the computer but greatly decreases your chance of winning. Thus, I am interested in opinions on defining a better definition of a blunder than the computer uses.

# Answer
The first English definition of blunder I see is "a stupid or careless mistake", and that's how I have always perceived the term in chess. It's not the severity of the error that matters so much as how silly and avoidable it is. If you played a move that takes the evaluation from 0 to -10 because you missed all the implications of a spectacular sacrifice that needed to be calculated out to 10 moves to verify its soundness, that's not a blunder, but if you played a move that takes the evaluation from 0 to -1 because you just didn't notice that a pawn was hanging, that is a blunder.
> 8 votes

# Answer
This is an interesting question. It seems that the higher the skill level, the less it takes to consider something a blunder. A GM may consider getting double pawns in a certain position a blunder while weaker players may just see it as a mistake or may not even call it a bad move. So how you call a blunder depends on your skill level because higher level players can better take advantage of all ranges of mistakes compared to weaker players.
> 3 votes

# Answer
A blunder is a move that gives your opponent enough of an advantage to win, or to get a draw after you should have won.

As someone else pointed out, it depends on the skill level. At a high level, the "loss" of a move or a key square may be a blunder. For intermediate players, maybe the loss of a pawn, and for beginners, maybe one or more pieces.

That is, these "advantages" are large enough, relative to the skill level, that upon seeing one of them, you can reasonably predict the likely winner.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: terminology, blunder
---


# Question
Title: How can I read an Chess Informant Monograph
I have a paperback version of A65 The Benoni by Chess Informant. This is my first monograph ever, and I cannot understand how to read it. Any ways to do it? Searching didn't help at all.

# Answer
> 1 votes
In the very first pages of the book you will find *code system*. It is described in 5 world languages and Serbian.

This is important to know so you can see at the end of the line what is the final evaluation of the position, if there are any novelties or alternative moves and so on.

Then you can skip the pages all the way to the line you wish to investigate.

Main line is written in bold font and the subvariations are given in normal font. This is the important part, and probably the one that confuses you:

If you see a number next to the move, something like **♘f319** this means that there are alternative moves. You can find them by searching for that number ( in our case 19 ) in the section that comes after the main lines end.

Below is the picture of what I am talking about:

You seek the number next to the move in the section marked with an arrow, at the bottom of the picture. Instead of playing `♘f3`, from our example above, you play the move from that section.

That's it! If you have further questions leave me a comment ( for now there is nothing else I can do to help because your question is not specific enough ).

Hope this helps, good luck!

---
Tags: eco, modern-benoni
---


# Question
Title: Pawn confrontations: capture, push past, or leave the tension?
When your opponent moves a pawn to a position where it can be captured by one of your pawns, how should you determine whether to capture it, push past it or leave the tension on the board and make a different move?

I appreciate that the answer may vary with pawn structure, game phase, and style of play (e.g. a preference for open or closed games), and I know that pushing past is not always an option (break moves, pushing to unsafe squares). But are there any guiding principles to make the decision easier? Are there any books or videos that cover this subject?

Ideally I'd like an answer involving general principles but – in case it helps to illustrate them – here are some sample positions you can refer to if you'd like. (Using your own positions instead is fine too, though!)

### Game 1: Black plays d5, White to move

```
r1bqk2r/pp2npbp/2n1p1p1/2pp4/4PP2/1PN2N2/P1PPB1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 14 8

```

Should White capture on d5, push past to e5, or leave the tension?

### Game 2: Black plays d5, White to move

```
rnbqkbnr/ppp2ppp/4p3/3p4/3PP3/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 4 3

```

Capturing (exchange), pushing past (advance), and leaving the tension (Nc3/Nd2 etc.) are all popular lines against the French. Are there any common principles that can be applied to help determine the most favourable line? (Nc3 is most common, but what principles explain why that's favourable to capturing or pushing?)

### Game 3: Black plays d5, White to move

```
rnbqkb1r/ppp2ppp/4pn2/3p4/2PP4/5N2/PP2PPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 6 4

```

Should White capture on d5, push past to c5, or leave the tension?

### Game 4: White plays e4, Black to move

```
r1bbr1k1/pppn2pp/3ppn2/5p1q/2PPP3/BPN2NP1/P1Q2PBP/3R1RK1 b - - 23 12

```

Pushing the pawn to f4 gives up the pawn with no compensation, so should Black capture on e4 or play another move?

# Answer
> 13 votes
This is too complex to have straight principles. Of course there are some patterns that you are going to recognize during your improvement and there are also easy things. I'm going to mention a few at the end of this post. First of all, let me refer to positions cited by you.

Position #1 Key is calculating, always, and this is great example. First thing you should do is asking yourself: what can I do? Can I not react, keep the tension? The answer is 'No.'. Your `e4` pawn is hanging. You can't play `d3` because you'd lose your knight then. `Bd3`? Too facticious obviously. So now comes the question: `e5` or `exd5`? Well, after `exd5 - Nxd5` `c3` is hanging, `f4` is hanging, I don't really like it. There are moves like `Ba3` but somehow I don't like playing such moves. To sum up, after a moment of fast calculation, I'd choose `e5`.

Position #2 You mentioned all the possibilities. Why do people choose `3. Nc3` frequently? It's most aggressive, probably giving best chances. But it's also most complicated, definitely. `Nd2` is also quite nice, if I recall correctly it's Micheal Adams' favourite choice. If you want a draw just exchange and develop your pieces. Positions after `3. exd5` are mostly drawish. `e5` are for closed-positions-lovers. You should know what fits your play-style. If you are willing to be better at french, I suggest you nice video series on this topic by Rustam Kasimdzhanov, I think it's chessbases' stuff.

Position #3 It's also all theory. You can play exchange variation or keep tension. That's also something you should fit to your play-style. One thing is for sure, never play `4. c5` here. That's losing advantage on the spot. Simple `4. ... - b6` and you are not white anymore after few moves.

Position #4 It's calculation...again. As you correctly mentioned: playing `f4` is pointless. It's giving up a pawn for literally free. So again, two choices here. If we don't take, what do we play? `f5` is hanging, so let's defend it. We can play `g6` and create additional holes or move our `Nd7` to `f8` or `b6` to discover your `Bc8`. Once we jump anywhere (same after `g6`) white is going to play `e5`. Black is too squeezed. His pieces are passive, his Queen is on `h5` doing nothing. It's hard to find a continuation. And again, after few moments we are sure we should capture on `e4`. So `... - fxe4` is a move here, then best to exchange Knights since when you are the passive one, you should look for exchanges.

Now few easy positions with patterns or principles.

```
[fen "4k3/pp3ppp/3p4/4p3/3PP3/8/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 1"]

```

You rather don't want to `exd4` because your `d6` pawn is weak then. (assuming there are more pieces of course.

```
[fen "8/1p6/2p5/1PPp4/3P4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

You rather don't `cxb5` because then your `d5-pawn` and `b7-pawn` are weak. (assumption like above)

Those 2 above were pretty easy, now something more difficult (but not too difficult) and illustrative.

```
[fen "8/p5pp/1p1bk3/PPp4P/2P1K1P1/8/4N3/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

As white you should play `a6` here. Whole point is in the future your plan will be something like that: `Nc1-b3-a5-c6`. Taking advantage of impossible `bxa5` because of `b6`. Of course this must be calculated (again!) and well prepared. This is just and example of pattern. Unfortunately, this is probably impossible to paste you 1000 examples here. This comes along with experience and you will notice that for yourself. Those were just few examples, hope you get my point. Good luck!

---
Tags: strategy, theory, pawns
---


# Question
Title: What fraction of a Pawn do the most powerful chess engines (Komodo, Stockfish, Houdini, Fritz, Hiarcs, Gull, ...) use as their evaluation unit?
I've heard that the most common evaluation unit is 1/100 of a Pawn. But some engines use 1/1000 of a Pawn as their evaluation unit.

I've also heard that Stockfish used 1/256 of a Pawn as its evaluation unit (although it was 5 years ago, maybe it has changed today).

So what about the strongest and best-know chess engines: Komodo, Houdini, Fritz, Hiarcs, Gull, etc... what evaluation unit do they use?

# Answer
Chess engines use centi-pawns.

https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Centipawns
> 2 votes

---
Tags: engines, stockfish, programming, point-value, fritz
---


# Question
Title: Looking for a chess program that evaluates my playing and adapts its level to it
As the title of the question says, I'm looking for a chess program that evaluates my playing and adapts its level to it. Maybe Lucas Chess does this (it's said that it does), but I found the tips of the movements I could play were full of mistakes... I don't have a lot of experience in this field and I know Lucas Chess is recommended by people who know chess much better than me. But that was my experience. So I started searching for other programs. I exchanged some e-mails with people at Schredder and they said the program does this, but it is expensive (in fact I don't mind, if it does this), and I want to do a good search. Maybe someone knows a good program for this kind of thing I'm trying to do.

# Answer
> 4 votes
The Shredder app for IOS/Android has the following (optional) feature:

1. The program assigns to you a starting Elo.
2. When you play it, it adjusts its internal strength to match your Elo.
3. After the game, it adjusts your Elo based on the result.
4. The next game, it again adjusts its strength based on your Elo.

As you win more, it becomes more competitive until you reach a stage where your win ratio reaches around 50%.

About it being expensive - I recall paying about $5-10 for it, I guess it's up to you to decide whether that is worth the feature.

A few caveats from my experience:

1. The Elo calculated by Shredder is not a good estimate of your FIDE Elo. I stopped playing Shredder at around 1800, while my actual FIDE rating is less than 1600.
2. Shredder is better than most, but still not very good at simulating "human" play. This is especially noticeable at the lower strength settings - it will play like a GM for a few moves, then make a rather stupid tactical mistake, and then proceed to play like a GM.

If you are simply looking to have a bit of fun, then Shredder is great for that purpose, but if you are looking for a way to measure your playing strength as it would be against human opposition, it is simply not suitable for that - the only way you can measure how good you are against humans is to play humans.

