# Question
Title: Is online chess learning as effective as using books?
I started playing chess long before the Internet or even computers were tools that could help you learn chess. Trainer GM Arthur Yusupov believes that you should set up every position on a board, and study it that way (he even puts this in the forward of most of his books).

Recently, I have been doing tactics on one of the various sites I belong to, and I found that it is way too easy to just move the pieces and guess at the answer compared to when I read a book, and have to really think about what the answer is.

Which is more a effective way of learning and why?

# Answer
I have found that reading books makes one concentrate more, and the material is usually covered more in-depth. I think that the "in-depth" part of this is what is important. The explanations are usually much better, and geared toward learning something more permanently.

I find that my work on a famous chess site that you buy materials has been much more shallow. I can click, and it does not matter if I get it right since it shows me what I did wrong immediately. Instead, when I read a book, I really have to think hard since a book does not spit out the answer.

I also just found this Quora question, and the level of players answering is astoundingly high, and they all seem to agree that books are still the way to go.
> 6 votes

# Answer
There are four major ways people learn-reading books, doing it for practice, hearing it explained, or watching demonstrations. Not everybody learns best with the same approach. The answer is that it depends. People can choose what method works best for them.
> 3 votes

# Answer
I also learned primarily from books. I think much more deeply when setting up a position and working through a book rather than online.

**Books**

* I feel that books are best for more positional or strategic learning where taking my time has the most benefit.
* I use books when there is a specific aspect that I want to learn such as pawn structures or rook endings.

**Online**

* I prefer to do tactics online because I feel it is beneficial to do as many as possible rather than think deeply most of the time.
* I do not learn from videos
* I find online is a great way to have a chess coach or team as I do not live in a city and there is little chess community here.
* When I don't know what I want to learn I like to look at online study guides to get ideas. Then sometimes I buy a book.

**Additional Thoughts**

Often people ask how to improve but to not say what kind of chess they want to improve at. If you are trying to improve at physical board play then it is more beneficial to have a physical board. How to improve at Blitz not the same as improving at Postal. If you only play online then only training online is fine, otherwise include some physical board study
> 3 votes

# Answer
Partly it depends upon your learning style, but also I'd note that part of the problem with the tactics site you mentioned isn't the computer. It's you.

Seriously, there's nothing stopping you from sitting and thinking about the position on the screen the same as with the position on a board. Nothing except you, that is. And in an age where more and more chess play will be online, it might be a good idea to use it to train yourself not to do that with positions on a screen.

Yusupov's rule is good; think about the position, figure the whole continuation out before you move, and if it takes you more than 10 minutes, either set it aside to come back to later or look up the solution. Just do that on the tactical site; if your personal style doesn't let you do that then yes, I'd say you shouldn't try using that kind of Internet site for anything other than entertainment. Doesn't mean it's bad; doesn't mean *you're* bad. Just means you two aren't suited to each other so you'd best agree to date other people (chess sites).

When it comes to learning chess, it's more important *what* you do than *where* (or how) you do it. build up a library of positions you understand, learn to recognize when that combination is lying under than thin coverlet waiting to be exposed. Understanding and pattern recognition are what's important, not the road you travelled to meet them.

I'm old school; I learn best when I'm holding the pieces in my hand, developing the muscle memory along with the chess memory. Shirov, OTOH, once said in an interview that he doesn't even *own* a chess set. I'd be a fool to say my way is better than his. I'm fairly certain I'd learn more from him in a hour without a board than he would from me if we spent all day at one.

For some people it's easier to recognize a pattern when they've trained themselves on it using the same kind of pieces as they would use in the game; they can even get thrown off by slight changes in design or size. Others could use silverware and condiment containers on a checkered tablecloth. Your best way forward is to learn what sort of learner *you* are, and leverage that. Maybe use some spare cycles here and there to expand your learning approaches, but in the main stick with what works for you. Less wasted energy that way.
> 3 votes

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Tags: learning, online
---


title: Why are there no more adjournments?

text:
# Question
Title: Why are there no more adjournments?
I keep reading about adjournments in books, but why don't we use them anymore? They seem like cool analysis sessions.

