# Question
Title: What is the opening value of 1. e4 in 2020?
Bobby Fischer:

> e4 -- best by test.

What is the current theory or trend in theory behind this statement?

We have seen huge strides taken in chess AI in the past two years. How is this affecting opening theory regarding the "best first move"?

# Answer
> 16 votes
It's still one of the best moves White can play. There's no clear consensus on whether 1.e4 or 1.d4 is better, but it's played frequently at the top level. Due to advancements in theory, I'd say 1.e4 isn't regarded quite as highly as it was in the past, but again it's most likely White's best/second best move.

Advancements in AI aren't really affecting theory on the first move. Games from AlphaZero/Leela are good for new ways of thinking in the middlegame or late opening, but they're not changing our fundamental opening understanding.

EDIT - also, technically 1.e4 isn't "best by test" currently. In my database it scores 52.8%, while 1.d4 scores 54.4%. But to be fair, 1.e4 has been played in roughly 1.5 million more games, and the types of players who favour 1.e4/1.d4 may differ.

# Answer
> 6 votes
Since 1.e4 and 1.d4 are considered equal by most experts, the value will really depend on your style: If you are a tactical player, you are more likely to get the types of positions that you favor. I am older, and a positional player, so I play 1.d4 for the same reason: I tend to get more positional games, and I am a pretty good positional player.

Whether an opening is truly equal, or even if you have a slight advantage, the real advantage is getting a position that you are comfortable with and have experience with, and that your opponent is less comfortable with. If you are in a tactical position, and the position is technically equal, but you stink at tactics, and are sure to make a mistake, it could be thought of as not equal for you, regardless of whether a computer likes it.

We see Carlsen all the time just trying to avoid book, and get "his" positions.

# Answer
> 5 votes
No. AI has not changed the evaluation of 1. e4. AI is too limited to be able to see far enough into the game to evaluate the first move that accurately. Best you can do is estimate it even with AI.

The best we can do ourselves is look at top GM results. At the highest levels it gives white 9% more wins but over 50% draws. Net scoring white to black is 55% to 45%.

For all players, meaning good players in tournaments not beginners and casual club players, e4 gives white under 7% advantage with just under 30% draws. Net is just under 53% for white to 47% for black.

And at the very highest levels white seems to do better than when used by players at lower levels.

What seems to matter more than the opening is the players themselves: How good they are, what type of position they prefer to play, and other intangible factors such as what moves followed e4 as all the other various openings would have their own statistics too.

The paucity of games by high rated players also colors the results. There are lots of games with e4, but only a handful starting with 1. d3 even though ALL of those games were won by white. Does that make d3 the best first move? NO! It means that Nakamura used it a few times and beat 4 other players with it. One was Carauna! Does that mean that d3 is the best first move? NO! It might mean that 1...Nf6 by Carauna was not the best reply. Or it might mean that later on Nakamura outplayed Carauna and the previous moves were just fine after the position became a King's Indian Defense played by white with an extra tempo.

# Answer
> 4 votes
I'm writing this answer from the chess AI perspective. As of 2022, the best chess engines do play 1. e4 if left to their own devices (i.e., no opening book). Here are links to two very long time control games by Stockfish & Leela Chess Zero, the best and second-best chess engines right now. Both of them played 1. e4. Lc0-Stockfish ended up in a Ruy Lopez Berlin, while Stockfish-Lc0 ended in an Open Ruy.

That said, I'd point out that both engines were very pessimistic about their chances of *winning* with 1. e4. Leela saw ~90% chance of draw, while Stockfish saw ~80%. This isn't surprising, since virtually everyone thinks chess from the starting position is a draw. The goal of opening preparation is not so much to reach a winning position, but rather to reach a position where you can pressure the opponent. From this perspective, 1. e4 remains as good as ever - it was played several times in the World Chess Championship 2021.

---
Tags: opening, 1.e4, fischer, chess-ai
---


# Question
Title: Wrong name and FIDE ID in rated classical tournament
I am play in a classical, FIDE rated event. I entered via my coach. I just gave him my name and said I don't have a FIDE id. When I was playing my first game I noticed that my name is wrong. They added a third name with my first and second name and there was a FIDE id also whereas I don't have any FIDE ID yet (that was another person's FIDE ID).

I talked with arbiter and the one who is working on computer to input data in chess-results.com. They told me to correct the mistake in the sheet (they gave a team-chart to every table). I had talked about it two times. And noticed that nothing had changed in chess-results.com (the name is as before and the FIDE ID isn't removed yet).

The tournament is about to finish. What can I do in this situation?

# Answer
> when I was in the game I noticed that my name is wrong, they added third name with my first and second name and there was FIDE id also whereas I don't have any FIDE ID yet (that was another person's FIDE ID).

So what happened was this.

The arbiter setting the tournament up in the pairing program Swiss Manager got to the "enter players" stage, brought up the right screen, entered your last name and hit enter. The program then searched in the copy of the FIDE rating database, which it had previously downloaded, for players matching your last name. It probably found several and presented them to the arbiter who saw one of them with a first name that matched your first name. He clicked on that and that was added to the list of players for the tournament.

> And noticed that nothing had changed in chess-results.com (the name is as before and the FIDE ID isn't removed yet).

Chess-results.com is nothing to do with FIDE. It is the website associated with the Swiss Manager pairing program. Stuff changes on chess-results.com when the arbiter presses the button in Swiss Manager which says "Update to internet" or something similar. The program then sends the current state of the tournament in Swiss Manager on the arbiter's computer to the website which then updates the information it holds.

You will see nothing on chess-results until the arbiter changes the details in Swiss Manager. They won't do this until they have your date of birth because FIDE require your DoB to enter you in their database.

FIDE will know nothing about this until the end of the tournament when the arbiter / organizer sends the TRF (tournament report form) to the governing federation and they send it on to FIDE. As part of this process the governing federation will assign new FIDE ids for all new players in the tournament from the range of ids that FIDE has given that federation to use.

You need to make sure that the arbiter has your date of birth else nothing much is going to change. Your coach is also partly to blame because they should also know these kinds of things and should have spoken to you about it before the tournament.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: fide, tournament
---


# Question
Title: Why can't a piece (that isn't a pawn) capture en passant?
Why can't a piece (that isn't a pawn) capture en passant? When a pawn makes a two-square move, the en passant rule says that on the next move, any pawn that could have captured it on the single-advance square may do so.

So why doesn't the rule allow a non-pawn piece that could have captured it on the single-advance square to do the same? For instance, in the position

```
[fen "7k/8/8/8/2n5/8/P7/7K w - - 0 1"]

1.a4

```

why isn't the knight allowed to respond `1...Nxa3`?

# Answer
> 18 votes
I believe the en passant rule is designed to cope with the fact that pawns do not move backwards, hence if the en passant rule did not exists you could have a lot of blocked positions, making play slower and probably more drawish.

Differently from pawns, pieces can move backwards, so the black Knight in your example still has the possibility to move backward and stop/capture the white a pawn. Therefore no need of allowing the en passant rule for pieces.

Said that, there is in a special case a sort of en passant like rule for pieces: castling is not allowed if an opponent's piece controls one of the squares that the King would go through while castling. You can see that as a sort of threat of hitting the King "en passant" during the castling move.

At a large extent chess rules are what they are because they resisted the test of time and made an interesting game. Same goes for pawn moves. The 2-step move from the pawn initial position did not exist either from the beginning, it was introduced later to make play faster and more dynamic; the en passant rule was likely introduced shortly afterwards to avoid large pawns blockades.

# Answer
> 11 votes
Long ago, pawns were only allowed to move 1 square at a time (side note: fianchettoing was therefore very common then, as playing e3 or d3 opens the diagonal for one bishop, only to block the other!) ; the rules were modified to allow pawns to move two squares ahead on its first move in order to speed up the game.

Now, this had some major impact strategically because then players could move their pawns 'past' their opponents' and avoid capture, which would have resulted in the need for a major re-think of chess strategy, therefore the en passant rule was implemented to maintain a good level of similarity to the 'old' game.

One possible reason why this rule wasn't expanded and implemented for pieces is due to the static nature of pawns (which can't move backwards), which is not the case for pieces; having a pawn move past a square defended by an enemy pawn to evade capture was deemed unacceptable, whereas it is alright to evade capture by a piece. The strategic implications of the former is extremely severe and would lead to a completely different game, but in the case of the latter it's lighter and the nature of the game remains somewhat unchanged (perhaps because the piece can still relocate to 'chase' the pawn?).

But in any case, "rules are rules", however arbitrary they may seem (don't hope to change them, especially on the basis of "it doesn't make sense!"); to digress: why is the queen the most powerful piece? (Further digression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N\_AhNHrfu4Q). Having said so, questioning the motivation of these strange rules is certainly not unreasonable, and hopefully the above gives an idea over the rationale of not allowing pieces to capture en passant.

On a trivial note: it was actually suggested at a FIDE conference relatively recently (clearly by someone who didn't know chess very well!) that pieces be allowed the capture en passant. Needless to say, the suggestion was not taken seriously!

# Answer
> 9 votes
En passant is, for a lack of a better word, an ugly rule. It does not flow logically from the "fundamental" rules of chess - it is an exception that serves a specific purpose: to prevent players from forcing walled positions with their pawns, effectively killing any activity in the game (at least, that is my understanding). By allowing a player to capture en passant, he has at least the option of opening a file in a case where the opponent may be interested in keeping it closed.

I do not see how this justification would translate to non-pawns. Allowing en passant capture by non-pawns would not add anything to the dynamics of the game. It would be an unnecessary proliferation of an already ugly rule.