---
Tags: software, evaluation
---


# Question
Title: Why the ratings used for different time controls are different?
The FIDE assigns a player not one but three different ratings:

1. For classical games featuring long time controls, that is, 90 minutes for the first 40 moves + 30 minutes for the rest of the game + 30 seconds increment from move one, the players have a *standard rating*.
2. For games played with a time control of 15 minutes + 10 seconds increment, the players have a *rapid rating*.
3. For games played with a time control of 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment, the players have a *blitz rating*.

A similar method for rating players is also implemented by many websites like Chess.com and the ICC. Why is this done? Wouldn't it be easier and more efficient to measure the global strength of a player to have only one rating?

*This question is based on one that was being closed because of being unclear what it was asking.*

# Answer
> 6 votes
Different (though related) skills are involved in standard chess and blitz chess.

The standard rating is the one that really "counts" as far as people's lists of the best chess players goes. So you don't want to contaminate that rating, used for hours-long serious games, with results from 5-minute games. The blitz and rapid ratings were introduced recently so that players' games at those time controls can count for something without affecting their "real" standard rating.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Take it from me. I am an 1750 ELOist in correspondence games, and a 1150 in blitz. Why would you ask? I am a very slow thinker. The ideas I spew out in blitz aren't as good. There is no time to remember theory, unlike in slow and correspondence chess.(You can check it if you forgot it in the latter) There are other players, such as Nakamura, that are much better in blitz and bullet rather than in slower chess. I can think of some in my chess club too!

In the end, rating is but a number. Have fun!

# Answer
> 0 votes
Of course not! Blitz game and standard time game are two different games...

> Wouldn't it be more easy and efficiento to measure the global stranght of a player to have only one rating?

This is not much of a problem to divide ratings in those 3 categories. It's not people who calculate it, it's not a problem for a computer/system to do so. And 3 different ratings give you more clear picture of strength of given player at given 'mode'.

Of course there are people who play similarily well blitz or classic (so they have 3 similar ratings) BUT on the other hand I know people that their ratings differ significantly. Once upon a time there was a GM on my team rated above 2500 FIDE who couldn't\* play blitz games. He was losing to average players 2000-2100 every tournament. Those were times when we all had one rating. And I think there is no point for this guy to be 2500 in blitz tournaments when he loses 2nd or 3rd round in some random Open. And there are also players who play agressively and unclearly, tacticans. They know surprising variations which are obviously incorrect but...they have great successes in blitz games. So they are rated higher in this mode. I find this solution perfect!

---
Tags: rating, elo, fide
---


# Question
Title: Is it better to take the knight in this position?
This position is from a game I played.

I played `Bxa1`. I'm wondering if instead of `Bxa1` I played `Bxe5` then he might have played `fxe5` then I play `Bd3+`. Is that a better continuation?

I didn't like his pawn on e5 threatening my knight and wasn't able to find a way to get anything out of the position beside his rook, so i decided to play the simpler move, `Bxa1`

# Answer
In the initial diagram position, Black is already so much material ahead that either `1...Bxa1` or `1...Bxe5` keeps an overwhelming advantage. But `1...Bxa1` is the most straightforward, and in any case White need not allow `2...Bd3+` after `1...Bxe5 2.Nxe5`. Black can first kick the knight with `1...b5` before following with `2...Bxe5` to get the `...Bd3+` idea in; that also keeps a huge plus for Black, but still the simple `1...Bxa1` is cleanest.

```
[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[FEN "3r1rk1/pp2npp1/4pn2/4Nb1p/2Nb1P2/1P4PP/P3K1B1/R4R2 b - - 0 1"]

1...Bxa1
    ( 1...Bxe5 $6 {Black starts out ahead so much material that this is
    perfectly fine, but it is not best, and sloppy if nothing else.} 2.
    Nxe5 {Covering d3, so Black cannot pick up the additional exchange via
    ...Bd3+.}
        ( 2.fxe5 Bd3+ 3.Ke1 Nd7 {Black is winning handily, but won't be up
        a whole rook and pawn immediately as in the main line.} 4.Bxb7
        Bxc4 5.bxc4 Nxe5 )
    )
    ( 1...b5 {An attempt to improve on the 1...Bxe5 line, but to no avail,
    and still not as good as just snapping off the rook immediately.} 2.
    Ne3 Bxe5 {Black's first move has deprived White of the knight
    recapture, but we end up in much the same position as after 1...Bxe5
    2.fxe5 Bd3+ 3.Ke1 anyway.} 3.fxe5 Bd3+ 4.Ke1 Nd7 5.Rf2 Nxe5 )
2.Rxa1
    {Black is simply up a rook and pawn with an easily winning position.}
*

```
> 4 votes

# Answer
1... Bxa1 2. Rxa1 Be4 will remove another piece from the game leaving you a rook up.

1... Be4 is also a possibility since you'd be threatening to win the bishop on g2. If he trades the bishop, you recapture with the knight and now you're threatening the fork on g3 as well as the rook on a1.

I probably prefer the simpler Bxa1. You're already up a piece and a pawn. White has no compensation. There's no reason to complicate things.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: analysis
---


# Question
Title: Evaluating Elo rating on a per move basis
I've been a Chess.com user for a little over 3 years now. I play EVERY day, usually have anywhere from 10 to 50 games going on any single day.

Since I've started, my rating has only gone up about 150 points. For the past 6 months, my Elo has stayed fairly close to 1400.

I know Chess.com has the feature of evaluating the games that I've played and suggests what I did wrong, but I have to request all of those games to be reviewed.

Is there another tool/app that can evaluate the strength of individual moves during each and every game, that would tell me the "strength" of the move? For example, if I stupidly put my queen in a position where the opponent can take it, then that's a blunder and would be rated very poorly.

Or, is there a way to automate all of the Chess.com games to be reviewed by the engine to determine how I did in each?

# Answer
> Is there another tool/app that can evaluate the strength of individual moves during each and every game, that would tell me the "strength" of the move?

To be able to evaluate the strength of individual moves, one needs to estimate the difficulty level of the position. This estimation rests on two ingredients: the ability to evaluate the position (almost) perfectly, and a sample of responses for that position from a pool of players with different strength. This is thus an empirical question.

For tactical training, there are straightforward implementations, such as this one:

http://chesstempo.com/user-guide/en/tacticRatingSystem.html

You can add to the accuracy of a solution a time element:

http://chess.emrald.net/time.php

For *any* kind of position, I believe it's still an open problem.

---

A related question is the *optimality* of play. To that effect, Guid & Bratko did an interesting study:

> The basis for their evaluation was the difference between the position values resulting from the moves played by the human chess player and the moves chosen as best by the chess program Crafty. They compared the average number of errors in the player's game. Opening moves were excluded, in an attempt to negate the progress in chess opening theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison\_of\_top\_chess\_players\_throughout\_history

But such study cannot estimate the strength of a player as requested by the querent. It can only evaluate optimality of play, and order players according to this evaluation. This does not give ELO or complexity of any given move.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Yes, such tools exist and they are called chess engines. Look at stockfish, houdini and rybka there are a lot of GUIs (graphical user interfaces for them). They will report inaccuracies, mistakes and blunders and will show you better lines.

Nonetheless you will be able to automate this process, but the question is 'what will you do' when the engine will analyse your ~ 33.000 games? To actually get something from this analysis - you need to go step by step through a game and make some thinking. So I would rather forget about all those games (may be selecting a few that you think are super cool) and start analyse new games that you will play.

Also irrelevant to the question, but as suggested by others learning chess and playing chess is completely different (also might sound the same). I have seen many players who play tens of games per day (mostly 1-3 minutes, where half of the moves are completely random). They randomly win/draw/lose, but stay on the same rating, because they do not learn from their mistakes.

From my own experience (which basically means nothing) I was staying at the same 1400 rating for 4 month randomly playing games. I also thought that this might help, but it did not. Then I started to analyse my games and played longer games (10 minutes), play puzzles and learn openings. I played at maximum 4 games per day and in 6 months I was able to boost it to 1800 and improve it even further later. Take a look at my answer to see some insights how you can advance your game.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: elo, evaluation
---


title: Why did the computer win?

text:
# Question
Title: Why did the computer win?
I just played chess on my mac and the computer (black) won. Here's the final board:

Why couldn't I, white, use my king (D4) to take the black queen (C5)?

# Answer
Because the queen is protected by the bishop on A3. Therefore its checkmate.
> 7 votes

---
Tags: rules, winning
---


# Question
Title: What's the problem with 5. Nxe5 in Spanish Exchange?
Spanish exchange: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy\_Lopez,\_Exchange\_Variation

Using the image in the Wiki page, after 4 ... dxc6, why can't white just respond by Nxe5, thereby gaining advantage by having one more pawn? None of the books / articles I have read has ever even discussed this move...

# Answer
After 5. Nxe5, black has two ways to recover the pawn.

The first is 5... Qd4, forking the knight on e5 and the pawn on e4. White cannot defend both so has to move his knight, after which black takes on e4 with check and has a fine game.

The second is 5... Qg5, forking the knight on e5 and the pawn on g2. White again has to move his knight, leaving black free to take on g2 and gain a tempo attacking white's rook.
> 8 votes

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


# Question
Title: The Knight is stronger in Rapid/Blitz than it is in classical time controls. How many centipawns does the Knight gain in Rapid and in Blitz?
> In blitz, the knight is stronger than the bishop. - Vlastmil Hort

I am using this point value system for classical time controls (at least one hour per player):

* Pawn = 1
* Knight = 3.25
* Bishop = 3.25
* Rook = 5
* Queen = 9.5
* Bishop pair = +0.5

But as we all know, the Knight gets a little bit stronger in Rapid (from 15 minutes to 60 minutes per player), and it perhaps gets even more powerful in Blitz (from 3 minutes to 15 minutes per player). I would like to quantify/evaluate the average strength of the Knight in Rapid and in Blitz.

Therefore my two questions are:

* How many centipawns does the Knight gain in Rapid?
* How many centipawns does the Knight gain in Blitz?

Even though it may not be easy, please try to make estimations as precise as possible.