# Answer
> 14 votes
Primarily because computers have rendered adjournments obsolete. In addition, with the advent of digital clocks with delay or increment, it is much more fair to have people play it out over the board. It is much better to have the players decide it than having a team of people helping them overnight, or nowadays, a strong computer.

# Answer
> 7 votes
Adjournments *are* still used but very rarely.

They are deprecated and this is shown by the path that the FIDE Laws of Chess have taken over the years in prescribing their use.In the previous incarnation of the laws they were covered in an appendix. In versions before that in the main body. In the discussions preceding the release of the current rules there was a move to remove them but the English Chess Federation argued in favour of retaining them for one more cycle because there was at least one league in London which still used them.

The compromise was that a new section was created in the Laws after the appendices called "Guidelines". The rules governing adjournments were moved to "Guidelines 1". This section is scheduled for retirement in the next release of the rules unless the ECF successfully petition for a further extension.

"Guidelines 3" covers quickplay finishes which is also destined for the dustbin. Both practices made sense before the advent of digital clocks and the use of increment/delay but really have no place in the 21st century because both practices introduce an element of avoidable unfairness. In the age of engines any adjourned game is going to be decided by the engine not the imagination, wit, ability and knowledge of the two players.

Since (fingers crossed) this section is likely to disappear from the rules soon and isn't too long it is perhaps worth reproducing:

> **Guidelines I. Adjourned games**
>
> I.1.1 If a game is not finished at the end of the time prescribed for play, the arbiter shall require the player having the move to ‘seal’ that move. The player must write his move in unambiguous notation on his scoresheet, put his scoresheet and that of his opponent in an envelope, seal the envelope and only then stop the chessclock. Until he has stopped the chessclock the player retains the right to change his sealed move. If, after being told by the arbiter to seal his move, the player makes a move on the chessboard he must write that same move on his scoresheet as his sealed move.
>
> I.1.2 A player having the move who adjourns the game before the end of the playing session shall be considered to have sealed at the nominal time for the end of the session, and his remaining time shall so be recorded.
>
> I.2. The following shall be indicated upon the envelope:
>
> I.2.1 the names of the players,
>
> I.2.2 the position immediately before the sealed move,
>
> I.2.3 the time used by each player,
>
> I.2.4 the name of the player who has sealed the move,
>
> I.2.5 the number of the sealed move,
>
> I.2.6 the offer of a draw, if the proposal is current,
>
> I.2.7 the date, time and venue of resumption of play.
>
> I.3 The arbiter shall check the accuracy of the information on the envelope and is responsible for its safekeeping.
>
> I.4 If a player proposes a draw after his opponent has sealed his move, the offer is valid until the opponent has accepted it or rejected it as in Article 9.1.
>
> I.5 Before the game is to be resumed, the position immediately before the sealed move shall be set up on the chessboard, and the times used by each player when the game was adjourned shall be indicated on the clocks.
>
> I.6 If prior to the resumption the game is agreed drawn, or if one of the players notifies the arbiter that he resigns, the game is concluded.
>
> I.7 The envelope shall be opened only when the player who must reply to the sealed move is present.
>
> I.8 Except in the cases mentioned in Articles 5, 6.9, 9.6 and 9.7, the game is lost by a player whose recording of his sealed move:
>
> I.8.1 is ambiguous, or
>
> I.8.2 is recorded in such a way that its true significance is impossible to establish, or
>
> I.8.3 is illegal.
>
> I.9 If, at the agreed resumption time:
>
> I.9.1 the player having to reply to the sealed move is present, the envelope is opened, the sealed move is made on the chessboard and his clock is started,
>
> I.9.2 the player having to reply to the sealed move is not present, his clock shall be started; on his arrival, he may stop his clock and summon the arbiter; the envelope is then opened and the sealed move is made on the chessboard; his clock is then restarted,
>
> I.9.3 the player who sealed the move is not present, his opponent has the right to record his reply on the scoresheet, seal his scoresheet in a fresh envelope, stop his clock and start the absent player’s clock instead of making his reply in the normal manner; if so, the envelope shall be handed to the arbiter for safekeeping and opened on the absent player’s arrival.
>
> I.10 Any player who arrives at the chessboard after the default time shall lose the game unless the arbiter decides otherwise. However, if the sealed move resulted in the conclusion of the game, that conclusion shall still apply.
>
> I.11 If the regulations of an event specify that the default time is not zero, the following shall apply: If neither player is present initially, the player who has to reply to the sealed move shall lose all the time that elapses until he arrives, unless the regulations of an event specify or the arbiter decides otherwise.
>
> I.12.1 If the envelope containing the sealed move is missing, the game shall continue from the adjourned position, with the clock times recorded at the time of adjournment. If the time used by each player cannot be re-established, the arbiter shall set the clocks. The player who sealed the move shall make the move he states he sealed on the chessboard.
>
> I.12.2 If it is impossible to re-establish the position, the game shall be annulled and a new game shall be played.
>
> I.13 If, upon resumption of the game, either player points out before making his first move that the time used has been incorrectly indicated on either clock, the error must be corrected. If the error is not then established the game shall continue without correction unless the arbiter decides otherwise.
>
> I.14 The duration of each resumption session shall be controlled by the arbiter’s timepiece. The starting time shall be announced in advance.