# Answer
> 4 votes
No. There is no analogue to en passant captures for pieces that are not pawns.

# Answer
> 2 votes
The rule, as it exists, offers an advantage to the player moving a pawn that is equivalent to two moves in a single turn whenever a piece is denied a capture available under the old rules. Until one of your games is affected, the significance of this rule is seldom noticed.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I don't have an logical answer because I believe one does not exist. None of the responses above — almost all of which are non-responsive — answer the WHY of the question. The fact that pawns cannot move backward does not begin to address why a piece cannnot capture a pawn en passant.

My best guess as to the Why of it is that, the last time the rules were changed, nobody thought to bring it up. Or, if they did, it was decided better to stick with an established rule than to change the nature of the game too much, and this would have been considered too much of a change.

I think the same with regard to the question of why a piece pinned to its king can still give check. Neither one of these two rules is logical, though. They are just "there," and we live with them.

There is, of course, nothing preventing someone from starting up a club around a new chess variant that incorporates these two rule changes. Might be interesting to see just how much it does change the game. Most games wouldn't be changed at all, I think. But for those it does change, ... different outcomes, perhaps.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Thanks for the question. If an officer could indeed be captured en passant, then one would need to undo any capture it had just made, which is potentially awkward. This doesn't apply to pawns, because the famous double hop is defined to be a non-capturing move.

# Answer
> 1 votes
"The 3rd and 6th ranks have pathways that only pawns may enter."

My answer was deleted, I assume because Mr. Towers failed to understand the reasoning and took it as gibberish. I guess I need to elaborate and defend it.

Another answer I have seen is to say the pawns are lightweight militia units marching double time and the other heavy units cannot catch them but other pawns can. Pawns, interestingly, only have this burst of speed on their first go.

This tries to make sense of the game and is one interpretation of the more general answer I provided.

Why can a rook, bishop, king, knight, and pawn not duplicate one another's movements?

Because this is what the rules say?

Not technically wrong, just entirely unsatisfying and missing the relevancy of the question.

Moving from point A to point B is not done by the same path for each piece. Which can be interpretted many ways such as having different vehicles, as the rook(chariot)/knight(horse)/bishop(elephant), or political influence, such as the queen(vizier)/bishop(clergy) etc., or it can be seen as a more abstract mathematical concept underlying the game itself, which takes the game back to its earliest roots.

Look at Chinese or Congo chess or Alice or 3D chess to help wrap your mind around the concept. For example, in Alice or 3D chess, pieces literally leave the board and travel a way before returning. In Congo or Jungle chess, pathways are physically laid out that characterize how a piece can move. Such concepts have been around a while.

While there is no historical manifesto for why the pawn can only capture en passant, what made sense back then possibly makes sense today; still being the same game.

The paths followed by the orthodox chess pieces, exist on hidden layers of the chess board while the pieces stay tethered to the base layer following moves, where they can be displace one another, except the pawn, during its double-move, actually removes itself from play, skips the opposing player's move, moves again, and returns itself into play, all in a single move.

A queen has access to the layers or paths of the rook, king, and bishop. The amazon/dragon piece from Maharanja and the Sepoys has the additional path of the knight added as well. Even still, the pawn remains uniquely separate from all these other pieces.

You can't expect a monkey to follow a mole underground or a fish to climb trees, after all they use different modes of travel, taking longer to reach different locations by different paths and perhaps having no way to reach certain locations at all.

Only another pawn, which moves along the same hidden path, is able to intercept another pawn making this special double move. While such a route of movement is inaccessible to other pieces, this is a dimension other pawns are familiar with and they can still reach through it in order to displace a pawn during its double move.

Pawns are basically time travelers, and only another time traveler can catch a time traveler.

I appreciate all other efforts to justify the reason, even those that are clearly wrong, and I don't see why any of them should be deleted; after all, the answers are voted on.

There are paths on rows 3 and 6 that allow the double move and only other pawns have access to those paths.

---
Tags: rules, pawns, en-passant
---


# Question
Title: Can I ask to see other players' score sheets between tournament rounds?
Suppose I'm in the middle of a multi-day tournament, and pairings have been posted for the next round. Can I request (i.e. request from a TD) to see the submitted score sheets of my opponent from his past rounds during the tournament, for example to refresh my memory of the openings he's likely to play?

# Answer
> 12 votes
> Can I request (i.e. request from a TD) to see the submitted score sheets of my opponent from his past rounds during the tournament, for example to refresh my memory of the openings he's likely to play?

You can ask but in general the answer you will get is "No".

You have no automatic right to this level of service from the tournament.

Many lower level tournaments will not be collecting game scores and so not transcribing the games. The information you want will therefore not be available to anyone apart from your opponent and not even then if they already threw the scoresheets away.

Top level tournaments will be broadcasting games to services like Chess24 via DGT boards and so players can get all the latest games as soon as they are played. In that case there is no point in asking the arbiter.

That said, some tournaments are very good at putting the games online. When I played in the 2019 Isle of Man "patzer" level tournament the brilliant chief arbiter usually had the games from the latest round entered and uploaded to the tournament website by the time I got back to the hotel after playing my game. Simply outstanding and very much appreciated by me.

---
Tags: tournament, preparation, scoresheet
---


# Question
Title: Does Stockfish 15.1 view the stage of the game continuously or discretely, if at all?
If I understand correctly, Stockfish (15.1 at the time of asking this) values material differently according to the stage of the game, "stages" being analogous to what we call opening, midgame, and endgame.

Is the stage of the game an explicit human-enforced metric, or is it really just a positional awareness from the models in use that people often describe as the stage of the game?

In the case that it is an explicit metric, is this metric a discrete one ("opening", "midgame", etc.), or a continuous one (a number that represents how full the board is)?

I would myself predict that a discrete one would not be used since that would make evaluations based on the future more complicated to get right. For example, you would not want Stockfish to avoid a good move because it turns an opening into a midgame where the measurements of the position are significantly different and result in a (poorly compared) decline in the current position and material score. Even at greater analysis depths, this would be a measurable problem since the transition of stage affects many branches.

# Answer
Chess engines use tapered evaluation functions. Stockfish computes the evaluation score for both middlegame and endgame, then interpolates between the two to decide the state the game is in.

More information is available in the Stockfish Evaluation Guide:

> **Main evaluation**
> An evaluation function is used to heuristically determine the relative value of a positions used in general case when no specialized evaluation or tablebase evaluation is available. In Stockfish it is never applied for positions where king of either side is in check. Resulting value is computed by combining Middle game evaluation and End game evaluation. We use Tapered Eval, a technique used in evaluation to make a smooth transition between the phases of the game. Phase is a coeficient of simple linear combination. Before using End game evaluation in this formula we also scale it down using Scale factor.

There you can also find a JavaScript implementation of the Stockfish evaluation.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: engines, stockfish
---


title: Does normal Stockfish handle Chess960?

text:
# Question
Title: Does normal Stockfish handle Chess960?
Is vanilla Stockfish perfectly capable of understanding Chess960 games (including the way castling works), or do you need to use something like Fairy-Stockfish to get the best results?

It seems like normal Stockfish should work, but I want to be sure.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Normal Stockfish can handle FRC positions. You just need to tell it that it is a FRC game - which shouldn't be a problem since it should be apparent from the FEN you give it.

As can be seen from the code, normal Stockfish has a "isChess960" boolean which, as its name implies, tells the engine if the position is a Chess960 position and calls the relevant functions if true.

# Answer
> 6 votes
Vanilla Stockfish uses the castling rule given in article 3.8.2 of the FIDE Laws of Chess. In that rule the king is always on the e file and the rook either on the a file or h file.

In Chess960 the files the rooks and kings can be on are different. If they are on the "correct" files then castling will work. If not then castling will not work.

---
Tags: stockfish, chess960
---


# Question
Title: Can someone press the clock without making a move to avoid getting flagged in 2022?
As the title says let's say it is a 1 hour 30 minute game with 30 seconds increment/move. Now if someone deliberately presses the clock at the last second without moving to avoid flagging and get the 30 second increment. How is this handled?

1. Is it counted as an illegal move (I believe 2nd illegal is lost)?
2. If it is counted as an illegal move does he get to keep the 30 seconds added while the opponent get the 2 minutes extra?

Simply can someone use this as a trick to avoid getting flagged out of desperation?

# Answer
> Is it counted as an illegal move (I believe 2nd illegal is lost)?

The FIDE Laws of Chess are very clear on this:

> 7.5.3 If the player presses the clock without making a move, it shall be considered and penalized as if an illegal move.

So, yes.

> If it is counted as an illegal move does he get to keep the 30 seconds added while the opponent get the 2 minutes extra?

Not if the arbiter is any good.

But note that the player would gain thinking time while the opponent works out what has happened, stops the clocks, calls the arbiter, explains to the arbiter what has happened, the arbiter makes the (hopefully correct) decision and adjusts the clocks.

That could still be very valuable and is likely to also be taken into consideration by the arbiter who might warn the player that any repeat such action could lead to automatic loss and maybe even ejection from the tournament.
> 9 votes

---
Tags: rules, fide, illegal-move, time-management, arbiters
---


title: What is a pawn break?

text:
# Question
Title: What is a pawn break?
I did some research (Google), but it still unclear to me on exactly what a pawn break is.

I was reading this question: The theory of pawn breaks
It is about the theory of pawn breaks, but before I could understand this, it would be helpful if I actually knew what a pawn break is.

If someone can explain it simply and with some diagram(s), that would be great.