.

.

@Wes : Well I have at least three sources that confirm that Knights get stronger in Rapid and Blitz.

The first is GM Vlastmil Hort which I previously quoted. He had a peak rating of 2620 Elo and even reached the 1977–78 Candidates Tournament.

The second is this news report from Chess.com about a "death match" which happened only a week ago.

> "Before the match, I thought it was easier to play in blitz with the knight, not the bishop," GM Kosintseva said, reflecting the popular notion that knights can be very tricky with minimal time.

The third source is this Chess.com thread, where a National Master said:

> It does matter and knights are better in blitz ! Take it from someone who has played more than 50,000 blitz games ! Most titled players I talk about this with agree that knights are better in blitz than bishops.

# Answer
I have no mathematical formula to calculate the value of a knight or bishop depending on the time control (which is a related question and was asked here), but as I am mainly a Chess.com user and thus play blitz and rapid on the internet, I'll try to make an educated guess. My answer will be based on chess played with a mouse, not OTB.

There are several factors while considering the numerical value of the knight and the bishop that have to be taken into account.

1.1. The bishop is a long range piece, and this means that you have to make longer moves when moving it and consider more squares it can attack and defend.

1.2. The knight is a short range piece, and thus you only have to care about a smaller part of the board when moving it.

2.1. The bishop can only control half the board, and thus your opponent may easily avoid it by simply placing his pieces on the opposite color.

2.2. The knight, albeit slower, can control the whole board, this means that your opponent's king is not safe of checks anywhere, and checks are quite time consuming (at least from a couple to a handful of seconds).

3.1. The bishop moves (diagonally) are very predictable.

3.2. The knight moves (L shape and able to jump over pieces) are hard to predict, and it's easy to blunder forks when one is hopping around you.

The references to time consuming moves may look quite odd to players that do not use the internet. However, they do play an important role, since the time control is so reduced that almost instant answers are needed in the endgame, and these cannot be easily reached by long-range pieces.

There may be more, but I consider these points, specially the last one, the most important. If we consider the pros and cons, clearly the surprise factor of the knight and the fact that he is more consuming to your opponent than the bishop, give him the upper hand. By experience, I have lost many games and draw winning positions being low on time and blundering a fork to a knight, and also spent a few extra seconds on the clock due to an unexpected check and ended up losing on time.

This is why I consider the knight to be at least **4.00** pawns, while the bishop keeps his **3.25** pawns. However, in some positions (all the pawns in one side, or all the pawns blocked, or the enemy king cut off, or similar positions where the knight can easily outmaneuver the bishop) I would give the knight a full pawn advantage at **4.25** pawns.

I am well aware that this answer is completely subjective, but as said, I couldn't find a way to quantify these advantages.
> 5 votes

# Answer
The Knight is not stronger in blitz, such a statement is nonsense.

It is you that are weaker at calculating at blitz, and the Knight is simply more difficult to handle with less time to calculate due to the kind of moves you can make with it.

So it's matter of how your brain handles Knights nothing intrinsic in the Knight.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: knights, evaluation, blitz, point-value, rapid
---


title: Queen vs rook & knight with all pawns

text:
# Question
Title: Queen vs rook & knight with all pawns
I'm going through a chess tutorial (Shredder). One of the exercises begins where all pawns are in their starting positions. I have a queen and my opponent has a rook and a knight, again all in starting positions.

```
    [FEN "r5n1/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/3Q4 w - - 0 1"]
    [Title "Exercise - Capture all the pieces"]

```

I need to eliminate the opposing pieces or at least prevent them from moving. At the "hard" setting I can't even get close to succeeding. Can anyone give me some clues, or things to consider as I try to "win" this?

# Answer
Attack those pawns on side where is no rook. Once he makes a hole, get your queen on his backs. This way you will be able to grab like 2~ I'd say. Then run with a pawn on a free file.

`1. e3/e4 - Nc6 2. Qh5-h6 3. Qg4-g6 4. Qf4-h5 5. Qh6` just an example
> 4 votes

---
Tags: learning, theory, strategy, best-practice
---


title: Chess software that shows current score

text:
# Question
Title: Chess software that shows current score
When playing computer chess software I find myself wondering "who's winning right now according to the computer?". For example: I make a bad move but I don't realize it yet - but the computer looking 5 moves ahead immediately realizes that I've made a terrible mistake.

The computer AI must have this information internally (it's own evaluation of the current board position). Is there an example of a computer chess game that shows this (ideally for iPhone so I can teach myself while on the train)?

# Answer
One chess program with the feature you are looking for is the Shredder app (available on both IOS and Android for a small-ish fee). It has a dial-like control under the board that swings left or right depending on who is winning, but without telling you what the next best move is.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Disclaimer: I wrote SmallFish.

I would recommend SmallFish on iOS. It's free, and it has the most powerful engine on iOS. It has very advanced analysis feature, look at the screenshot
> 3 votes

---
Tags: software, training
---


title: Deviating from standard Danish gambit

text:
# Question
Title: Deviating from standard Danish gambit
I like to play the Danish gambit opening. Frequently, black won't take the last pawn to complete the standard opening, but instead plays the knight as shown below. I'll generally play Queen to `b3` or `f3`. But then black plays Knight to `a5` or `e5`, respectively, which results in losing the `c4` bishop. Is there a nice way for white to respond to `Nc6`?

```
[fen "r1bqkbnr/pppp1ppp/2n5/8/2B1P3/2p5/PP3PPP/RNBQK1NR w KQkq - 0 1"]

```

# Answer
> 3 votes
Just develop your pieces. `5.Nf3` makes sense, preparing to castle. `5.Nxc3` is also reasonable; if Black refuses to play `... cxb2`, you'll probably have to play `Nxc3` at some point anyway. These are the only two regularly played moves in the given position.

---
Tags: opening, strategy, gambits, minor-variations
---


# Question
Title: How to tell how far you are from checkmate?
What are some tips to tell if you are close to checkmate?

# Answer
It is extremely difficult to know how far you are from checkmate. If you could calculate as deep as you wanted (essentially, solve chess), then you would be able to look it up on a database. My suggestion then is that you try to calculate and see if you find a series of moves that do the job. As this series of moves will very likely proceed from a tactical motif, I strongly suggest that you study a few of the many indicators that allow you to know whether a tactical combination is possible.

As a starting point, you may want to check Chess Tempo and it's Tactical Motifs list, which include many of the most basic and important ones.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Checkmate can occur in thousands of different ways, usual as well as unusual. There are many typical checkmate patterns that you can learn by studying games, solving tactical problems, etc.

You cannot be "close" to checkmate. Either you have a combination that leads to checkmate or you don't.
> 2 votes

# Answer
when the opponent's king is open and you have a lot of pieces around your opponent's kings. Also, if your opponent does not have many defenders.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: checkmate
---


title: Is this assumption correct or not?

text:
# Question
Title: Is this assumption correct or not?
Take a look at this position:

```
 [FEN "4k3/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w - - 0 1"]

```

This is a popular chess "tabiya" at our club. The young students play it quite often actually. I placed this position in Deep Fritz 14 for 10 minutes or so, and it told me the game was a draw. A computer isn't needed to figure this out anyhow. Then an idea struck me.

Since pawn moves are the only ones you cannot turn back, shouldn't this position be with the addition of pieces a draw? I am inclined to think so, encouraged by the popular "Chess is a draw" theory.

# Answer
> 1 votes
If your assumption is:

> If a position is a draw and I add new pieces, then the position is still a draw.

Then this is certainly false. As a proof, you may have a look at the position:

```
      [FEN "r4b1k/2R3np/3p2p1/3Qp1N1/qrb1P2P/P5N1/1B4P1/K1R5 w - - 10 35"]
      [Title "White to move and draw"]

```

Which is a draw by perpetual check. Notice how black is threatening mate and attacking white's queen at the same time. Now, add a white pawn on `e3`, a white rook on `e2`, a black pawn on `e6` and a black rook on `e7`:

```
      [FEN "r4b1k/2R1r1np/3pp1p1/3Qp1N1/qrb1P2P/P3P1N1/1B2R1P1/K1R5 w - - 10 35"]
      [Title "White to move and fail to draw"]

```

Which is no longer a draw, since the added pawn blocks the discovered check and the rook controls the `f7` square, allowing black to either checkmate white or to win enough material to convert without problems. Note that this also works without adding the extra pawn.

A more tranquil position that also proves the assumption wrong is the next one:

```
      [FEN "k7/1p6/pP6/P2K4/8/8/5B2/8 w - - 0 1"]
      [Title "An effortless draw"]

```

Despite being a piece down, black has achieved a drawn position. By simply moving the king back and forth from `a8` to `b8` black has secured the half point. Note how the position is still a draw without the extra bishop for white. Now, add a white pawn on `h2` and a black pawn on `h7`.

```
      [FEN "k7/1p5p/pP6/P2K4/8/8/5B1P/8 w - - 0 1"]
      [Title "An effortless win"]

```

The position is no longer a draw since white can chase off that extra pawn and queen his. If black leaves the protection of his pawns, white can choose to either win by the *fox in the chicken coop* principle or by securing a safe route to `h8` to his pawn. Note that the position arising from the one without the extra bishop is also a win for white.

# Answer
> -1 votes
*Should* it be a draw? Probably. I don't think this line of thinking gets us any closer to a definitive answer though.

---
Tags: theory, endgame
---


# Question
Title: At what point is sacrificing a queen a bad move?
Obviously if you get checkmate from it it's fine, but at what point does it become unacceptable?

# Answer
> 8 votes
If you can't calculate a clear win after sacrificing your queen, do not do it.

# Answer
> 7 votes
There are (basically) two ways to justify a sacrifice: checkmate, or win the material back.

When you sac a queen you are probably not winning the material back unless it's part of a little combination, like setting up a knight fork (although it is possible, especially if you have a far-advanced pawn), so generally you won't do it unless you can mate your opponent as a result.

(I assume that you are talking about "real" queen sacrifices and not something like trading your queen for two rooks.)