# Answer
> 3 votes
The question doesn't indicate what context it's being asked in, but at least in the US (in USCF events), adjournments are generally not used because most tournaments are played using sudden-death time controls. This makes it easy to predict (at least approximately) when a round will end, because a player can't get an additional time period by completing a certain number of moves. Once the time period expires in a sudden-death time control, the game is over, regardless of how many moves have been made.

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Tags: history
---


# Question
Title: Are there women only tournaments for lower rated players?
Are there women only tournaments for lower rated players? There are many for top women, but not for me.

I can't seem to find any, but it would be fun. Can anyone help?

# Answer
It may depend on your location, but such tournaments do exist.

For example, the 2019 Texas Women's Chess Championship had some low-rated players. The 2019 Wisconsin Junior Open had a females-only section, with any female juniors from Wisconsin eligible to play in it, regardless of rating.

Upcoming, the U.S. Women’s Open will be in June in Las Vegas, and seeing as how there are U1400 prizes, it clearly isn't just for elite players.
> 4 votes

# Answer
There is not that much demand. Tournaments are money making efforts for the sponsors.

If you want to play at a low level then just enter an open section limited to the rating you can play at. Many tournaments have lower rated sections that go way down in ratings, some only have two sections and some may only have one due to small amount of people expected.

NOTE that your chances are bigger of finding one as the tournament size increases. Clearly the best would be at national tournaments followed by large regional ones. Then large major cities and possibly may also some selected states.

USCF magazine should list all tournaments with the section ratings they offer.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: tournament
---


# Question
Title: Are there any tournaments that treat less-represented groups preferentially?
These less-represented groups could be women, transgender players, etc. As of time of writing there's only one woman in the world's top 100 players by rating, and I don't know if there's any transgender player there either.

I'm thinking in particular of tournaments where the organizers reserve some space explicitly for these less-represented groups. For example, suppose one of the 8 spots of the Candidates Tournament were reserved for the Women's World Champion, that would qualify (of course this has never happened). For the purpose of this question I exclude women-only tournaments, unless these tournaments gave special privileges to players who transitioned from male to female.

Further questions: if this has happened before, how did the community react? If this has never happened, has it ever been considered?

# Answer
A good amount of tournaments have prizes to the best classified women, best underage players, best unrated, best locals...

The chess community simply doesn't care too much. A few "lower-level" masters will complain about "prices for mediocrity", but no one really pays too much attention to what they say.

In many countries, the best girls in each age group from each region will have their entry fees paid for the national championship. "I don't know why" but the guys often like this!

Also, the four best men and women from each country play the Chess Olympiad every two years, whether they are grandmasters or unrated players.