# Answer
> 24 votes
A pawn break is a pawn move designed to free the player's position.

Generally speaking, a pawn move is only called a pawn break when the moving pawn is on a file adjacent to two enemy pawns facing each other, and the pawn moves forward to the same rank as the player's other pawn.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words...

```
[FEN "8/8/8/4p3/3pP3/3P4/2P2P2/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

White can play either `1. c3` or `1. f4` and these moves would be considered pawn breaks because they attack a black pawn that is blocking a white pawn (the `d` and `e` pawns respectively).

`1. f3`, however, is *NOT* a pawn break because it does not attack an enemy pawn. Similarly `1. c4` is not a pawn break, even though black could capture the pawn with `1... dxc3 e.p.` and get to the same resulting position because again, it does not attack a black pawn.

# Answer
> 6 votes
A pawn break is a "clash" of pawns that results in an exchange of pawns. For instance, if White has pawns on d4 and e4, and Black has pawns on d6 and e6, White's move to e5 (or d5) might cause a pawn break if Black elects to exchange. If Black plays d5 in response to e5 or 35 in response to d5, he avoids a pawn break.

# Answer
> 3 votes
For what it's worth, when I asked the question you mention, I had in mind a position like this (black to move):

```
[FEN "rnbq1rk1/pppp1ppp/4pn2/8/1bPP4/2NBP3/PP3PPP/R1BQK1NR b KQ - 0 1"]
[startflipped ""]

```

The question regarded whether black should push the c-pawn or the d-pawn, or push neither, or prepare something before pushing. Of course, the question did not regard *this particular* position, nor was it specific to the opening or to the midgame; but it regarded rather the principles that guide the black player to open files from such positions generally.

*Update:* In response to helpful comments: I do not know for sure how the term *pawn break* is conventionally defined. I should defer to @Andrew's and @TomAu's answers. Nevertheless, *pawn break* is the term I seem to have heard opponents use for the act of pushing a pawn with the intent to force a file open.

Thus, to answer the question directly, to the extent to which my terminology is correct, d7-d5 would constitute a pawn break in the position diagrammed, because the likely and intended effect of such a pawn move would be to open, or half-open, one or more files by trading off the pawns that occupy the files.

# Answer
> 0 votes
In his excellent book **The Giants of Strategy** Neil McDonald proposes a slightly different definition of *pawn break*. Reviewing games of Capablanca & Nimzowitsch he defines pawn break as "putting another pawn alongside your most advanced pawn" (p 111). An interesting idea, although narrower and somewhat different from other answers.

---
Tags: pawns, pawn-structure, closed-position
---


# Question
Title: Basic "mate in one move" puzzle - what am I missing?
I am extremely new to chess and have been working through some "mate in one" problems on chesspuzzles.com for practice. This one has me very confused though:

The stated answer is:

> Bg6#

But why? Can't black's king move to d8 or e7 after that? I feel like I must be missing something very obvious, but can't for the life of me see what it is...

# Answer
> 26 votes
You are absolutely right! The black king can move to d8 and e7 and then there's no follow up mate. Most probably there's a white queen/bishop on h4 to prevent the black king from escaping (which is not shown in the figure). In that case, Bg6# is a checkmate.