# Answer
> 1 votes
It's the queen, the best piece on the board. Sacrificing it is almost always bad!

I think most people never play a correct queen sacrifice in their lives, apart from those cases where it checkmates immediately or the threats are so large that it wins the material back immediately.

There *are* cases where a pure positional queen sacrifice seems to work, for instance there are some lines in the King's Indian where Black sacrifices the queen for two pieces and two pawns, which is not usually considered equivalent to a queen. This is known as Bronstein's queen sacrifice line:

```
[FEN ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 e5 7.d5 Nh5 8.Qd2 Qh4+
9.g3 Nxg3 10.Qf2 Nxf1 11.Qxh4 Nxe3

```

Black will also win the pawn on c4. I don't know what current theory thinks of this line, but I don't think it's refuted.

But, again, there's a reason this line is famous -- positional queen sacrifices almost never work.

---
Tags: queens, sacrifice
---


title: How to go about beating chess engines?

text:
# Question
Title: How to go about beating chess engines?
I play regularly long games (60min each) with Droidfish/Stockfish the depth is always close around 21.

From time to time I overlook taktical flaws in my moves, obviously playing on worse positions against an engine makes no sense, so I take my move back. Technicaly the engine does the same, when it changes the evaluation.

That being said I most of the time end up in endgames that are drawn. With black I have trouble drawing the game but I eventualy will. With white I might have a edge, but the engine just always can hold a draw, somehow blockading the position to force a repetition.

I am a very positional player and i guess that is the reason I get these draws, because I mostly avoid taktical positions. NOTE: I am not going for totaly closed positions, I am playing normal positional chess.

I do not think I can beat the engine with black that would be asking for to much but I will try with white.

I play the Benko Opening wih white (1.g3).

If you are curious here is the last game I played with Droidfish:

```
[fen ""]
1. g3 d5
2. Nf3 Nf6
3. Bg2 c6
4. O-O Bf5
5. d4 g6
6. a4 Bg7
7. b3 O-O
8. Bb2 e6
9. Nbd2 Nbd7
10. c4 Re8
11. Rc1 Rc8
12. Nh4 Bf8
13. Nxf5 exf5
14. e3 Qa5
15. Nf3 Ne4
16. cxd5 cxd5
17. Ne5 Rxc1
18. Qxc1 Qd8
19. Nd3 Bd6
20. Ba3 Ndf6
21. Bxd6 Qxd6
22. Qc2 Qa3
23. Rc1 h5
24. Qb2 Qd6
25. Ne5 Kg7
26. b4 Re7
27. f3 Ng5
28. Kf2 Ne6
29. h4 Rc7
30. Rxc7 Qxc7
31. Bf1 Nd7
32. Nd3 Nf6
33. a5 Ne8
34. Qc1 Qxc1
35. Nxc1 Nd6
36. Nd3 Nc7
37. Ne5 Ne6
38. Nd7 Nf8
39. Nc5 Ne6
40. Bd3 b6
41. Nd7 bxa5
42. bxa5 Nb7
43. a6 Nbd8
44. Ke2 f6
45. Kd2 Kf7
46. Kc3 Ke7
47. Nc5 Nc7
48. Kb4 Nc6+
49. Ka4 Nd8
50. Bb5 Nde6
51. Bf1 Kd6
52. Kb4 Nf8
53. Bd3 Nfe6
54. Bb5 Ng7
55. Nb7+ Ke7
56. Bd3 Nge6
57. Nc5 Kd6
58. Nb7+ Ke7

```

It went some moves on but ended in a repetition.

I am not really a fan of 1.e4 or sicilian type positions. I kinda got the opinion that you can not really beat the engine in a long positional game in contrast to human players because the engine makes very few inaccuracies. I guess the most chances are in a complex middle game. (I would still like them to be positional, maybe mixed with taktics)

I couldlnt really find any good (human vs engine) games where the engine was in trouble. I will take a look now at recent engine games stockfish lost maybe that will give me a clue how to beat an engine beast.

Maybe in the mean time you will have some usefull ideas, because that is what we are the best in (for now).

# Answer
> 2 votes
I just won today with black against Droidfish/Stockfish-5 depth 21.

```
[fen ""]
1. d4 Nf6
2. c4 e6
3. Nc3 Bb4
4. e3 b6
5. Bd3 Bb7
6. Nf3 O-O
7. O-O Bxc3
8.bxc3 c5
9. Nd2 Nc6
10. Rb1 d6
11. Bb2 e5
12. f3 Nd7
13. d5 Ne7
14. Ne4 Qc7
15. Qe2 h6
16. Nf2 f5
17. e4 f4
18. Bc2 Ng6
19. Ba4 Nf6
20. Qc2 Nh5
21.Rbe1 Ne7
22. Nd3 g5
23. Nf2 Nf6
24. Qe2 Kh8
25. Bc2 Rg8
26. Qd3 Rg7
27. g4 Ng6
28. Qe2 Rag8
29. Nd3 Bc8
30. Rf2 Rh7
31. h3 h5
32. Rh2 Kg7
33. Qd2 Rgh8
34. Ree2 Nh4
35. Ne1 hxg4
36. hxg4 Bxg4
37. fxg4 Nxg4
38. Bd1 Qd7
39. Ba3 Nxh2
40. Rxh2 g4
41. Rh1 Kf8
42. Kf2 g3+
43. Ke2 g2
44. Rg1 Qh3
45. Qd3 Qh2
46. Kf2 Rg7
47. Bc1 Rg3
48. Qe2 Rf3+
49. Qxf3 Nxf3
50. Bxf3 Qg3+
51. Ke2 Rh1
52. Rxh1 Qxf3+
53. Nxf3 gxh1=Q
54. Ne1 Qxe4+
55. Kd1 Qxc4
56. a4 Qxa4+
57. Nc2 f3
58. Be3 Qc4
59. Kc1 Qxc3
60. Bf2 a5
61. Be3 a4
62. Bd2 Qd3
63. Be1 a3
64. Bh4 Qf1+
65. Kd2 f2
66. Ke3 Qc1+
67. Kxf2 Qxc2+
68. Ke3 a2
69. Kf3 a1=Q
70. Kg4 Qg6+
71. Kf3 Qf1+
72. Bf2 Qd1+
73. Ke3 Qgd3
# 0-1

```

Well, you can see multiple things that might help to defeat Stockfish: (Should help you against humans, too. ;-)

* Do not give the engine any kind of counterplay.
* Such positions are more likely to be found in closed games.
* Keep pawms on the board, do not exchange to much of them.
* Create imbalanced positions e.g Bishop/Knight exchange, double pawns etc. the plan is to play a long game.
* Play very sound openings.

It is possible to win ;-)

# Answer
> 3 votes
While it is extremely difficult for a human to beat the top chess engines, many of the mobile engines (like Driodfish) are still beatable.

*I will consider **Driodfish 1.53** since that's the one currently installed on my Android phone and is similar to the one the OP is using.*

Engines are very good at tactics, so humans cannot realistically hope to beat them there. However, engines don't "understand" strategy. The top engines can cope with this because they simply think way too deep and can tactically compensate for lack of strategic understanding. They also have good evaluation functions. However, the weaker mobile engines still lack in this area.

So the way to beat these engines is to achieve those kind of positions where strategically you have an edge at the cost of some temporary tactical disadvantage (like material). Engines can often be lured into such positions. For instance, consider this game I just played with Droidfish 1.53. At the cost of a pawn (temporary tactical disadvantage), I was able to secure a very strong advantage for myself many moves later. The computer failed to see this when it went for the material advantage -

```
[FEN ""]
[White "Wes"]
[Black "Droidfish 1.53"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Nf3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 Nxg4
8. Rg1 h5 9. h3 Qf6 10. Be2 Nh6 11. e4 Bb4 12. Bg5 Qg6 13. Bd3 dxc4
14. Bxc4 Qh7 15. O-O f6 16. Bxe6 fxg6 17. Nxg5 Qg6 18. f4 Bxc3
19. bxc3 Qf6 20. f5 Nf8 21. e5 Qe7 22. Bxc8 Rxc8

```

Droidfish 1.53 itself now evaluates this position as a clear advantage for White.

As great a player as Garry Kasparov himself employed this strategy in some of his games against the top engines of that time.

Garry Kasparov vs Deep Junior 2003, Round 1, 1-0

```
  [FEN ""]
  [White "Garry Kasparov"]
  [Black "Deep Junior"]
  [Date "2003"]

  1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Nf3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 dc4
  8. Bc4 b6 9. e4 e5 10. g5 Nh5 11. Be3 O-O 12. O-O-O Qc7 13. d5 b5
  14. dc6 bc4 15. Nb5 Qc6 16. Nd6 Bb7 17. Qc3 Rae8 18. Ne8 Re8 19. Rhe1 Qb5
  20. Nd2 Rc8 21. Kb1 Nf8 22. Ka1 Ng6 23. Rc1 Ba6 24. b3 cb3 25. Qb3 Ra8
  26. Qb5 Bb5 27. Rc7

```

Garry Kasparov vs X3D Fritz 2003, Round 1 1/2-1/2

```
  [FEN ""]
  [White "Garry Kasparov"]
  [Black "X3D Fritz"]
  [Date "2003"]

   1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 c6 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 Bb4
   8. Bd2 Qe7 9. Rg1 Bc3 10. Bc3 Ne4 11. O-O-O Qf6 12. Be2 Nf2 13. Rdf1 Ne4
   14. Bb4 c5 15. cd5 ed5 16. dc5 Qe7 17. Nd4 O-O 18. Nf5 Qe5 19. c6 bc6
   20. Bf8 Kf8 21. Ng3 Ndc5 22. Ne4 Ne4 23. Bd3 Be6 24. Be4 de4 25. Rf4 Bd5
   26. Qc5 Kg8 27. Rgf1 Rb8 28. R1f2 Qc7 29. Rc2 Qd7 30. h4 Qd8 31. g5 Ba2
   32. Re4 Qd3 33. Rd4 Qe3 34. Rcd2 Qe1 35. Rd1 Qe3 36. R1d2 Qg1

```

---
Tags: engines, positional-play, stockfish
---


# Question
Title: What are some common statistical analyses we can run on many games (~20k games)?
I have a list of around 20k games played on a popular online website. I would like to run some statistical analyses on these games. I'm not talking about analysing specific games, but rather finding common patterns that arise.