Many team tournaments (more often those organized by National Federations than private ones) also include quotas on how many young/female players each team should have. As expected, teams with strong female players tend to love this rule, and "men-only" clubs often hate it!
> 5 votes

# Answer
**Fide World Cup**

Are qualified for the World Cup:

* The Women's World Champion
* The last two World Junior Champions
* Players from Continental Championships
> 8 votes

# Answer
All the women only events (you don't see any men only events)
> 1 votes

# Answer
No. Chess is a game of skill and everybody is treated equally. Because women tend to be weaker there are some women only tournaments. But for the other classes like you noted there is no real reason to do it, and there are not likely enough players to deserve a special tournament or even a section.

Most open tournaments are open to anybody who signs up and pays the fees. There may be tournaments that limit entry to certain ratings. Most are limited to lower ratings. A few are limited to the top players.
> 0 votes

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Tags: tournament, gender
---


# Question
Title: What are the pairing regulations for round-robin tournaments?
I am writing a pairing program for round-robin/double round-robin/swiss tournaments. I am looking for the rules to follow while generating the pairings. There seem to be no rules in the FIDE handbook. The only rule I know is that in tournaments like the FIDE Candidates players of the same federation are paired together as early as possible. Do there exist any other restrictions, or do I just pair the players randomly such that each player plays every other player in the tournament?

# Answer
> 4 votes
> I am looking for the rules to follow while generating the pairings. There seem to be no rules in the FIDE handbook.

The pairings are the responsibility of the arbiter and the FIDE Arbiters Commission produces a handbook which it maintains for the guidance of arbiters in the commission of their duties.

This handbook collects together various documents some of which appear in other places on the FIDE website. These include -

1. An annotated copy of the FIDE Laws of Chess
2. Guidelines for Organisers
3. FIDE Competition (Tournament) Rules
4. General Rules and Recommendations for Tournaments
5. International Title Regulations
6. FIDE Rating Regulations
7. Regulations for the Titles of Arbiters
8. Anti Cheating Guidelines
9. The Role of the Arbiters and their Duties

> Do there exist any other restrictions, or do I just pair the players randomly such that each player plays every other player in the tournament?

For your question the important section is section *7. Pairings* in the FIDE Competition (Tournament) Rules. There it says -

> 7.5 The pairings for a round robin should be made in accordance with the Berger tables (Annex 1), adjusted where necessary for double-round events.

So, no you do not pair the players randomly. You pair using the Berger tables. The allocation of players to start numbers is governed by the other articles in that section -

> 7.1 Responsibility for the drawing of lots and the actual pairings rests with the CA.
> 7.2 The drawing of lots for the first round of a round-robin competition shall be arranged by the CO, to be open to the players.
> 7.3 In L1, L2: round robin competitions and preferable Swisses, the drawing of lots shall take place at least 12 hours before the start of the first round. In L1 all participants shall attend the ceremony of drawing of lots. A player who has not arrived on time for the drawing of lots may be included at the discretion of the CA. The first-round pairings shall be announced as soon as possible thereafter.
> 7.4 If a player withdraws or is excluded from a competition after the drawing of lots but before the beginning of the first round, or there are additional entries, the announced pairings shall remain unaltered. Additional pairings or changes may be made at the discretion of the CA in consultation with the players directly involved, but only if these minimise amendments to pairings that have already been announced.

In response to -

> The only rule I know is that in tournaments like the FIDE Candidates players of the same federation are paired together as early as possible.

This is covered in articles 7.6 and 7.7 which specify that the Varma tables may be used in conjunction with the Berger tables to provide a way of restricting the drawing of lots to ensure this.