```
[Title "Mate in One"]
[FEN "r1b1kb1r/pp1n2p1/1qp1p2p/8/2PP3Q/3B1N2/P4PPP/R4RK1 w Qkq - 0 1"]

```

---
Tags: learning, problems, beginner
---


# Question
Title: 2 GM Norms in 24 hours - first time ever?
Chess.com reports that 17-year-old Frederik Svane has scored 2 GM Norms In 24 Hours and asks if this is a record:

> 17-year-old Svane, the youngest of the two brothers (Rasmus recently turned 25), scored his first GM norm in October 2021 at a round-robin in Kiel, Germany, where he finished in second place and reached the necessary 6.5 points by winning the last two rounds on demand.
>
> The second GM norm came last Friday, when Svane finished another closed GM tournament, this time at the local Hamburg Chess Club. The scenario was almost the same: he again came second with the necessary 6.5 points, this time winning the last three rounds on demand.
>
> Meanwhile, Frederik had played a pretty good Bundesliga season for his Hamburg club, where he had collected six points in the first eight rounds. You may guess it: also here, against pretty strong opposition, he needed 6.5 points for a GM norm. His opponent on Saturday, GM Eduardas Rozentalis, who had celebrated his 59th birthday the day before, didn't mind a quick draw, and so Svane had achieved something unique: two norms in a day! \[Ed: Friday and Saturday are not the same day. Stick to 24 hours\]

# Answer
> 6 votes
Well, this was painful. The data inserted by FIDE was inconsistent, there were duplicate entries and some records didn't even exist. Anyways:

### No, this does not seem to be a new record!

**Peng, Li Min** (title application) won two GM norms **in the same day** (*Elitzur GM Winter 2020 A Stage 1* and *Elitzur GM Winter 2020 C Stage 1* both ended on 2021-03-11)

---

I needed to check 2 large categories of players:

1. Those who had earnt at least two GM norms (Norms tab).
2. Those who already had the GM title (Applications tab).

---

1. The JSON data is available in this URL. We're only interested in the player's name and their id. Now, for each of the players, make a request to `https://ratings.fide.com/a_titles.php?record2=<playerId>` to get information about the norms they've earnt.
2. For those who already are GMs this is slightly harder. For each FIDE Council/PB, fetch all application by making a GET request to `https://ratings.fide.com/a_titles.php?pb=<id>` (`1 < id < 70` at the time of writing), get *only* the Grandmaster applications, for each applicant make a request to `https://ratings.fide.com/a_titles.php?record=<playerId>`. Parse the HTML and sort as above.

Combine both steps, sort and output.

This is the JavaScript code I ran to get the above results. You can copy-paste it in the console on a https://ratings.fide.com page to test for yourself.

---
Tags: fide, grandmaster, records, norm
---


# Question
Title: Why are there 64 squares on a chessboard?
My question is, why not 36, 49, 81 or some other square number? Do any historical sources point to how and why chess came to be played on 64 squares in particular? Has it always been so?

# Answer
> 8 votes
Nothing is stopping you from playing chess in a 4x4, 6x6 or 9x9 board. In ancient times people have tried such approaches.

To answer why 64 squares, I have to answer a bit mathematically. Let me start with this:

> \[Chess, in\] its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaṅga, which translates as "four divisions (of the military)": infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry.

It says that chaturanga means 'game of squares' and it also mentions 4 divisions of military, where 1 division = 8 pieces (4 pawns + 4 main pieces). So 4x4 = 16 pieces each side. This also means, all in all, a total of 32 pieces in the board (8 in each row).

For 32 pieces to be fully mobile on the board, 36 squares would be too congested and not possible; 49 squares would be still too congested; 64 sure makes sense, and is also the perfect square of 8.

# Answer
> 6 votes
Capablanca advocated for a 10x10 chess board. He was concerned that chess was getting played out, that there were far too many draws, so his response to that problem was to create two new pieces and play the game on a 10x10 board with ten pawns and ten pieces.

Eight, being a power of two, makes for an easily drawn board:

1) Start with a big square. 2) Divide that square in half, both vertically and horizontally. (result: 4 squares.) 3) Divide each of the resulting squares in half similarly. (Result: 16 squares.) 4) Divide each of those squares in half similarly. (Result: 64 squares.)

Successively dividing larger squares in half is fairly easy for the eye to do, without the aid of any sort of measuring device. If you want more precision, you can use a string tied around a marker (pencil, chalk, whatever) and a straightedge and make a 64-square chess board with almost as much precision as someone using a high-precision ruler. You couldn't do that for any size of board that isn't a power of two.

# Answer
> 4 votes
64 is a whole square, so that it is as wide as it is long.

It happens that it is also THE MOST suitable option for a chess game, because:

1. It is big enough to allow multiple maneuvers and strategical possibilities.
2. It is small enough to let general guidelines be formed.
3. The back-rank pieces (2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, 1 queen, 1 king) also necessitates a 8-row board. If you wanted to make it 81 (9x9) pieces board, you will have to add another piece (an extra queen?). But on such a big board, each game would at least require 30 minutes to finish, if not more. Blitz and bullet chess would not be an option.
4. IF there were 128 or 32 squares, you would be asking "Why this number of squares? Why not its double or half?" It is like asking, why does a right angle contain 90°?

# Answer
> 3 votes
We should ask the inventors :) I think that they were playing another game on a 8x8 board (chaturanga?) and were lacking one or 2 players. Could also have been 10x10 (draughts), 19x19 (Go), 9x10 (Chinese chess with 18 pieces each), or any other number of fields.

# Answer
> 1 votes
In ancient India the numbers 4, 8 & 16 were special. There are 4 Vedas ( books of wisdom ) and 16 Vedic aphorisms. The oldest fourth-order magic square is found in Indian writing of about 587 current era. In computer design there is an 8x8 Vedic multiplier. The 8x8 square, grid or array was held special by the Hindus and likely preceded the game of chess.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I think Chaturanga grew up at a time when there were three kinds of auxiliary troops: elephants, cavalry and chariots, which were deployed on the wings. With one general, that makes 7. However an odd number would mean that the elephants of one side are on the same colour square. So one can rationalise eight as the sweet number. However Chinese chess is 9x10 and Japanese Chess is 9x9 so what do I know?

# Answer
> 0 votes
It’s 64 squares but actually 2 sets of 32 because it represents 2 full sets of teeth. The rook represents wisdom, like wisdom teeth, hence it’s placement on the game board being in the back corner and is the only piece who can castle with the king meaning only wisdom can switch places with the king.

---
Tags: history, chessboards
---


# Question
Title: Has anyone attempted to characterize chess mathematically?
From years of being student, researcher, and practitioner of chess, I feel like it possesses completeness and elegance that are found in mathematical proofs and theories. Thus, it seems only natural to imagine that it should be possible to describe chess in mathematical terms. By that I mean an elegant description, like a compact set of formulas or a proof that chess belongs to such and such field of mathematics. Intuitively, it feels like it should be able to fit in group theory. Does anyone know what attempts have been made in this regard? I would like to specifically exclude engines, neural networks, and the like from the discussion because, despite the obvious success in increasing the quality of play, those attempts do not constitute theoretical proof.

# Answer
There are many different aspects of chess which can be formalized mathematically. Since the 19th century at least, chess has been mined as a resource to drive mathematical innovation. So when talking about a mathematical **characterization** of chess, it's not a single modeling that we are talking about, which grabs every feature, but rather a number of models, in which the power of each is paradoxically in the **letting go** of some aspect of chess which is not relevant for that analysis.

* Perhaps the earliest success (not counting the counting :-) of **grains of rice** on a chessboard) was **Zermelo's Theorem** (yes by one of the founders of ZF Set Theory) which states that in chess "either White can force a win, or Black can force a win, or both sides can force at least a draw".
* **Combinatorial Game Theory** (developed by celebrated mathematicians John H. Conway, Elwyn Berlekamp and Richard Guy) has been successfully applied to chess. A couple of assumptions in this theory go against its general applicability to chess though. One is that a win in CGT is solely if your opponent can’t move which does not address stalemate. Secondly there is the notion of “entailing move” (e.g. check) where if one person plays, the other player must respond rather than the first player playing again. But Noam Elkies has derived some non-trivial results in chess endgames by computing their CGT value - references given in his chess page http://www.math.harvard.edu/~elkies/chess.html: "On Numbers and Endgames" and "Higher Nimbers \[sic\] in Pawn Endgames on Large Chessboards".
* You mentioned **group theory** \- well curiously the set of combinatorial games under composition does form an abelian group! To be fair, the two obstacles mentioned above do prevent chess itself from behaving in this way.
* There is a massive amount of combinatorial work which has been done around the chessboard. Vaclav Kotesovec has published online an 800 page book *just* on the subject of non-attacking chess pieces (**generalizing the 8 queens problem** massively). See http://www.kotesovec.cz/ for the link. This is related to Magic Squares, Experimental Design, etc.
* There is also, starting in Finland with Eero Bonsdorff, a long lineage in path enumeration chess problems, counting the number of ways that a position can be reached. This often involves the analysis of **Standard Young Tableaux**, which also underpin representation theory of symmetric groups. Fibonacci numbers, Catalan numbers and Euler numbers are all frequently found here, together with other combinatorial identities whose realization can be found lurking in ingenious chess compositions. See https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de/search.jsp, and type g='mathematics' in the search box.
* The **Knight's Tour** problem is also famous for helping to push the study of Hamiltonian graphs, and particularly the challenge of counting the number of such objects. See https://www.mayhematics.com/t/t.htm.
* The theory of **computation** also asks about the complexity of chess. Generalizations of chess to larger nxn boards are for example EXPTIME-complete: *A. S. Fraenkel and D. Lichtenstein, "Computing a perfect strategy for nxn chess requires time exponential in n", Proc. 8th Int. Coll. Automata, Languages, and Programming, Springer LNCS 115 (1981) 278-293 and J. Comb. Th. A 31 (1981) 199-214.*
* Determination of **legality & dead position** are both PSPACE-complete on nxn boards: *Josh Brunner, Erik D. Demaine, Dylan Hendrickson, Julian Wellman "Even Cooperative Chess is Hard", arXiv:2010.09271v1 \[cs.CC\] 19 Oct 2020*
* **Full axiomatization of generalized chess** I think there is also research value in a mathematical description of how chess conventions apply consistently to chess problems including fairy chess. Guus Rol has a very ambitious program which reduces each turn to “micro-phases” and claims to be able to determine with great accuracy how fairy conditions interact in complex “retro-active” situations, where both retro and forward logic is necessary. I don’t know if he will ever complete his theory.
* **Limited axiomatization**: I personally would like to see a more modest theory, which treats each move as atomic and although it doesn’t cover fairy chess so well, at least can cover retro-active aspects of problem conventions such as castling and e.p. Even that has not been done yet.
* The mathematical physicist Roger Penrose published a chess position about 2 years ago which was intended to argue his long-held position that there is a fundamentally different kind of reasoning displayed by humans than an AI grounded in **computable functions** can demonstrate. See https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-chess-problem-holds-the-key-to-human-consciousness
* Even though the theory of random graphs, and **Monte Carlo analysis** has been applied very successfully to engines, particularly the most recent generation, I don't think this disqualifies it from being considered a mathematical theory.
* There is also a linear algebra approach to counting moves and positions. “If chess is a **graph**, what is its **maximum eigenvalue**?” is a very real and interesting question. See Francois Labelle's site at http://wismuth.com/chess/statistics-games.html
* **Linear algebra** can be applied successfully to other chess-related questions e.g. how many ways are there for a rook to move from a1 to h8 in exactly n moves? How about a king?
* For many years, the well-known mathematicians and chess problemists, **Noam Elkies & Richard Stanley**, have been collaborating on a book on chess and mathematics. I don't know when it will finally emerge, or whether they have given up on this. But "The Mathematical Knight" given on Noam's chess page linked earlier perhaps gives a foretaste of that book. Richard Stanley is one of the leading lights in Combinatorics: see http://www-math.mit.edu/~rstan/chess/queue.pdf, and Noam's birthday article https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0508645.pdf
* There is also perhaps a role for some kind of "probabilistic mechanics" or some such, to explain large-scale **behaviours in tablebases**. Why, for example, does there not appear to be an increase in the maximum length of winning lines when one scales from 7 pieces to 8 in the board?

**A few books**

* There is also already a book "Mathematics and Chess" by Miodrag S. Petkovic, reprinted by Dover, that if you can excuse the typos contains a raft of different math puzzles inspired by chess. Particularly I liked the geometrical ones, many of which were new to me.
* A comment below mentioned "Games & Mathematics" by David Wells, which gives chess as an example of an abstract game, and also devotes a chapter to how chess is not mathematics.
* Another excellent Dover reprint is the late John Beasley's "The Mathematics of Games", which chess examples throughout. He was an endgame theorist involved with early tablebases, but had a sense of whimsy which led to many other problems. Particularly Chapter 10 "When the counting has to stop" examines what makes chess *hard*, to play and to analyze with mathematics.

**Other links**

Some of these ideas are listed in a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mathematical\_chess\_problems, and there's a more specific page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical\_chess\_problem.

If anyone else has other examples of chess and mathematics, please mention them in comments and I will try to incorporate them in this response. If anyone has links that illustrate the topics I am mentioning, please add them, thanks.

Finally: math.stackexchange.com has 1300 entries related to chess!?!
> 40 votes

# Answer
Here are some starting spots in reading up on Game theory which is the mathematical tool that would be most appropriate for making claims about chess.

This is a light history of early game theory. Chess is a "perfect information game" and there are some interesting things one can claim about this category of games. See this for example. I would also read up on Claude Shannon. Shannon's number gives a bound on game complexity tree. For standard chess we have an intractable puzzle but you could make a smaller variants and solve these smaller games. Here's an example of this. The authors claim to have solved a smaller 5x5 variant of chess.
> 9 votes

# Answer
Not really. At least not serious mathematicians.

It is covered somewhat in Game Theory but other approaches like Group Theory do not seem to fit; although there might some higher dimensional non-linearish type description that could be found.

So Algebra which includes Groups, and Topology too, seem to be out but perhaps it could fit in Analysis if somebody cared enough to try it. But that would an advanced mathematician who would be more likely to attempt a better problem that would lead to their PhD and a job teaching.
> 3 votes

# Answer
The rules of chess are very mathematical already. All pieces move in a very strict way and all the rules are totally deterministic. The board itself is 8x8. Black and white squares mathematically do not have any particular meaning.

Can you model chess rules using group theory? Certainly. But, it would be quite some task to define anything useful out of it. Can you model chess using language theory? Again, sure, matrix theory, state machine, graph theory...? Absolutely. It might be even fun to do that. There is nothing in particular that makes all these modeling impossible or weird.

However, these would not be able to play chess really, only move figures around in a correct manner.

And that is not what chess is about. At the moment, we are really trying to minimize the memory that is consumed by one recorded position and then using various heuristics(, because that is what playing chess is: it is a heuristic science, and it is unlikely that we will ever be able to make it anything more than that), we are trying to calculate the next best move either in our heads or using computer.

So the best possible mathematical description of chess, with the purpose of playing it well, at the moment is *a set of heuristic algorithms* for deciding the next best move. Beyond that is just a pure compactification problem of describing a position with the least possible amount of memory.

There is an area of describing chess using machine learning algorithms, but this is nothing more than trying various heuristics and using raw computer power to decide which are playing better chess. You just apply all known statistical methods and try to fit a winning strategy with some of them. Nothing really smart about artificial intelligence. That is why it is called artificial. ;)
> 3 votes

# Answer
I'd like to add some reflections to the answers. First, we probably have to distinguish how chess is played by a chessplayer, computer, or mathematician. The main point here is that these three may use different criteria when making moves. The mathematician tries to optimize his or her game in general while a chessplayer or neural network may use local criteria. In its turn, the chessplayer may wish to make the game interesting rather than just to win. Thus, analyzing the criteria, we may apply mathematics that includes not only the pure optimization but also symmetries, i.e. group theory. To my mind, mathematics is more about such kind of beauty and that's why it can be applied to chess in a non-trivial way.

Now, I'll try to describe mathematically one of the "symmetrical" criteria which is well-known for a chessplayer (though I'm not a professional player). At the beginning of the game, white has 20 moves, and one could not use all of them according to his or her preferences. But it seems rather natural that the number of moves satisfying some strategy decreases in time. Thus, if two players built the decision tree they would find out that the outdegrees of vertices become smaller and smaller. Thus, the player may wish to *terminate* the game finding such a move that leads to a *path*, that is a part of the decision tree s.t. each its vertex is followed exactly by one vertex. This corresponds to the situation when two players both don't know the result and it's the game that shows it in a clear way. To generalize the task, one may wish to find the moves that lead to an abstract subgraph of the decision tree (say, with a well-known group of symmetries).

P.S. Yet another way to think how group theory can be applied in chess is to note that the moves of **K**, **Q**, **R**, **B**, **N** form natural groups with at most 4 generators.
> 2 votes

# Answer
As an applied mathematician, I feel that mathematics very seldom solves any problem in a practical sense, apart from those that reduce to some form of counting. There are many problems that lead to differential equations, for example, that present points of interest in their own right, but to apply them to any real engineering situation assumptions must be made that can never be completely reliable. An engineer must understand both their power and their limitations.

The relationship that exists is that some aspect of a "real world" problem may have an interesting abstract structure and if this captures the interest of enough people it becomes part of mathematics. It goes in directions determined by the possibilities for rigorous thought. After a while it no longer matters if there is any visible connection to the origin.

In the case of chess, there are a very few abstract aspects with practical value, mostly to do with Pawn endgames. Rigorous statements like "either somebody should win or it's a draw" are too general to be useful and are not really interesting either. Useful statements would apply to specific positions and there are too great a diversity of these for any "mathematical" statement to apply to all of them. A strong player sees the exceptions to the rule
> 1 votes

# Answer
Anyone looked at the mathematics behind alpha-zero describing chess completely even without having a engine. One might see the engine implementations as measure instruments for such mathematical model of chess.

It does consider a big space that is bound to contain the solutions, which is far from from assuming impractical complete tree knowledge as in most game theory about chess (that i am aware of).

It handles uncertainty, in the approximation process. Allowing access to the solution via approximation (at least in theory). We just have to be confortable with asymptotic behavior perhaps.

It also use probability spaces in order to be compatible with the type of data coming in from its measurements (RL). I would say, as long as you included the data relationship with the model, you might have something of a mathematical characterization, be it of statistical nature.
> 1 votes

# Answer
I'd hate to say it, but mathematically speaking chess as we play it is very boring. It is a perfect information game, without any non-determinism, for two alternating players. This means that chess is either a win for white, a win for black, or a draw. The optimal strategy for chess is trivial and known: minimax. As far as maths is concerned, chess is solved.
> 0 votes

# Answer
Chess isn't the sort of object that mathematicians are interested in studying. Mathematicians care about problems that are in some way infinite: either infinite objects or finite objects of which there are infinitely many examples. Chess is completely finite. There is only one chess, it uses a finite board, there are finitely many possible positions. If chess is played rationally (and we can't hope to characterize it without that assumption) then games are finite in length. "Rational" basically means that either player will claim a draw as soon as they have the right to, and that means that games are less than about 5900 moves, which means there are only finitely many games. A mathematician might study the prime numbers, but they're not going to study the single number 1827368429.

To a mathematician, "solve chess" is just a calculation, and mathematicians aren't interested in calculations. The fact that it's a culturally important calculation might encourage somebody to try, but it's hard to see anybody having the time to do something so complicated. It's the sort of thing that would take decades of full-time work and, if you failed, you'd have basically nothing.
> -3 votes

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Tags: theory, mathematics
---


title: Is there an engine for Duck Chess?

text:
# Question
Title: Is there an engine for Duck Chess?
Is there a chess engine for the chess variant Duck Chess? If not, is there a known plan of development of such an engine?

# Answer
## Edit on 18.01.2023:

Fairy-Stockfish released the duck-chess variant. You can reach it from their github.
> 6 votes

# Answer
I also investigated this topic and I created an experimental engine of my own: https://github.com/OndrejKincl/DuckChess.jl

From this experience, I would say it will not be very difficult to prune possible duck moves but main obstacle is that there is currently not much theory or data to test against.
> 2 votes

# Answer
# AI on pychess.org

pychess.org added Duck Chess as a variant on 2022-12-26, and also included an AI. You can play against it by choosing `PLAY WITH AI` on the main page, then selecting the `DUCK` variant.
> 2 votes

# Answer
On this link you can find developpers programming a Duck Chess engine, available here. This engine is named Quack.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: engines, chess-variants
---


# Question
Title: When is a queen stronger than two rooks?
Two rooks are stronger than one queen. Let's assume that the material is equal, except that one player has a pair of rooks while the other player has a queen. In what situations is the queen stronger than the pair of rooks?

# Answer
> Let's assume that **the material is equal**, except that one player has a pair of Rooks while the other player has a Queen. In what situations is the Queen stronger than the pair of Rooks?

Since everything else is symmetrical, she can be stronger only if two rooks **are not well coordinated and there is a presence of pawns on both wings.** This gives you a chance to quickly snatch a few pawns and set them in motion, which should tie at least one rook.

If you fail to utilize this, then rooks will get coordinated-one will defend while the other will attack-and will slowly **but surely** regroup to attack the king, after which they can exchange themselves for a queen and a pawn resulting in a won endgame. Something like this:

```
[fen "8/Q4pk1/p3r1pp/1p6/1P6/P5PP/3r1PK1/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.Qb7 Ree2 2.Qb6 Rxf2+-+

```

This is just an example, of course, but that is how I would play it. **It all depends of the position** but I doubt you can stop rooks from regrouping like in the above diagram.

Hopefully we shall see other interesting answers as well, looking forward to it.

## EDITED IN RESPONSE TO OPs COMMENT:

> The material is equal, but the position doesn't have to be symmetrical.

It doesn't matter, the endgame should be won for the side with the rooks anyway.

The only "saving grace" for the side with the queen is asymmetric distribution of the pawns, plus they should be far ahead so when side with rooks enter pawn ending, side with the queen can still create a passed pawn. I guess it all depends from the **efficiency** of rooks regrouping. I am pretty sure they will be able to tie the queen down eventually, after which the transposition into a won endgame will occur.

To answer this question it would be important to find the exact evaluation of the following position:

```
[fen "r2r4/1p3pk1/p3p1pp/8/2P5/1P2Q1PP/P4PK1/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

This is the most realistic case I can come up with. If we can prove that Black can win with the regrouping of his rooks as above, then it is safe to assume Black wins in equal positions with 2 rooks vs queen. I will analyze this myself, or even post this as a question.

## UPDATE:

No mater how I alter the pawn structure, White holds the game by **sacrificing king-side pawns to open my king**.

Then he uses **queens mobility** to attack my queen-side pawns and to harass my king.

My rooks can not regroup into winning lineup because of the threat of double attack ( check on the king + attack on the rook/pawn ) or simply because side with the queen has perpetual check.

The only way for queen to win is to strip opponents king naked and use double attacks to win material. Even with such a pathetic setup for rooks as above they can still hold the game.

To conclude:

To win with the queen, you **will need** weaknesses in opponents pawn structure and you will have to **blow up opposing kings cover.**

Hopefully you will be able to exploit pawn weaknesses and bad rook coordination with a double attack to win material.

**Using queens mobility and giving "smart" checks** is the key here. Keeping as many lines closed can help you-avoid pawn exchanges to restrict rooks mobility and to have greater chances of snatching a pawn with double attack.

Best regards.
> 6 votes

# Answer
As a general rule, **two Rooks tend to be stronger than a Queen**. Typical endgames like 2R+5P vs Q+5P are much better for the rooks who will coordinate to attack the opponent's weakest pawn.

However, some factors can favor the queen:

* **Open kings** : the queen is very strong in direct mating attacks. It can checkmate with minimal support, fork king and unprotected pieces along different lines, or simply secure a perpetual check when needed. If the kings are weak and the game is wild, the high mobility of the queen can thus prove more useful than the rooks. (of course, it is even better if only your opponent's king is weak...)
* **Knights** : as a general rule, the more minor pieces are on the board, the better for the side with the queen: minor pieces reduce the space available for the rook (e.g., by controling entry squares on the open files), make it more probable to build an attack against the opponent king (see point 1), and can protect weak points to diminish the numerical advantage of the rooks. Knights in particular coordinate better with the queen than with the rooks, so a material balance like (QN vs RRN) or (QNN vs RRNB) might not be disavantageous at all.
* **General strategic pluses** : beside the Q vs RR factor, all other strategical rules remain important as in any chess game: weak pawns, passers, coordination, activity (especially open files), tactical threats or a few tempi will change the evaluation of a position with this material balance as often as with any other.
> 8 votes

# Answer
The side with the Queen will be stronger when the player with the two Rooks has a lot of weak pawns and/or squares. Yet, the balance in a Queen versus two Rooks situation depends a lot on the position. Thus, a rule of thumb is to prefer the Queen when it has a lot of weak squares and pawns to attack.
> 3 votes

# Answer
The queen is stronger early on in the game, as a rule, on a very crowded board. Queen strength doesn't vary much as the game progresses, but rooks become significantly more useful as pawns start coming off the board and lines start opening up. So if both sides still have their entire armies except for a queen for one, both rooks for the other, the queen will probably be better because it's more agile, while the rooks tend to get blocked by things.
> 1 votes

# Answer
If there are a lot of pawns left on the board.. a slight edge exists to the Queen. If there is an extra minor piece for both sides(Knight would be a perfect complement for queen) it can win. If rooks can get coordinated, it is tough for Queen.
> 1 votes

# Answer
The points made above regarding regarding the theoretical advantage of the two rooks are valid, but as someone who recently lost with the two rooks, I have a couple of balancing comments/warnings:

1. If the side with the queen manages to advance pawns and cramp the opposing king, then that favours the queen. You generally start to get tactical threats (mating attacks, forks...) based on the limited mobility of the king.
2. In practice, I think it's generally harder to play with the two rooks. It's very easy to miss tactical shots with a queen on the board, particularly if your king is exposed or cramped at the edge of the board. Also, positions of this type often occur in zeitnot, when it's easy to slip up.