I've looked at some popular sites on the internet that provide such statistics, but I'm wondering if there might be any more. So far I've got:

* Popular openings grouped by ECO.
* Most common endgames.
* Average rating difference between opponents.
* Frequent players.
* Longest streak (rematch count).

What other kinds of statistics might reveal something about the community, players, tendencies and more?

Thanks.

EDIT:

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I apologize if I wasn't very clear with the question, so let me clarify some things: I would like to avoid analysing all the games (such as finding the point at which its +-2, or finding recurring tactical motifs, as these require going through each game and running it by an engine). I'm more interested in getting information and statistics about that particular collection of games, so having access to more games isn't necessarily a better thing. I hope this can steer the answers in the intended direction.

Thank you.

# Answer
> 2 votes
You can find posistional themes and other interesting info from SCIDvsPC software. Sample of output-

```
4.3 Positional Themes

Frequency of themes in the first 20 moves of each game:
Same-side castling:             73%    White Isolated Queen Pawn:       8%
Opposite castling:               8%    Black Isolated Queen Pawn:       8%
Kingside pawn storm:            15%    White Pawn on 5/6/7th rank:     52%
Queens exchanged:               40%    Black Pawn on 2/3/4th rank:     34%
Only one side has Bishop pair:   6%    Open c/d/e file:                50%

```

I had answered the same on this question: Chess Olympiad statistics

# Answer
> 1 votes
I think it would also be useful to also have:

* Who won - white or black.
* At what move did one side gain a significant advantage (+-2).
* Number of blunders per side.
* Number of tempo gaining moves per side.

If possible these statistics may be sorted by opening and/or endgame and/or user rating.

Also, if you could create chess puzzles based on tactics seen in these games (like lichess.org does), I would be very impressed.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Another interesting statistic is to consider the most common tactical motifs (taking, for example, the list from ChessTempo), and the times they appear (how common are they) depending on each opening.

If you "only" have 20k games, I suggest you take a look at the website 365Chess, where you have more than 3 million games for free.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Some other interesting statistics may be:

* Player tendencies to preserve knights or bishops
* correlation between preserving certain pieces and wins/losses
* game length compared to loss of certain pieces
* Opening preferences compared to player strength

---
Tags: analysis, statistics
---


title: What type of a chess player am I?

text:
# Question
Title: What type of a chess player am I?
I'd like to know what sort of a chess player I am. Am I too much of an attacker, or a defender? Or maybe, a little bit of both? On the contrary, I enjoy attacking and deploying stealthy tactics but I'd like to know from you guys, what KIND of a player am I?

Here are two games from which you can tell my style. In the first one, I play as white and in the second, black. (Note that both of the opponents were defeated due to resignation)

\[First\]

http://en.lichess.org/TB2LHLZi#0

\[Second\]

http://en.lichess.org/TZGTdIyr#0

So there it is; now what do you think?

# Answer
> Here are two games from which you can tell my style.

How could anyone judge something like this basing on **two** games? Imho those games aren't good examples at all. Those weren't any tactical, sharp games and not positional ones for sure. Your opponents just blundered. But you have taken adventage of it, so you're **perceptive**, that's good for you:) A bit offtopic: I'd suggest you to learn some openings, I've got a feeling that you don't have a solid repertoire.
> 4 votes

# Answer
It is hard to tell with only 2 games. But you seem to be a tactical player. You capitalized on tactical errors in both games. Were the games against the same person? They felt like it.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: style
---


title: Play Colle system as black?

text:
# Question
Title: Play Colle system as black?
I'm fascinated by the Colle system, but I'm not sure if it's applicable when you play as black. Does anyone have experience in this?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Playing against `1.d4` a similar pawn structure to the Colle, but with reversed colors for black, leads to a defense known as the semi-Slav:

```
      [FEN ""]
      [Title "The semi-Slav"]
      1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 {The Slav defense to the Queen's gambit.} 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 {The semi-Slav defense to the Queen's gambit.}

```

The main characteristic of said structure are the pawns on `c6`, `d5` and `e6`, mirroring the ones on `c3`, `d4` and `e3` that characterize the Colle-like systems. The standard development for black also follows the general guidelines that are common in the Colle, that is, `Bd6`, `0-0` (although in some variations this move is delayed), `Ngd7` and `e4` when allowed.

This defense is a very well respected one, and it has been used as a drawing weapon by Viswanathan Anand many times. It has the drawback of needing a huge amount of theory in order to not fall behind in development and getting a passive position out of the opening. Players willing to play this need to have patience and accept playing in an somewhat inferior position for many moves before equalizing, and only then looking for an advantage.

---
Tags: colle-system, colle-zukertort
---


# Question
Title: What is the most agressive, tactical, attacking, line in this Mieses?
```
[FEN ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Nb6

```

There are two variations here. Nd2 and b3. Which fits best to the criteria?

# Answer
> 1 votes
I think you are mixing some variations. In the main line Mieses, certainly `9.b3` and `9.Nd2` are two of the most played moves:

```
[FEN ""]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Ba6 9.b3 {This is the main line.} (9.Nd2 {This is the third most common move.}) (9.g3 {This is the second most common move.})

```

However, in the position you are concerned with, you may be much more aggressive than any of those moves. Black has wasted yet another tempo with his knight, and bear in mind that you don't need to overprotect the `c4` pawn as it is already protected by two pieces. Possibly the best move is to develop another piece and go for a mating attack as early as possible:

```
[FEN ""]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Nb6 9.Nc3! {The knight can be developed to a more active square, and has more control over the center, which will be extremely important, since in the main line black gets a passed pawn and white will need to control it.} Qe6 10. Qe4 g6 (10... Ba6 {Should also be looked at for white.}) 11. Bd3 (11. f4 {Is a possible different move order, perhaps over aggressive, which may transpose or get into completely different territory.}) Bg7 12. f4 O-O 13. O-O {This is more or less a common subvariation of the Mieses.} Ba6 14. b3 d5 15. cxd5 cxd5 {Around this move, the book/theory begins to get fuzzy and some other interesting responses have been tried.} 16. Qe2 (16. Qf3 {Is also to be considered.}) Bxd3 17. Qxd3 c5 18. Ba3 Rac8 (18... Rfc8 {Is also valid, but offers slightly smaller chances.}) {This is the main subvariation line, but quite a few digressions are possible.}

```

Although the position is roughly equal, maybe with a slight plus for white, to make a small mistake is very easy, and those mistakes come with great doses of punishment and pain, since a little slip in these lines will very likely cost the game. White has to be constantly looking out for moves like `f5` (which can be played even if the bishop has not been fianchettoed) and black has to avoid getting crushed by the bind the `e5` pawn makes. This is not a position you can play mechanically and positional, but a very complex tactical struggle.

---
Tags: opening, scotch-game
---


# Question
Title: Is e5 fully playable in the following positions?
Can someone provide computer analysis that confirms or refutes the correctness of `...e5`, played in the below positions.

First position:

```
[Title "Black relies on tactics to carry out freeing break"]
[fen "rn1qkb1r/pp3pp1/2p2np1/4p3/3P4/6P1/PPP1NPBP/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.dxe5 Qxd1+ 2.Kxd1 Ng4 3.Ke1 Nxe5

```

Second position:

```
[Title "White loosened control over center so Black tries e5 break"]
[fen "r2qkb1r/pp1n1pp1/2p2np1/4p3/3P4/6P1/PPP1NPBP/R1BQ1RK1 w KQkq - 0 1"]

```

My computer is very old and weak, so I can't be confident in its analytical powers. If you could provide **concrete lines** that refute or verify the correctness of `...e5`, played in both diagrams, I would highly appreciate it.

Thank you.

# Answer
A quick analysis of the first position shows that `0...e5` was playable in that there was not a fundamentally better choice. Stockfish would prefer `0...Nbd7` but the resulting score is only .2 points better than `0...e5`. Those fractions add up after a while, but if one is looking to uncramp one's game, it could be a bargain. 7 hours of grinding shows that neither side gets much of an advantage after `0...e5 1. O-O`. The score settled on about .75 in White's favor.

Here's the continuation at 15 minutes per move. I think this shows that 1... e5 is playable and leads to a sharp game. White retains a slight advantage the whole time.

```

[fen "rn1qkb1r/pp3pp1/2p2np1/4p3/3P4/6P1/PPP1NPBP/R1BQK2R w KQkq - 0 1"]

2.O-O Nbd7 3.b4 Be7 4.Rb1 O-O 5.c4 exd4 6.Nxd4 Nb6 7.b5 c5 8.Nb3 Qxd1 9.Rxd1 Nxc4 10.Bxb7 Rad8 11.Re1 Bd6 *

```

Here's the second position. I didn't see ALNS's message until this morning, so I thought I might as well post the results. There is a deviation in the moves, probably the result of me using the computer last evening while the program chugged in the background.

```

[fen "r2qkb1r/pp1n1pp1/2p2np1/4p3/3P4/6P1/PPP1NPBP/R1BQ1RK1 w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.b4 Be7 2.Rb1 O-O 3.c4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nb6 5.c5 Nbd5 6.Qb3 a5 7.a3 Qd7 8.Bb2 Nc7 9.Rbd1 Nfd5 10.Nc2 Qg4 11.Bf3 Qf5 12.Rfe1 Rfe8 13.Be4 Qg4 14.Qc4 Qh5 *

```

The machine tallies this position as anywhere from .55 to .70 (*through the next 16 moves!*) depending on the exact variation being calculated. That is, there is no appreciable change in the score in the entire variation. It would seem `0... e5` is a viable move.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: analysis
---


title: Correspondece chess on agreed openings

text:
# Question
Title: Correspondece chess on agreed openings
I would like to play correspondace chess, but in order to use it as training for my openning repertoire, I want to agree with the oponent which opening to use.