> 7.6 If the pairings are to be restricted in any way - for example, players from the same federation shall, if possible, not meet in the last three rounds - this shall be communicated to the players as soon as possible, but not later than the start of the first round.
> 7.7 For round-robin competitions this restricted drawing of lots may be done by using the Varma tables, reproduced in Annex 2, which can be used for competitions of 9 to 24 players

The Berger tables and Varma tables appear at the end of the *FIDE Competition (Tournament) Rules*

# Answer
> 1 votes
Example for ten players - old style: n=10

```
1   2   3   4   5
6   7   8   9

```

You go until n-1 and start over, n/2 numbers each line:

```
1   2   3   4   5
6   7   8   9   1
2   3   4   5   6
7   8   9   1   2
3   4   5   6   7
8   9   1   2   3
4   5   6   7   8
9   1   2   3   4
5   6   7   8   9

```

Then you basically ignore the left-most numbers and start the same procedure from the end to start.

```
 1 |    2 9     3 8     4 7     5 6
 6 |    7 5     8 4     9 3     1 2
 2 |    3 1     4 9     5 8     6 7
 7 |    8 6     9 5     1 4     2 3
 3 |    4 2     5 1     6 9     7 8
 8 |    9 7     1 6     2 5     3 4
 4 |    5 3     6 2     7 1     8 9
 9 |    1 8     2 7     3 6     4 5
 5 |    6 4     7 3     8 2     9 1   <- start here

```

Then the 10 (n):

```
 1 (10) |   2 9     3 8     4 7     5 6
 (10) 6 |   7 5     8 4     9 3     1 2
 2 (10) |   3 1     4 9     5 8     6 7
 (10) 7 |   8 6     9 5     1 4     2 3
 3 (10) |   4 2     5 1     6 9     7 8
 (10) 8 |   9 7     1 6     2 5     3 4
 4 (10) |   5 3     6 2     7 1     8 9
 (10) 9 |   1 8     2 7     3 6     4 5
 5 (10) |   6 4     7 3     8 2     9 1

```

For each player color change nearly all rounds. Gives also a nice obvious cross table. Also lots of math in the system.

# Answer
> 0 votes
For a round robin, the only rule is to ensure that everybody gets paired each round, or only one odd player is out and that changes each round.

There is a simple formula to do it. It is different for odd/even number of players. You do not need any tables as you can generate one as easily as locating an existing table.

The only trick is to ensure White/Black is assigned evenly but that is also trivial to do with paper and pencil. If you set up a blank crosstable with the players listed down and opponents across then the main diagonal down from the left has Xs as nobody plays themselves. The trick is to then put a dot in the square for those who get black. Do every other square on the upper right. Then on the bottom left do the same thing but on the same diagonals not done on the upper right as each player must have a different color when they play!

If you were sophisticated you could try to seed the players and then arrange the players numbers so the pairing formula would tend to match higher players near the end to keep it more interesting. As far as I know that was never done, and I have directed or seen the pairing for those when I played in or directed for many round robin tournaments.

It is possible that FIDE may have other rules. I only did/played in USCF tournaments.

---
Tags: tournament, round-robin
---


title: Team Tournament Rating Strategy

text:
# Question
Title: Team Tournament Rating Strategy
In high school I played on a chess team, but that was fairly straightforward because there were no rating restrictions for teams. Every team just grabbed the 5 strongest players and then ordered them by strength.

In most other team tournaments (except for the Chess Olympiad), there is a rating limit (i.e. the average rating of the 4 players must be less than or equal to the limit). Additionally, most team tournaments are comprised of teams of 4 players.

That was all a build up to a request for the best strategy for a team of 4 in terms of ratings. Given a rating limit of 2000 (as it is in this upcoming tournament), what are the best strategies to create a highly competitive team? Similarly, what are the average ratings on each board?

For example, a team of 4 equal rated players (2000, 2000, 2000, and 2000) would likely be at a disadvantage on the top 2 boards, but would most likely have a rating edge on the lower boards. On the other hand, a top heavy team (2500, 2000, 1800, 1700) would be more likely to have an edge on the top board, but at the cost of the second board.

A perfect answer would draw on statistics from past tournaments, but I would love to have personal anecdotes as well!

# Answer
My own experience (from high school, decades ago), is that balanced teams do better. That's because most opposing teams are unbalanced.

I was first board on my team, and "league average" against other first boards.

But my lower boards were barely worse than me. They "cleaned up" against their counterparts, few of whom were "barely" weaker than me.