Of course, much depends on the specifics of the position and the value of general comments in this case is quite limited.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: endgame, queens, rooks, material-balance
---


title: White to play and win

text:
# Question
Title: White to play and win
A really tough one to start the New Year from national master Nelson Lopez

```
[title "White to move and win"]
[fen "1rkb4/pNp5/8/2N4p/8/5B2/4K3/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

# Answer
That's a nice positionnal attack on the light squares.

After 1.Bc6! Rxb7 is forced because of the threat 2.Bd7#, but then 2.Bd7 Kb8 3.Na6 Ka8 4.Bc6 freezes the whole Black army but the useless dark squared bishop and the h-pawn.

White finishes by bringing their king to c8 and mating with Bb7#, e.g.:

4...h4
5.Kf3 Bg5 (5...h3 6.Kg3, when the king will take the pawn but never the bishop to avoid stalemate)
6.Kg4 Bd8 (6...Be7 7.Kf5!)
7.Kf4!Z (We wait for the Bd8 to leave the defense of c7 ; Not 7.Kf5 h3 8.Ke6 h2 9.Kd7 h1Q 10.Bh1 when 10...c6 frees the rook, with a draw after 11.Kc6 Rc7! 12.Kd6 Rb7 or 11.Kc8 Rb6!)
7...Be7 (7...Bg5 8.Kf5!)
8.Kf5 h3
9.Ke6 h2 (9...Bg5 10.Kd7 h2 11.Kc8 h1Q 12.Bxh1 c6 13.Bxc6 Bh4 14.Bxb7#)
10.Kd7! h1Q
11.Bxh1 c6
12.Kc8 Rb8 (12...Rb6 13.Nc7# ; 12...Bd8 13.Bxc6 Ba5 14.Bxb7#)
13.Nxb8 a5
14.Nxc6! a4 (the black king is boxed again)
15.Bg2 a3
16.Bf1 a2
17.Ba6 a1Q
18.Bb7#
> 2 votes

---
Tags: puzzles
---


# Question
Title: If there was perfect play from both sides, will it be draw or win for one?
If there was perfect play from both the colors, will white win because of the first move advantage or will it be a draw?

# Answer
Most Grandmasters will argue that chess is a draw with perfect play from both sides. However, in practice it is shown that white has higher win rates than black, but this is due to the first-move advantage. This is because white technically gains a small advantage from having the first move, and black will equalize with their move.

It is possible that a first-move could cause a disadvantage with perfect play, because despite having perfect information, the black player could potentially be able to counter any strategy white attempts to play. It is more likely however that if one side were to have a forced win, it would be for white.

The answer to this question will not be known for a long time because only in 2012 were endgame tablebases able to solve any position with 7 pieces perfectly (including the 2 kings). For comparison of how impressive this feat is, 6 pieces was only solved in 2005. Obviously, this problem is exponential because with more and more pieces, the complexity increases further and further, until eventually the game is solved for 32 pieces. One could argue that the starting position is static so we don't have to consider every combination of 32 pieces on the 64 squares, but the number of possibilities is still enormous and will take a long time to know for certain.
> 11 votes

# Answer
Almost all experts during the last 150 years share the opinion that the game should be a draw with perfect play (link):

> The view that a game of chess should end in a draw given best play prevails.
> 4 votes

# Answer
We have not mathematically solved perfect play in chess yet. However, chess computers represent our best understanding of nearly perfect play, and about equal strength engines overwhelmingly make draws from the starting position. Usually the only way to get a decisive game is to force computers to start from a risky or unbalanced opening, so computer tournament organizers use opening books to test interesting positions.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Of course, with best play, it is a draw.

However for a humourous contrary view, Jonathan Rowson, in his book "Chess for Zebra", quotes English GM Jon Speelman:

> The initial position is a decisive reciprocal zugzwang and white is losing ;-)
> 0 votes

# Answer
It is the Zermelo's theorem from game theory, which says that a finite 2 person game always has a solution (draw or a winning strategy for black or white).

Zermelo's theorem (game theory)
> 0 votes

---
Tags: analysis, theory
---


# Question
Title: Are hypermodern openings not recommended for beginners?
Beginners are taught principles in a classical style: control the center and develop pieces early. To my understanding, hypermodern openings try to control the center from a distance and wait for the opponent to occupy the center with pawns that become targets. Is this style of play of giving the opponent the early center not recommended to beginners for being too difficult or tricky at that level?

# Answer
> 16 votes
Hypermodern openings are typically not recommended to beginners.

1. They disregard some opening principles (prima facie) which beginners need to understand before "breaking" them. (That is "giving up" the center; in reality the plan often is to break the center with a pawn as soon as the army is developed. So even in hypermodern openings you eventually will put a pawn into the center.)
2. They **require a lot of chess understanding** to play well. Many of them can get you in troublesome (e.g. cramped) positions quickly if you do not play them well (i.e. strike with counterplay).
3. Due to the fact that the opponent gets the central control and a free hand, he has a lot of lines that promise an advantage. You'll **need to know a lot of theory**. In the time you need to really learn one of such openings (KID, Grünfeld,...) you could have improved your game much more meaningfully in other ways as a beginner.
4. Hypermodern openings **tend** to produce more closed positions (even though some lines don't, e.g. in the Grünfeld), see Brian Towers' answer.

Nevertheless, that doesn't mean they're never recommended or unplayable as a beginner. GM Daniel Naroditsky recommends the Grünfeld against d4 (and IM Levy Rozman says it's playable as a beginner if you are willing to learn a lot of theory). The Grünfeld has some advantages over other hypermodern openings w.r.t. beginners - it's very direct/tactical, positions can open quickly, the ideas are understandable - and you strike quickly in/at the center. I personally think that the Nimzo-/Queens-Indian isn't too bad for beginners, either.

# Answer
> 10 votes
The standard recommendation for beginners is to play openings which produce open positions favouring rapid piece development and tactical opportunities. The reason for this is that this gives the most practice in tactics and improving tactics is the fastest way to improve at this level.

Hypermodern openings produce closed positions where tactics play a much reduced role and the emphasis is on strategy and maneuvering. Beginners benefit and improve much less with this and so it is not recommended.

---
Tags: opening, beginner, hypermodernism
---


# Question
Title: Playing chess with a mentally demanding job?
For those with mentally demanding jobs, how do you manage to play/study chess after work? I am a software engineer and I'm deep thinking pretty much all day long at work. I feel mentally exhausted after work, but I would like to play chess. What are strategies I can adopt?

# Answer
This is probably a personal take that won't apply to everyone but to me the effort required to write code feels like a totally different one from the effort I put into chess.

So if anything, for me it's relaxing to do something else when I'm done with work. Most of the time there's a gym session in between though. That definitely helps. I also get the most of my free days
> 5 votes

# Answer
I was in that situation. The only solution is to look for a better job. For example, you can work for the government. Maybe you will make less money, but you will have an increase in your quality of life.

If that possibility does not exist, instead of chess, I suggest swimming or yoga. It will help you to avoid a stroke or a heart attack. I had a heart attack, so it is not a joke :) :) :)

A chess activity that is very flexible is solving chess puzzles. You can have the chess puzzle on a chess board or on your computer permanently and see it when you have time. You can do it once a month, or one a week, or one a day, depending on your schedule.

Also, you can do it at the beginning of your day when you are fresh instead of the end of day when you are tired.

Besides solving chess puzzles, another option is correspondence chess on Lichess 1 move per day (Lichess does not allow the use of chess engines). You only need to do 1 move every 24 hours. However, play only one game. I do correspondence chess. It is fantastic for learning. I have the game open in my computer all the day. I see it when I have nothing to do.

Finally, I hate speed chess, but 99.99% of chess players love it. If you play an ultrabullet chess game per day, you will need only 60 seconds per day because every player has only 30 seconds for the entire game. You can change the formula, switching from ultrabullet to other slower rhythms like 1-minute, 3-minute, 5-minute, etc.

Something that I am missing is playing an ***active chess*** tournament per month. For example, our club organizes an on-site United States Chess Federation tournament the second Saturday of every month. Usually, ***active chess*** tournaments are 25+5 (25 minutes for the entire game and 5 seconds bonus per move). The tournament starts and ends the same day. If in your area you do not have this kind of activity Lichess has it for free online. So, this activity will require only around 4 hours per month (usually an evening, afternoon, or morning).

However, your priority must be sleeping well, swimming or yoga, and good nutrition. Best of luck in your chess journey!
> 4 votes

# Answer
I assume you have a busy day at work and come home late from the office. If that's the case, then you need to manage your time well in order to coordinate things.

## How to take out time to play chess?

You can probably cut things down that aren't that important to you like watching TV, using social media, etc. There are many time controls available to play but playing speed chess or slow games can help save time.

## Playing chess

If you are a **speed chess fan** then you can go for a **bullet/blitz** game(I have a friend who plays bullet to relax and chill. )

The best option would be to go for a **Daily game** where you get **1-7 days** time to make a move. You can even miss a day or two and still enjoy the game. Many chess websites have the facility to take notes while playing which helps in remembering the lines you need to play. (I often play Daily when I'm super busy.)

## Studying chess

There is a fantastic app called **Chessable** where you can learn openings using MoveTrainer. It has a feature of **daily revision** where you have to make the moves on the board so that you remember the lines forever. (I often revise the lines if I can't find time to play as it only takes a **few minutes**.)

**Puzzles** are really important to keep you **tactically alert**. You can solve **5-7 puzzles** if don't want to feel like playing.

## Conclusion

Don't stress about it. Try to take out **10-15 minutes** for chess(either by **playing** or **studying**). Enjoy the game and you'll soon find yourself in a good mood!
> 4 votes

# Answer
I switched to playing "postal" chess for multiple reasons. One was that my work was mentally demanding and unpredictable and often required weekend work so I had trouble setting aside time for chess.

Now I have health issues and am working part time. I have limited energy and postal chess allows me to play on days when I have more energy.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: learning, study
---


title: A little Silvester puzzle

text:
# Question
Title: A little Silvester puzzle
A regular game has been played where White still has all 16 pieces. White promoted only a single pawn, and not to queen. In the final position all 16 pieces of White have (at least) one mating move. Yes, also the king. Find the position. ("The"=it is *mostly* determined, allowing for variations)

Yes, fitting for Silvester there is a little gag hidden, but it is entirely conforming to FIDE rules.

# Answer
> 4 votes
This is a solution that comes with a promoted bishop. All 16 white pieces have at least one mating move, the star among them being 0-0-0#.

A problemists problem with this is, as was pointed out by OP, that it's an *impossible position* due to black's double pawns.