For example, We bith give a list of openings/variations and agree in which position start playing. Is any website with this functionality?

# Answer
In Red hot pawn, you can create an open invite with any starting position you like. With free account, the number of simultaneous unfinished games is limited to 6.
> 0 votes

# Answer
Gameknot allows mini-tournaments to specify a starting position for all games in the tournament. This is a popular way to explore openings; I do it frequently.

Mini-tournament participation does require that you've completed a few games on the site already though.
> 0 votes

# Answer
On Chess.com you may set an open challenge with a predetermined position (to choose from a list, click the "Show more options" box), and if one game is not enough you even have the option of joining a tournament, some of which have the starting position of a certain opening or variation.

With a free account, you are allowed to issue as many challenges as you want, join as many official tournaments as you want and join one non-official tournament. If you want to create your own, you must go premium.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: correspondence-chess
---


# Question
Title: What should be my approach to checkmating efficiently?
```

[fen "r1bqk2r/ppp3Bp/2n5/8/1b2p3/1P2n1P1/P4PBP/RN1Q1KNR w kq - 0 13"]

```

I was playing a game where I got to this position as black on lichess.org - the analysis said that checkmate was unavoidable for white and it was a mate in 7. I played with it some more but I can't see the mate in 7.

I wonder what should be my approach to checkmating efficiently? Is it just by playing more games or are there some tips I should know?

Thanks

# Answer
There are a fair number of lines toward the end that make the fact that mate is forced a little hard to spot, but it's certainly doable. A couple example lines:

```
[FEN "r1bqk2r/ppp3Bp/2n5/8/1b2p3/1P2n1P1/P4PBP/RN1Q1KNR w kq - 0 0"]

1.Ke2 (1.fxe3 Qxd1+ 2.Kf2 Qe1#) Qxd1+ 2.Kxe3 Qd3+ 3.Kf4 Bd6+ 4.Kg5 Qd5+ 5.Kh6 Bg4 6.Bxh8 (6.Be5 Qxe5 7.Bxe4 Bf8#) Qh5+ 7.Kg7 Qg6#
```

---

As for learning to spot these mates yourself, part of the trick is recognizing that Black's pieces are hugely more active than White's, especially after the White Queen is gone. Black should look to control the White King's movement easily with the two Bishops and the Queen, and mate is surely inevitable. Finding the *fastest* mate is always nice, but at the end of the day, any line will do as long as it doesn't provide an opportunity for White to escape!

When calculating mating lines (or any combination), it's easiest to look for *forcing* moves: moves which leave the opponent with only a single move, if possible. This naturally limits the number of lines you have to calculate. Good candidates for forcing moves are checks, or other threats which must be dealt with immediately. For instance, I found the line above by simply evaluating, at each step, the move that gives White as few resulting choices as possible. Even `5...Bg4` is a forcing move, because it threatens immediate mate via `...Qh5`.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Here you are. Obviously `1. fxe3` is mate in two...

```

[fen "r1bqk2r/ppp3Bp/2n5/8/1b2p3/1P2n1P1/P4PBP/RN1Q1KNR w kq - 0 13"]

1.Ke2 Qxd1 2.Kxe3 Bc5 3.Bd4 Bxd4 4.Kxe4 Qc2 5.Kd5 Qd3
```

followed by mate in next move

# edit

Regarding to comment below: It's about calculating of course. A matter of practise. First of all, you should calculate all the forcing moves: checks and captures. Try to imagine how the mate (final position) would look like. Those are my small advices:) Anyway I think that this position is not a good example at all. See, in this position you're going to take white's Queen. I wouldn't bother myself counting all up to mate. Why would I? The game is already over, doesn't matter if I mate in 6 moves or in 9.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: checkmate
---


# Question
Title: Stop SF MultiPV from returning an upperbound
For a given position, I'd like to compute an evaluation of the 3 best moves. I send this to Stockfish:

```
setoption name MultiPV value 3
position startpos
go movetime 500.0 // search for 0.5 seconds

```

I get the following result:

```
info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp 84 nodes 71 nps 35500 time 2 multipv 1 pv e2e4
info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp 80 nodes 71 nps 35500 time 2 multipv 2 pv d2d4
info depth 1 seldepth 1 score cp 72 nodes 71 nps 35500 time 2 multipv 3 pv e2e3
[...]
info depth 13 seldepth 17 score cp 20 nodes 521614 nps 1575873 time 331 multipv 1 pv d2d4 d7d5 b1c3 g8f6 g1f3 e7e6 e2e3 b8c6 f1d3 f8d6 e1g1 e8g8 c1d2 c8d7 c3b5 e6e5
info depth 13 seldepth 17 score cp 20 nodes 521614 nps 1575873 time 331 multipv 2 pv g1f3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 b1c3 e7e6 e2e3 b8c6 f1d3 f8d6 e1g1 e8g8 c1d2 c8d7 c3b5 e6e5
info depth 13 seldepth 17 score cp 13 nodes 521614 nps 1575873 time 331 multipv 3 pv e2e4 e7e5 g1e2 b8c6 d2d4 e5d4 e2d4 g8f6 b1c3 f8b4 d4c6 b7c6 e4e5 f6d5
info depth 14 seldepth 18 score cp 15 nodes 771138 nps 1536131 time 502 multipv 1 pv d2d4 d7d5 g1f3 g8f6 e2e3 e7e6 f1d3 b8c6
info depth 14 seldepth 18 score cp 15 nodes 771138 nps 1536131 time 502 multipv 2 pv g1f3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 e2e3 e7e6 f1d3 b8c6
info depth 14 seldepth 18 score mate 0 upperbound nodes 771138 nps 1536131 time 502 multipv 3 pv e2e4 e7e5 g1e2 b8c6 d2d4 e5d4 e2d4 g8f6 b1c3 f8b4 d4c6 b7c6 e4e5 f6d5
info nodes 771138 time 502
bestmove d2d4 ponder d7d5

```

The line `info depth 14 seldepth 18 score mate 0 upperbound ... multipv 3 pv e2e4 ...` is not useful to me. It indicates that "1.e4" was pruned from the evaluation -- Since it's worse than "1.d4" or "1.Nf3", it was assigned the trivial upper bound of `mate 0`.

How can I prevent this from happening? I want an evaluation for each of the top 3 moves, not simply an upper/lower bound. One solution is to run another analysis from `position startpos e2e4`. Is there a simpler way?

# Answer
> 1 votes
You'll need to give the engine more time to think.

**Edited**

The poster was concern about *"upperbound"/"lowerbound" is only returned at the largest depth"*.

The question makes absolutely no sense. I don't want to get into too much technical details because you need to understand the alpha-beta algorithm. upperbound/lowerbound is **NOT** something that an end-user ever needs to worry about. It's meant for engine debugging, the information is only and only useful for engine developers. No chess software with a Stockfish engine would tell you anything related to the bounds. Stockfish reports the upperbound/lowerbound information whenever it encounters one for every 3 seconds.

I can't directly answer your question because it is not a valid question. upper and lower bounds are really not something that you should worry.

---
Tags: engines, evaluation, stockfish, uci
---


title: Looking for books on the Benoni

text:
# Question
Title: Looking for books on the Benoni
I am looking for books in the Benoni where this sequence of moves is played, so:

```
 [fen ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6

```

And black's plan after that is g6.

Also if possible that it can be electronically downloaded/bought.

# Answer
Depending on what you are looking for, there are a few interesting books. If you are looking for a book to start to learn the opening, I suggest you take a look at:

In such case, you may also want to round up your repertoire with the companion book:

Which provides a more complete coverage of some similar lines (but not exactly the same, although some intersection is inevitable) that are not exactly achieved through the main move order.

If you already know how to play or what you want to play and are looking only for ideas, then the Dangerous Weapons book is definitely what you may want to check:

Last but not least, if you are already a well versed player on the Modern Benoni and just want to keep up with some theoretical developments in the last years, and what trends are being followed, I strongly suggest the book:

My experience with the Chess Development series arises from the Dragon and Grunfeld books, which definitely are worth the money if that is what you are looking for.

I obviously have not fully read them all. I have read a couple of chapters of the first three books, and the last one comes from my experience with the series as a whole.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Grandmaster Repertoire: The Modern Benoni by Marian Petrov comes highly recommended, ideas are explained and there are many variations to choose from, as is charateristic of the GM repertoire series.
> 2 votes

# Answer
May I refer 'The Modern Benoni' by GM Norwood. Its light weight compared to others referred here, but is a good book if you are staring out.

Then there's 'The Complete Benoni' by Lev Psakhis
> 0 votes

---
Tags: opening, modern-benoni
---


title: e3 vs e4 in 1.d4 openings

text:
# Question
Title: e3 vs e4 in 1.d4 openings
In some openings, like Nimzo-Indian, the usual e-pawn move is e3, while in openings like the KID, White can play e4. Is there some guidelines to know when you can play e2-e4?

# Answer
> 2 votes
In the Nimzo-Indian, Black's entire opening strategy is built around restricting the e4 push. 1... Nf6 stops it immediately. 2... e6 prepares 3... Bb4, which stops it again. Black's takeaway from the opening is that white is generally only able to achieve e4 by making some concession.

In the King's Indian, Black makes no attempt to stop the e4 push other than 1... Nf6 which is of course only a temporary delay. 2... g6 and 3... Bg7 are both aimed at d4.

So, you can tell when you can play e4 by looking at the idea of Black's moves.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Besides knowing the "why" of the variation you are playing rather than the "what" to play in each position, that is, prioritizing concepts to line memorization, I would say that an easy way to check when a push is favorable or not is by analyzing whether the position has benefited from it or not.

It is extremely important to know and understand what white and black are trying to do in the opening. This general ideas may be such as "winning queenside space", "developing quickly", "impeding the e4 push", "impeding the d4 push", "pressuring the e4 square" and many more are what, in general, guide the player to the making of certain moves above others.