Hopefully your first board will get you a "random" result, and the lower boards will prevail against their opponents.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Let's pick a random tournament I found individual board results for - the 2017 US Amateur Team West. The maximum average rating for this tournament was 2200, rather than 2000, but it should still be instructive.

For this tournament, the average ratings by board (not including unrated players) were:

Board 1: mean 1874.24, median 1949, max 2592, min 1026

Board 2: mean 1723.98, median 1804, max 2390, min 683

Board 3: mean 1593.78, median 1634.5, max 2242, min 551

Board 4: mean 1465.19, median 1532.5, max 2163, min 119

Alternate: mean 1590.6, median 1769, max 2058, min 748

Most teams came nowhere near the rating limit. 48 of the 65 teams had an average rating of under 2000, while just 17 had an average rating of 2000 or more. All of the top 15 placing teams had an average rating of 2000 or more. So, the first, and most obvious, strategy for winning is to have lots of rating points on your team.

Winning first place on tiebreaks was BAC TEAM 1. The ratings of their players were 2471, 2390, 2242, and 1673.

Coming in second place (with the same record and same total game points as the first place team, and drawing against them head to head) was BCS WU HOO! The ratings of their players were 2284, 2201, 2162, and 2085, with an alternate rated 2016.

Clear third (losing only to the top team, by a score of 1.5-2.5) was BRIGHT CHESS KING, with players rated 2218, 2180, 2086, and 2050.

I find it interesting that, of the top 3 teams, one had 3 players above 2200, one had 2 players, and one had 1. This seems to show that multiple different team makeups are viable.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: rating, tournament, team
---


title: Bad Stockfish evaluation

text:
# Question
Title: Bad Stockfish evaluation
This is the study

```
[fen "3B4/1r2p3/r2p1p2/bkp1P1p1/1p1P1PPp/p1P4P/PPBK4/8 w - - 0 1 "]

```

As you can see, Stockfish gives an absolute decisive win for black, though it is clearly a draw!!

Check it out yourself

c4+ is a losing move, while Ba4+ is the correct one.

What's going on? Doesn't Stockfish take into consideration closed positions **at all**?

# Answer
Stockfish isn't a perfect chess-playing entity, and you've found a position where it's unable to tell is a draw (at least until the 50 move rule kicks in and helps it prune). These positions are called "fortresses". You can tell this is happening because even if you input the solution, Stockfish still evaluates the final position as -10 or more. These fortress positions where Stockfish is dead wrong are few and far between, but they exist, and this is one of them.

There've been various attempts at writing fortress detection code in Stockfish and other conventional engines which are meant to recognize fortresses and stop Stockfish from heading for them if its position is superior. If you have a smart idea, you can probably publish it in an academic journal (see the publications in the chessprogramming wiki).
> 27 votes

# Answer
It helps to understand that engines don't really go off of "strategy", so much as they look several moves into the future, evaluate the score of the position, and find the optimal move set.

The great weakness of that approach is that if nothing can happen quickly, the engine's going to have problems. This used to be a *huge* problem with endgames. If you've got a K+B+P vs K+P, you're not resolving that position in just a few moves. So the fix was to add Endgame Tablebases to the engines - just bruteforce calculate every endgame position ahead of time and add them as a library for the engine to use. (This is why, in most cheap chess apps, you can earn a win simply by surviving to the endgame: because it doesn't have an endgame tablebase.)

But your position is (understandably) not going to be in any endgame tablebase. So stockfish has to play out millions of positions, stretching 10 or so moves into the future... only to find that in all of them, black is substantially up in material. It definitely can't play out ~56 moves for the full decision tree - which is what it would take to determine a definitive draw.
> 12 votes

# Answer
The other answers cover this question well, but it is interesting that not all programs do not understand this is a draw. I plugged this into my computer, and as a ChessBase Premium member, I also have access to cloud engines.

One of those cloud engines evaluated this as a draw almost instantaneously. I only wish there were more information than simply "New Engine".
> 0 votes

---
Tags: engines, stockfish, closed-position, studies
---


# Question
Title: Is h6 or g6 better to defend the h7 square against a combined attack by a queen and bishop?
I am setting the question from black's perspective, but it holds the same for white too.