```
[fen "1nbBbb2/PP1P1PP1/1BpkBQ2/2p1p1N1/1P3P2/2N4R/8/R3K3 w Q - 0 1"]

```

---
Tags: problems
---


# Question
Title: Is there a free opening data base that gives information about "this is the old main line, this is the modern mainline, etc."?
I am looking for a free online opening database that gives information not only on the number of games played, but also some history behind them. For example, some information such as "this move was the main line that was mostly played in the 1990s, but nowadays it has the refutation move xxx and thus the new main line is yyy, etc."

# Answer
> 2 votes
Wikibooks does that approximately. But since there isn't one common consensus opinion about what is the main line at any given point in time, I don't think there can be one source that categorizes every opinion.

Opening books and opening chessable courses will be your best source for one specific opening/repertoire.

---
Tags: opening, database, online
---


# Question
Title: An endgame from Deutschland Grand Prix 2022 McShane vs Bluebaum
In a Game McShane vs Bluebaum, played at Deutschland Grand Prix 2022, the following endgame popped up.

```
[White "McShane"]
[Black "Bluebaum"]
[fen "3r1k2/5p2/1pp2Np1/1b1pR3/1P1P2PP/4KP2/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

Karsten Muller stated that after g5 c5 (!) Black draw. In the game , after g5 Bc4(?) White cruised to win. Mr Muller may be right on this , but Stockfish 14.1 NNUE uncover h5 (!) instead of g5 wins against any defense. h5 is evaluated at + 4.94 at depth = 47/79. Moreover , I did a second iteration starting from a critical point , Black to move at depth 41/43 and the evaluation was even slightly higher, precisely at + 5.68. It seems Karsten Muller missed this win in his analysis too.

So is this position a win for White?

# Answer
> 1 votes
I'm assuming the depth 48 evaluation from today on the cloud is you :)

I have a similar evaluation using Stockfish 15 at depth 29, so yes I think it's pretty clear 1.h5 (or 1.f4) are both objectively winning for White. Whether Karsten Muller missed it though I don't know. It depends if he said the position before 1.g5 was a draw. If he just gave the g5 line and showed how Black could have drawn against it, that might imply he thinks 1.g5 is a mistake and that White could have done better (but he just chose not to include 1.h5/1.f4 as an improvement). On the other hand, if he said the position before 1.g5 was a draw because of the 1...c5 resource, then he'd be wrong.

---
Tags: endgame
---


# Question
Title: Can chess engines recognize equivalence between two positions?
The positions

```
[FEN "8/4kn2/4br2/8/8/3Q4/4K3/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

with white to move

```
[FEN "8/8/8/2Q5/1K3bk1/5rn1/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

with white to move

```
[FEN "8/2nk4/2rb4/8/8/4Q3/3K4/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

with white to move

and

```
[FEN "8/4KN2/4BR2/8/8/3q4/4k3/8 b - - 0 1"]

```

with black to move

are all equivalent to each other in the sense that each position can be transformed into one of the other 3 positions through a combination of rotation, reflection, and reversing the color of every piece.

This means that if we went through a search tree for one position there would be no need to go through the search tree for the other 3 as the result of the first 3 positions with best play must be the same, while the result of the last position would be reversed from the first 3. This means that for a search tree, in which each of these for positions are reached in some of the branches, it would only be necessary to search the sub tree of one of the positions, and apply the same evaluation for the first 3 positions while reversing the evaluation of the 4th from the first 3.

My question is would an engine that has say evaluated 1 of the 4 positions given within a search tree recognize the other 3 as being equivalent to it and simply apply the same or opposite evaluation to the other positions, or would it fail to recognize the equivalence between the 4 positions and independently go through the sub trees of all of them?

# Answer
No. In general, a chess engine would not be able to recognise your four positions as equivalent and would search each of them independently.

### Transposition tables

Chess engines do have a mechanism for remembering past positions and applying them to future searches - the transposition table. This is a large region of memory that associates an identifier for each position with some useful information about that position (usually including the search depth, evaluation, best move, and if the node failed low or high).

For a chess engine to recognise mirrored positions as equivalent, they would either need to have the same identifier, or the chess engine would have to calculate corresponding identifiers for mirrored positions and probe the transposition table for these other identifiers as well. In the most popular method of generating a position identifier, the former does not hold.

### Zobrist hashing

Most chess engines generate position identifiers with a system called Zobrist hashing. In this system, every possible combination of a piece and a square is assigned a large randomly generated number1. For example, a white king on e2 might be assigned the number `7626908458552064978` and a black rook on c5 might be assigned the number `3638090793699092332`. The Zobrist hash is obtained by taking the numbers assigned to all the (piece, square) combinations in the position and combining them with the binary xor operator.

It should be clear that, in each of your different positions, the pieces will have completely different individual random numbers (as they are on different squares) and hence the position will have a completely different Zobrist hash: Zobrist hashes are not symmetric in this way. So, if one of your four positions was saved in the transposition table, the engine would not find its entry by probing one of the other positions.

Zobrist hashes are used because they can be incrementally updated and are therefore efficient to compute: the xor operator can be reversed by simply applying it again, so the hash of a position after a move can be computed by taking the hash of the position before the move and applying xor with the 'from' and 'to' squares of the move for the piece that moved2.

Zobrist hashes are asymmetric because the game of chess is asymmetric: chess is asymmetric vertically as long as there are pawns on the board, and asymmetric horizontally as long as either side has castling rights. It would be theoretically possible for a chess engine to switch to a symmetric Zobrist hashing scheme when either or both of these conditions no holds, but this would break the incremental property of Zobrist hashes, adding a substantial amount of complexity and reducing speed for potentially little gain.

### Motivations

The main reason why chess engines have not explored ideas like transitions between asymmetric and symmetric hashing schemes or probing multiple times with mirrored positions is that the ability to recognise these equivalences seems unlikely to be useful.

The transposition table is a performance critical part of a chess engine. In most implementations, hashes are updated and the TT is probed in every single position examined by the engine. As a result, ideas that slow this process down need to be able to at least compensate for the resulting strength reduction in addition to showing some other benefit.

Ultimately, it seems that recognising mirrored positions is likely to have a negligible impact on engine strength. A tiny proportion of lines will lead to an exact mirrored position, and the transposition table hit that might result from this is likely to have a very small impact in the overall search3. In fact, the reduction in engine strength from a slower TT would probably outweigh any gains4.

I will also note that, in your specific example, an engine with access to 6-piece endgame tablebases would be able to recognise those positions as equivalent. Chess is solved for 7 or fewer pieces, and these positions can therefore be evaluated perfectly without any search.

---

1 Random numbers are also assigned for other features of the position, such as "white has the right to castle kingside" and "the pawn on b5 may be taken en-passant".
2 Some more complicated logic is required for captures, promotions, castling and en-passant, but this logic is still incremental and efficient.
3 Especially as, given that we know this position is equivalent, the line that leads there is both drawish and almost certainly does not form part of the principal variation.
4 It could be argued that detecting mirrored positions would aid analysis, though it is unclear what kind of analysis would be aided more by mirror detection than a stronger engine.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Absolutely not. The positions look identical to you, but are represented very differently internally by an engine. There is no good reason to do it. Furthermore, everything in a chess engine about search tree optimization is about connecting move sequences, your three positions couldn't be connected to each other by normal plays.
> 1 votes

# Answer
An answer depends very much on your definition of 'chess engine'.

A playing chess engine *can* (or could) identify them as identical, as already described by konsolas, but they rarely have a sufficient reason to do so. (Or probably don't: different ECO openings leading to the same position through different paths may provide a situation in which it would be useful, but that is also a situation which can be solved by a suitably designed opening book, and so any opening book creation engine -- if there are any -- may very well include it in creating books where a white position is reused for black *mutatis mutandis.*)

Some analysis engines do recognize related situations, for example chess problem engines (for composed problems, not practical problems). In those cases, however, the purpose is not to minimize evaluation time or effort, but to identify problems in which the same 'mate' occurs in different locations in the mating positions-- a situation called a 'mate echo', and sometimes regarded as a desirable artistic feature to have or focus on in a composed problem.

(It just strikes me that in the literary thriller world such situations sometimes can be identified when the villain -- perhaps Mr Black -- says 'you and I are not so different after all, Mr. White.' ... or words to similar effect. )
> 0 votes

---
Tags: engines, programming, evaluation
---


# Question
Title: What are the cases in which is good to take Qb3 in "London System'sSH" setups and why
I know that the main idea against London System is to play Qb6 to attack the b2 pawn which is unprotected due to the early Bf4 white plays (generally) at move 2. Normally white reacts to the threat with Qb3, covering the attack of the queen on b2:

```
[Title "London System setup"]
[fen "rnb1kb1r/pp2pppp/1q3n2/2pp4/3P1B2/1QP1P3/PP3PPP/RN2KBNR b - - 0 1"]

```

I also know that taking the queen here is considered not a great idea for black... This is due to the great activity white's rook on a1 would gain after axb3.

In this position instead (reached from the Queen's gambit declined opening), Qxb6 is considered the best move for white by Stockfish...:

```
[Title "QGD setup"]
[fen "rn2r1k1/pp2bppp/1qp2n2/3p3b/3P1B2/1QNBP2P/PP2NPP1/R4RK1 b - - 0 1"]

```

Someone could please explain me what is the rationale behind this? Why in a case taking the queen (and so allowing great activity of the rook on the open file) works and in the other case doesn't? And, in the case it doesn't work, what should be the right plan to follow?

# Answer
> 2 votes
The answer is very simple and can be summed up in one word - "development".

In the first position it is essentially a "Mexican standoff". If either side plays QxQ they hand the advantage to their opponent. This is because the combination of half open 'a' file, resulting pinned 'a' pawn and battering ram 'b' pawn are very difficult to deal with and the opposing side gets very easy development and attacking chances. For example:

```
[Title "London System setup"]
[fen "rnb1kb1r/pp2pppp/1q3n2/2pp4/3P1B2/1QP1P3/PP3PPP/RN2KBNR b - - 0 1"]

1...Qxb3 2. axb3 cxd4 {probably best} (2...Nc6 {retaining the tension} 3. Nf3  e6 4. Na3 Bd7 5. Nb5 Rc8 6. Bd3 a6 7. Nd6 Bxd6 8. Bxd6 cxd4 9. exd4) 3. exd4 Nc6 4. b4 Bf5 5. Nf3 e6 6. b5 Nd8 7. Nbd2

```

In the second position with both sides close to completing their development this does not apply. The rooks are at most one move from being connected and the half open a file is much less of an issue because the opposing a pawn is not pinned. Furthermore the doubled white b pawns are going to be isolated and a liability in an endgame. Note they cannot be easily eliminated by advancing because black can play Nbd7 and a6 when there will be 2 black pawns guarding the b5 square. In any case just playing b4 is difficult for white. For example:

```
[Title "QGD setup"]
[fen "rn2r1k1/pp2bppp/1qp2n2/3p3b/3P1B2/1QNBP2P/PP2NPP1/R4RK1 b - - 0 1"]

1...Qxb3 2. axb3 Nbd7 3. Ng3 Bg6

```

---
Tags: opening, analysis, london-system
---


# Question
Title: Dark squares weakness in the Sicilian Dragon
I read many times in books that when the bishop on a fianchetto is removed, like in some variants of the Sicilian Dragon, the squares of its color around are weaker, which is obvious.

What I don't understand is why this is said even when that bishop is exchanged by the opponent's one.

From my point of view, those squares are weaker, but the chances of converting that into something concrete are smaller, since we now have one less piece to attack them.

# Answer
Trading dark squared bishops (DSBs) does weaken the kingside dark squares. It is also true that without a DSB, white has a slightly harder time attacking the dark squares. But the queen is an important attacker that CAN hit the dark squares, and the two knights (+ two rooks on the open h file) mean that there is still serious attacking power against black's weakened king.

One famous, representative example of how you can build a kingside attack on the dark squares after a DSB trade is Karpov - Korchnoi, 1974. Notice how the open h file (and therefore h7) and ultimately the g7 square were the eventual targets in this vicious attack.

Here's a similar, extremely unfamous example by me where I target g7 more directly than Karpov. Notice how the idea of Nf5 only comes up once you see how hard it is to defend g7 - the knight has to be taken.
> 1 votes

# Answer
When the fianchettoed bishop is gone, the opponent can do this and it's not easy to dislodge the queen:

```
[FEN "6k1/4pp1p/3p2pQ/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

When the fianchettoed bishop is still around, ...Bg7 ejects the queen. White's DSB is not a factor, because it's not needed to put the queen on h6.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: fianchetto, sicilian-dragon
---


title: Website for playing Cylinder Chess

text:
# Question
Title: Website for playing Cylinder Chess
Does anybody know a website where I can play Cylinder Chess? I'm looking for something similar to Chess.com but for Cylinder.

# Answer
> 2 votes
For those who are still looking for somewhere to easily play cylinder chess online (live), you can now do so on cylinderchess.com. I'm a student and put this web app together in my spare time. It's entirely free to use (+ no plugins needed and no ads). Gameplay is on an animated 3D cylinder or you can choose to play on a square board (pieces still wrap around the board).

# Answer
> 0 votes
I am not familiar with this variant, but as most variants, pathguy has it. You can also play in http://brainking.com/ correspondence and using http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/CVfairy.html to play against an engine.

Also I cannot confirm it, but ICC has lots of chess variants. You might want to check it out.

# Answer
> 0 votes
If i remember correctly, you can play this variant on `www.buho21.com`. The only problem is that nearly everything is written in spanish there.

---
Tags: chess-variants
---


title: Computers: Hardware or Software?

text:
# Question
Title: Computers: Hardware or Software?
It is well known that *both* hardware and software contributed to the total dominance of computers. Has there been an experiment to run a very modern program (say Alpha Zero) on a museum computer (of course, a memory issue can happen, so don't abuse the Zuse for your amuse) or vice versa, a museum program on a very fast computer? If yes, with what results (hard- or software more important)?

# Answer
> 23 votes
The answer is **software is more important**. You can test this yourself actually. Get your favorite top engine today and your favorite top engine from 10 years ago, and run both of them against each other at time odds. This simulates superior hardware (since it yields a higher number of positions searched).

This was done at 50-1 NPS (nodes per second, a measure of how fast the hardware is) odds here. Komodo 8 (a top 2014 engine), played on a smartphone against Shredder 10 (top 2006 engine) on an i7 desktop. Komodo won 5-1. Not a large sample size by any means, but clear enough given auxiliary data.

See also How does engine strength scale with hardware?, which in conjunction with rating lists played on equal hardware gives an idea of where hardware effects might dominate over software.

# Answer
> 9 votes
I develop mobile chess apps to the App Store. The very first version of the apps were built on the iPhone 3GS. That was many years ago, but even then the apps could play at the GM chess level.

There is a rating list for Android chess engines:

You can then compare the list with more powerful hardware configurations:

No rating list exists for iOS due to technical limitations.

According to the JCER rating list, there is a big gap. Stockfish on Android is `3155` while the PC version is `3734`.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Note that there is a massive jump for the software side with the introduction of neural networks like Alpha Zero. Software before that required a large amount of clever humans programming it but these humans could do that with low end hardware. Neural networks need in comparison much less human programming time but require lots of computation power once to train them. After the training is done they can be run on worse hardware than pre neural network software and still play much better.

This makes numerically comparing pre neural network to post neural network software difficult because it is not clear what exactly you want to compare. One could run a modern chess software on say year 2000 hardware and it would trash any software available back then but I don't know how feasible it would have been to train a modern chess software with year 2000 hardware. A chess software probably can't afford to rent a super computer for a month of time for training.

# Answer
> 1 votes
"Turochamp", the original chess-playing programme from 1948 by Alan Turing and David Champernowne, was executed manually for a game in 1952, since hardware at the time was deemed incapable of running the software proper. It took about 30 minutes per move, and lost to Alick Glennie after 29 moves.

In 2012, for the Turing anniversary celebrations, the programme was reimplemented on contemporary hardware, losing to Garry Kasparov after 16 moves. Kasparov explained that the basic problem was that Turochamp is "only two ply", that is, it cannot look ahead very far and in particular could be deceived by a sufficiently skilled player who was aware of this limitation, regardless of the speed at which it would produce its moves.

As a caveat, the 2012 programme was not the same as the original, as the authors didn't preserve all details of the algorithm, and may not have implemented it thoroughly for the 1952 game in any case. Nonetheless, this demonstrates a long time gap, and that even with much, much better hardware, the algorithm is still not that capable.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I don't see how any experiment would decide the question of "importance".

If you tried to run modern software on ancient hardware, it would fail, because modern software is designed to take advantage of modern hardware.

If you ran ancient software on modern hardware, it would do whatever it did before, only faster. Would it beat modern software running on modern hardware? Almost certainly not, because it wasn't written to take advantage of the hardware power available.

But consider: a lot of the improvement in computer chess is due to the existence of databases of openings and endgames. There's no clever software behind that, just availability of cheap storage. So do you attribute that to software or hardware advances?

---
Tags: engines
---