If you have not a general idea about the opening, then the easiest way to see if a push is all right is to see if it has no tactical or positional drawbacks. If with your push you are losing a pawn, then it's probably not the best option. If with it you are threatening to win a huge amount of space on the center and cramp the other's position (and no tactical drawbacks arise) then probably it not only is a playable move, but a good one too.

---
Tags: opening, 1.d4
---


title: Famous celebrity chessplayers?

text:
# Question
Title: Famous celebrity chessplayers?
Are there any celebrities, such as artists, politicians, etc, that also have a FIDE title? Also I don't want people whom had chess as a catapult to their job, because Karpov would be a great example of a politician who became so because of chess, or Carlsen whose modeling career is chess-based.

# Answer
> 4 votes
here's a list of some famous chess players who were able gain fame in other areas.Just to mention ,none of them are actors or politicians.

Former world Champion Mikhail Botvinnik was a famous computer scientist and electrical engineer. He was one of earliest pioneers of AI.

Attacking player Extraordinaire Rashid Nezhmetdinov was also a checkers player,strong enough to participate in Soviet Checkers Championships.

Fred Reinfield was an author who wrote several books ranging from Philately,Numismatics to Physics,Geology and medicine.

Milan Vidmar was a very well known academic and electrical engineer who actually became an university's Chancellor(Equivalent to Dean) and went on to build a Institute which now bears his name.

Former world champion Max Euwe- Mathematician

Mark Taimanov- Concert Pianist

Robert Hübner is a papyrologist and was recognised as a leading player of Xiangqi(a chinese board game) who was not from China.

Here are some players who does not fit "famous in other areas" bill, but still were able to build their own career in other fields.

Lajos Portisch- Opera Singer

John Nunn- Mathematician

# Answer
> 0 votes
Jose Raul Capablanca was a Cuban diplomat, in addition be being World Champion, in 1921-1927,

---
Tags: titles
---


title: How to work out quiet positions?

text:
# Question
Title: How to work out quiet positions?
I am a good player when I have a plan. If I have a certain goal in mind, I can see the way to it. But in quiet, planless, positions, I have difficulty as an attacking and tactical player. What is the best way to cope with them.

# Answer
> 5 votes
When there is no concrete plan of action possible, the general plan should be to -

> 1. Improve the position of your pieces
> 2. Trade off bad pieces if possible
> 3. Try to create weaknesses in your opponent's position
> 4. Keep your king safe and see if the enemy's king position can be compromised.

# Answer
> 1 votes
A good middlegame strategy book will help you figure out what sort of plans you can execute besides just attacking ones. I enthusiastically recommend *Mastering Chess Strategy* by Johan Hellsten, a very nice breakdown of all the standard strategic plans and tactics, with hundreds of problems to test your understanding.

# Answer
> 0 votes
It seems you are good in tactical calculations and you can find combinations well, but you lack in strategical moves.

I think, you should improve your middle-game skills. To achieve this, you can read middle-game books and analyse the games of GMs. For example, try to guess the next move in those games, after that try to understand why they played that move... .

On the other hand, there are many useful middle game tutorials and training sites on the Internet.

# Answer
> -2 votes
You could develop an opening repertoire that prevents quiet games. for example, play e4 as white, e5 or c5 as black. Against d4, play f5(dutch). This will considerably reduce "quiet" games.

---
Tags: middlegame, planning
---


title: Opening books, theory on Maroczy Bind

text:
# Question
Title: Opening books, theory on Maroczy Bind
I am just asking if there is any book that cover specifically on the Maroczy Bind structure, which can arise from Sicilian Accelerated Dragon

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

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.c4 Bg7 6.Nc3 Nc6 7.Be3 Nf6 8.f3 O-O 9.Be2 Bd7 10.O-O Rc8 11.Qd2

```

By the way, any suggestions on the way of playing this position onwards is most welcomed. Because for me, I am lost after reaching this position and I just play for developing. Are there any plans or guidelines for white for playing for a win?

The comment doesn't have to be based on the position above. Any suggestion regarding the Maroczy Bind structure is welcomed.

# Answer
> 7 votes
The Maroczy System is covered from white's point of view in *Opening for White according to Kramnik, Vol 3* (2001) by Khalifman. This book contains around 70 pages about the Maroczy. In the new edition (2011), the Maroczy System is moved to Volume 4 for some reason.

There is also a small chapter about the Maroczy in *Wojo's Weapons, Volume 3* by Hilton and Ippolito. Here the focus is more on ideas for white than on concrete lines.

# Answer
> 4 votes
The book Starting Out: The Accelerated Dragon provides a basic but deep coverage of the opening. As the main drawback of the Accelerated Dragon is the possibility of facing the Maroczy Bind, in his book Andrew Greet provides almost 170 pages of knowledge. The coverage is incredibly thorough, including the Classical variation, the Gurgenidze system, the `Ng4` system, avoiding the exchange on `d4` and even has a long chapter only for other playable sidelines.

On this same line goes the almost classic Accelerated Dragons, providing slightly less of 150 pages covering similar material. However, this book is extremely dense and undoubtedly contains more information and in more depth that the other, providing as many theoretical variations and analysis of the positions as prose explaining the matters going on.

For a thorough introduction to the subject, the first is in order, and for a perfection of the positions, the second is a great ally.

**Edit:** Both books are thought (by the authors) to be an opening repertoire for black, but despite their stated preferences for the defending side, always keep an impartial position. Examples of this are present specially on the Maroczy Bind, where black risks becoming too passive (as in the Classical variation) and all authors agree that some of the positions arising from the main Classical variation are to be avoided at all costs, deviating with `b6` instead of `d6` many times. This is also patent in the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon, which is not the subject here but also is covered by the books, where some positions are extremely doubtful and should be played only as a strong gamble and at our own risk.

---
Tags: opening
---


title: Underpromoting a pawn

text:
# Question
Title: Underpromoting a pawn
Is it legal to underpromote a pawn to opponent's pieces? For example, in the below position, promoting White's pawn to a Black knight will be a win.