Many times in my personal games a position arises where a Bishop along the b1-h7 diagonal and a Queen on the h-file put pressure on the h7 square, sometimes even threatening a straight checkmate.

Not considering cases of using other pieces to defend h7, both pawn moves g7-g6 and h7-h6 prevent this threat.

My question is out of these two pawn moves, under my conditions, what is the decisive factor in choosing one over other?

For representative purposes I am using a position from round 9 match between Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Alexei Shirov that happened last day (27th December 2019) at world rapid chess championship, but my question is on general ideas of this threat by queen and bishop.

```
[fen "r1bqr1k1/pp3ppp/2pb1n2/3n4/3P3Q/P1NB1N2/1P3PPP/R1B2RK1 w - - 0 1"]

```

# Answer
> 2 votes
Ignoring your example game here are a few things I think about.

* ..g6 weakens the dark squares around the castled king. Have a plan for protecting those squares. for example, do you have a dark squared bishop that can get to g7? Look out for direct attack on f7. for example, White queen on b3, bishop on c4 and rook on an open f-file. Can you prevent this set-up? Keep the f-file closed? ..g6 can be a great prophylactic against and white knight on g3.
* ..h7 this is less weakening as the 6th rank squared are still protected by pawns. Can also keep White pieces off of g5 ( but look out for sacrifices ). the h7 pawn can be used by White to open up the castled king with g2-g4-g5. Can you prevent this, are your threats faster than whites? can you play ..h5 safely?

# Answer
> 4 votes
First, there is no hard-and-fast rule, but if I were to generalize, probably Pg6 in more cases as it blunts the incredibly dangerous Bd3. Playing h6 in some positions invites Bxh6 in many cases.

In the game you reference, Shirov played h6, but he also knows that Bh6 gh; Qh6 ideas will immediately be met by Bf8-g7, which is a common saving idea. In other words, he was prepared because his previous developing moves were good.

Black's best plan was obvious and it was to trade down, which Shirov did. The position was dangerous, and trading is the most common plan in such positions.

In the given position, black also has a couple of addition pluses that make h6 preferable, and they are that he can trade material on c3, potentially reducing white's attacking chances, and the biggest one is the Re8 controls the file, and allowed for the Bf8-g7 defense previously mentioned. Often these attacks for white require a rook-lift, with Re1-e3-g3(or h3), but it is clear that is impossible here.

Shirov only lost as the result of a blunder later in a winning position.

```
 [FEN ""]
 [Event "World Rapid 2019"]
 [Site "Moscow RUS"]
 [Date "2019.12.27"]
 [Round "9.11"]
 [White "Duda, Jan-Krzysztof"]
 [Black "Shirov, Alexei"]
 [Result "1-0"]
 [WhiteElo "2758"]
 [BlackElo "2684"]
 [PlyCount "111"]

 1. c4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e3 Nf6 4. Nc3 Nbd7 5. Qc2 e5 6. cxd5 Nxd5 7. Bc4 Nb4 8. Qe4 Bd6 9. O-O O-O 10. d4 Re8 11. a3 Nf6 12. Qh4 exd4 13. exd4 Nbd5 14. Bd3 h6 15. Bd2 Nxc3 16. bxc3 Bg4 17. a4 Bxf3 18. gxf3 Nd5 19. Qg4 Qf6 20. Rab1 Bf4 21. c4 Bxd2 22. cxd5 Rad8 23. dxc6 Rxd4 24. Be4 bxc6 25. Rb7 Rxa4 26. Bh7+ Kxh7 27. Qxa4 Qxf3 28. Qc2+ f5 29. Qxd2 Re6 30. Rc1 Rg6+ 31. Kf1 Qh1+ 32. Ke2 Re6+ 33. Kd3 Rd6+ $4 (33... Qf3+ {Wins the queen.}) 34. Kc3 Qf3+ 35. Qe3 Qd5 36. Rg1 Qa5+ 37. Kb3 Qd5+ 38. Kb2 Rd7 39. Rxd7 Qxd7 40. Ra1 c5 41. Qxc5 Qd2+ 42. Kb3 Qd3+ 43. Kb4 Qd2+ 44. Ka4 Qf4+ 45. Ka5 Qd2+ 46. Ka6 Qd3+ 47. Kxa7 Qd7+ 48. Ka6 Qd3+ 49. Ka5 Qd2+ 50. Ka4 Qf4+ 51. Ka3 Qf3+ 52. Qe3 Qa8+ 53. Kb2 Qb8+ 54. Kc2 Qxh2 55. Ra5 Qc7+ 56. Qc5 1-0