```
[FEN "r7/kPR5/8/K7/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]
[Title "Underpromotion"]

```

# Answer
No, it is not.

FIDE Laws of chess, clause 3.7e:

> When a pawn reaches the rank furthest from its starting position it must be exchanged as part of the same move on the same square for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight **of the same colour**.
> 11 votes

---
Tags: rules, pawn-promotion, loopholes
---


title: Current state of Polugayevsky/Najdorf

text:
# Question
Title: Current state of Polugayevsky/Najdorf
```
 [FEN ""]
 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 b5 8.e5 dxe5 9. fxe5 Qc7

```

When I was actively playing, 250000 cigarettes ago, the Polugayevsky's fantastic idea of 7. ... b5 effectively took 7. f4 out of practice. What is the current state of the art (at 2000 level preferably)? Did White develop any countermeasure?

# Answer
> 2 votes
With this particular continuation

10. xf6 ...Qe5+
11. Be2 ...Qxg5
12. 0-0

should provide white with good play, I've compared some databases which generally favor white in this position. Instead of B5 many players including grandmasters favor an immediate 7...Qb6.

I suggest looking into some databases(chessgames.com has a fair amount of games as does chess.com however chess.com requires membership for proper database analysis) to see possible continuations since I do not play this particular variation. I can only assume computer analysis has somewhat dealt with the b5 variation since it does not provide black with much development and leaves space open for white's knights.

---
Tags: sicilian-defense, najdorf
---


# Question
Title: Why don't we use this scoring system: 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 point for a lose?
In chess tournaments, when you win you get 1 point, when you draw you get 0.5 point, when you lose you get 0 point.

So we have to use two additional symbols to represent the score of a player: the radix point and the digit "5".
Or sometimes we use three additional symbols: " 1 / 2 ".

My question is: why don't we just multiply everything by 2?
When you win you would get 2 points, when you draw you would get 1 point, when you lose you would get 0 point.

This would simply have the benefit of economizing symbols and making the scores shorter. No more ".5" or "1/2".

# Answer
Because it's a long-established convention and changing it at this point would be much more trouble than it's worth.

In the words of Gerald Weinberg

> Things are the way they are because they got that way
> 11 votes

# Answer
Each game of chess is worth a total of 1 point. The winner takes the whole point, the loser gets none of it, and a draw gives each player an equal portion.

This makes it easier to create player statistics, because each game is worth exactly 1 point. Divide their total score by the number of games played and you get a percentage of games won/lost.

To some degree this is the same as asking why we use pi rather than tau in mathematics. For some operations pi is easier to work with, for others tau is easier to work with.

While a 2 point system would make some things easier, it would make others harder.
> 11 votes

---
Tags: rules
---


# Question
Title: How do I prepare against someone if I have a database of his games
ChessTempo offers a service to see all the games of your opponent. The thing is, it also shows what the opponents played. So if I see 100 times `e4` was played, 60 of the times might be because of the opponent. How can I only see the moves made by the person I'm going to face?

# Answer
> 2 votes
First of all, I don't think that chesstempo or other sites are actually good for preparation. I just took a look and saw that there are only 9 moves of each game displayed. If you are taking chess seriously, it's better to get the chessbase or at least fritz. They are more user friendly and statistics are better.

Regarding your question's title. Preparation is a complicated process. It depends mostly on time you are willing to spend on it. If you got tons of time and the game you are preparing to is very important, you should totally x-ray your opponent looking at all the games. Probably with someone more experienced in order to advise you a little bit.

Anyway, some basic stuff:

1. Check what openings your oponent play and what is his win rate/draw rate/lose rate, you know why.
2. What is your standard answer to his opening? Do you feel comfortable with it? What's your W/D/L ratio there? Are there game of YOURS in database? **Keep in mind, your oponent might be prepared aswell!**
3. Are there any games/variations that your oponent has a big lose rate? How well do you understand those positions? Do you know any similar structures that you could drag him into?

So in simple words: spot the weakness and exploit, that's it.

---
Tags: opening, preparation
---


# Question
Title: Best way to prepare files with openings for future use
I am looking for advice how to prepare opening, so i could easily skim over it after a while. Create databases for every opening with analyzed games? But some positions can occur after different openings. Create artificial games per opening with lots of variation and store in one database? Should i add notes?

I am limited to SCID and Chessx because i use Linux. But general ideas a highly welcomed too.

# Answer
Here I will describe the usual and probably best way of preparing an opening repertoire.

## Black

The usual way to prepare an **opening repertoire** with **black** is:

1. Depending on your style of play, skim through several games with different openings that suit your style of play and *choose one (opening) for every starting move*.
2. Starting with the most played (usually `1.e4`) have a general look at the main line and a couple of important sidelines of your preferred defense. *Choose a line* that you like and feel comfortable with the position. Bear in mind that whenever black can deviate, you may only choose one deviation to begin with, but whenever white can deviate you must have a look at all (or at least most of) the deviations.
3. Build up an personalized *file* with your choice of opening repertoire. This should include the line you have chosen, the possible deviations for white and your answers. When theory ends, you should add a sample game (or even two if possible) with a relevant idea or position on said subline. Concerning the notes, if you find an annotated game (the annotator having a good level, preferably GM and that the game was his) on your pet line (or even if it's not your pet line) with relevant commentaries, it is surely a good idea to include it in your repertoire.
4. This is not always strictly necessary since most people only play for fun, but in general it is useful to check (now or when choosing the lines you want to play) that your repertoire is *sound*, or *at least playable*.
5. Repeat 2. and 3. for the rest of the opening moves.

## Example

Despite the huge variety of opening moves, you may choose intelligently your opening repertoire so that you only have to prepare a couple of main defenses and get away with playing similar positions with different move openings. The main opening moves are `1.e4` and `1.d4`.

I am a tactical player, so against `1.e4` I will play the Sicilian Dragon. Against every possible attack by white (Smith-Morra, Classical variation, Yugoslav attack, Russian system and so on) I will prepare the main line in almost all of them, since it is more probable that the'll play into may preparation that way. Particularly, on the Yugoslav attack I will play the Chinese Dragon (`Rb8` instead of `Rc8` at some point). I will play `Be6` aginst the Classical variation. I will play `e6` and `Nge7` against the Closed Sicilian and so on. I will prepare a file on this defense.

Following this same tactical ideas, and because it also is a fianchetto defense (and I am used to having my bishop on `g7` because of my main defense against `1.e4`) I will play the Grunfeld defense against `1.d4`. The main attacks are (of the Exchange Variation) `Bc4`, `Be3`, `Nf3` and `Rb1`, `Qc3` and others, and againts all of them I will choose a more positional setup (`Bg7`, `c5`, `Nc6`, `Bd7` and `b6` on the main line, and the ideas are similar on the rest), as the opening is already quite tactical to need to memorize hundreds of forced lines. I won't lack of tactical opportunities. I will prepare another file on this defense.

Now, because of my opening choice, against `1.c4` I can use a Sicilian Dragon setup (the symmetrical English), so I won't have to choose another defense. Moreover, against `1.Nf3` I can also play `1... c5` and enter similar positions to the ones I know. This means that my whole repertoire is reduced to "only" two defenses.

## White

The usual way to prepare an **opening repertoire** with **white** is:

1. Depending on your style of play, *choose an opening move*. The general guidelines for this are that `1.e4` is for tactical players, `1.d4` and `1.c4` are for positional players. This however highly depends on the position the defender chooses. Other opening moves are, in general, not as good as those three.
2. Make a list of the main *defenses* to the opening move you have chosen.
3. Starting with the most commonly played, have a general look at the main line and a couple of important sidelines. *Choose a line* that you like and feel comfortable with the position. Bear in mind that whenever white can deviate, you may only choose one deviation to begin with, but whenever black can deviate you must have a look at all (or at least most of) the deviations. This is the exact opposite that happened with your repertoire with black.
4. Same as 3. before, *build up a repertoire file*. The same comment on 4. applies, *soundness* of the lines are generally good advice.
5. Repeat 3. and 4. on this list for every other defense you may face, going through the list starting with the more common.

## Example

As I am a tactical player, I will open the game with `1.e4`. The main defenses I will face are: Sicilians, `e5` answers, French, Caro-Kann, Pirc and Scandinavian.

Every one of them has his own body of theory, but I will choose the open Sicilian (trying to play more or less main lines against all the Sicilians), the Yugoslav attack against the Dragon, the Richter-Rauzer attack against the Classical, the English attack against the Najdorf and Scheveningen and so on. I will also play the Scotch against `1... e5` since it's a very tactical opening. I will play the Tarrasch `Nf4` against the French, which is a very wild line. The Caveman attack against the Caro-Kann (from the Advance variation, an early `h4`), the Hungarian attack against the Pirc and the main line against the Scandinavian will be the rest of my repertoire.

Of course, this has to be well researched and saved in a file.

## Conclusion

This task should not be extremely difficult, but it will be long. I suggest you take a look at this video, as his main purpose is to teach how to use SCID to develop an opening repertoire. Choose wisely, as good choices will serve you well for the rest of your chess life, whereas poor ones will have to be changed over and over.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: opening, software, preparation
---


# Question
Title: Does a typical pawn endgame from Classical Caro-Kann lead to a draw?
Below is example of a Caro-Kann endgame - Evelev - Epstein - with White having a pawn on h5, and both sides with majority on each side of the board. While the game below ended as a draw, I wonder if White could have tried something more aggressive in that structure.

```
  [FEN "?"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5
Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 Qc7 11. Bd2 Ngf6 12. Ne4 e6 13. O-O-O O-O-O 14. g3
Nxe4 15. Qxe4 Nf6 16. Qe2 Bd6 17. c4 c5 18. Bc3 cxd4 19. Nxd4 a6 20. Kb1 Qb6
21. f4 Bb4 22. Bxb4 Qxb4 23. Nf3 Rxd1+ 24. Rxd1 Rd8 25. Ne5 Rxd1+ 26. Qxd1 Qe7
27. Kc2 Nd7 28. Nxd7 Qxd7 29. Qxd7+ Kxd7 30. Kd3 Kd6 31. Kd4 b6 32. b4 Kc6 33.
Ke4 f6 34. Kd4 Kd6 35. Kd3 Kc6 36. Ke4 Kd6 37. Ke3 Kc6 38. Kd4 Kd6 39. Ke4 Kc6
40. Kd4 Kd6 41. Ke4 Kc6 42. Kd4 1/2-1/2

```

# Answer
First of all: position above is a DEAD draw. Only a heavy blunder can change this. No other chances, no more tricks.

To the question: Those `3. Nc3/Nd2` Caro-Kann variations might lead to a drawish endgames. But it's always a tiny tiny plus for white due to those advanced king-side pawns (some possibilities to sac a piece there or something). If you want to get as much as possible out of the Caro-Kann you should get familiar with advanced variation (`3. e5`). If you don't want to invest time, I can give you a small advice: In those variations there usually is knight + dark squared bishop vs knight + dark squared bishop (+ queens, rooks ofc). **As white, your goal is to exchange your knight for a bishop or exchange your bishop for a knight.** Positions after such a trade are often favourable for white. This is a tiny advice but you can try it.

By the way, here is a position that I played a long time ago. Not quite sure about the exact placement of a-b-c pawns, but never mind. It was a dead draw of course:

```
[FEN "8/1p1k1pp1/p3p2p/P1p1P2P/2P2PP1/3K4/1P6/8 w - - 0 2"]

```

Until my opponent decided to play `1. ... - g6` in order to exchange or create a passed pawn on the `h-file` if I'd make a mistake. Of course the opponent was low rated, but it shows that black is able to blunder.
> 1 votes

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Tags: endgame, caro-kann
---


# Question
Title: How can I use Scid to figure how I should divide study time for each opening line?
I have a database (Scid) that is mostly made up of games downloaded from TWIC. I know my rating (low 2000s).

As an example, I want to play the Classical Sicilian as black. It can be reached either as 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6, or with 2...Nc6 and 5...d6, my choice.

Of course, White has many other options as well, and I want to divide my time proportionally. If I reach the Classical 50% of the time (after 1.e4), I should devote 50% of my 1.e4 black training time to it. Maybe 20% of the time 3.Bb5 is played, et cetera.

What's the best way to figure out such percentages correctly?

# Answer
I would recommend an iterative approach to study an opening system. Use it in a game, then analyze the opening with a large opening tree, book and engine. For example, you can use the Chessbase mobile app or the corresponding Chessbase Online site. You can record your conclusions in your own opening database file, e.g. using Scid.

By continuously using and improving an opening system, learning and winning will go hand in hand. By immediately analyzing the opening after every played game (online as well as over the board), you will improve your opening skills step by step.
> 3 votes

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Tags: opening, database
---


# Question
Title: Touching an opponent's piece with one of your pieces
If I touch one of my opponent's pieces with one of my pieces, but do not touch it with my fingers, do I then have to take it?

This question was raised in a junior school when one player touched his opponent's piece deliberately with one of his pieces and was about to take it, but decided against before touching it with his fingers. A dispute arose and as the tutor I was asked whether the piece was deemed to have been touched. Not a bad question from 10 year olds, and I was unable to give a definitive answer. I said I would find out and hence my plea for help. I face them again on Friday and still feel on shaky ground. Help appreciated.

# Answer
> 5 votes
According to the FIDE Laws of Chess, this all depends on whether it was intentional or not (of course, here I'm assuming you play under a Federation that follows the FIDE rules, or very similar ones). **Article 4: The act of moving the pieces** stands as follows (article 4.2 is the adjusting rule):

> 4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move deliberately touches on the chessboard:
>
> a. one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched which can be moved
>
> b. one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched which can be captured
>
> c. one piece of each colour, he must capture the opponent’s piece with his piece or, if this is illegal, move or capture the first piece touched which can be moved or captured. If it is unclear, whether the player’s own piece or his opponent’s was touched first, the player’s own piece shall be considered to have been touched before his opponent’s.

If the move is not intentional (you drop your piece over an opponent's), then you don't have to take it. If it is intentional, it is certainly true that it is not specified if touching is with the fingers or the pieces, but as many players use both, I would say that both apply as touching.

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Tags: rules, fide
---