```

# Answer
> 2 votes
There is NO answer. It all depends on the exact position. You defend differently, then white will attack differently. The better move would be what worked best against the person you are playing.

Playing p-h6 stops the horsie from moving to N5 to attack h7, but opens up the BxP sacrifice to break through.

Playing p-g6 blocks the sacrifice on h7 but weakens the position without a fianchettoed bishop on g7.
And it would make B-g5 a real problem for you.

---
Tags: analysis, positional-play
---


# Question
Title: Worrying inconsistency in playing strength
I recently found time to make a study plan and improve my playing strength. Using this plan, I was able to achieve a 1900 average rating on online chess sites.

Since a couple of days, I have in a certain sense "lost the feel" of the game, for seemingly no reason at all, and my playing strength quickly dropped to the 1600-1700 range. No matter how hard I try, I don't seem to regain those abilities I had mere weeks ago.

How do I get that "chess focus" back? Has anyone had this experience before?

# Answer
> 11 votes
Don't worry you're not alone in this, I can assure you almost all chess players/enthusiasts go through such periods, not only at the start, but throughout their whole chess experience. Of course there are many elements involved here, that at the end of the day define your performance, but let's stick to those that are most common for all: (*bear in mind these points are purely speculative as I cannot possibly know what may be truly causing your performance drop without actually knowing you!*)

* Learning curve: Basically whatever new we learn and try to incorporate with our chess knowledge, be it new tactics, new positional ideas, more opening varieties, weird endgame situations, etc. there's some minimum necessary time involved (different for everyone of course) to be able to put these new ideas into practical usecases and actually make them work. Why? well one immediate reason is that everyhting in chess requires some amount of experience until it comes closer to being understood. Prime example is when we all first learnt about different checkmating ideas, and then wanted to immediately apply them in every game we played, and of course instead we just end up losing because by giving such strong importance just to some checkmating pattern we become completely ignorant to the more basic ideas underlying each position (activity, safety, structure etc.). So I think you most probably had an immediate boost to your rating (reaching 1900) more by blind chance than anything else.
* What you should retain from my first bullet point is: stay positive (i.e. care more about your play than rating, it's just a number after all...) and keep playing your usual chess, and whatever new you learn along the way, as you keep playing you will get more and more appropriate chances to putting them into good use, meaning you should let the occasions present themselves first and then try applying what you've learnt. By no means you should take this statement as equivalent to "not controlling the evolution of the game", after all that's the whole point of positional play(keeping a grip on the position and imposing its evolution on your opponent to the extent that you can), my point only concerned specific precise new things that you may learn, e.g. rook endings, or known theoretical drawn configurations etc. In this way you will slow by slow incorporate everything new that you learn much more naturally. Simply put by playing more you will discover more about the applicability of the things you've learnt.
* Now one orthogonal reason to the previous two would be: ratings are always fluctuating, specially on online servers (we most often just play for fun and mess around hence may end up losing a lot of points suddenly-also bearing in mind that they're usually short time control games-\>hard to keep a consistent rating), so I think everyone experiences this at any level, what is more important is your **average** rating, say in the last 2 months, that says a lot more about your performance. I myself have always had drops of roughly -+200 rating points every now and then, same goes for most of my friends and people I play against. Chess is really a lot about struggling, because of the extremely rich dynamics of the game, in every game there are so many things that are completely different and unknown compared to our previous experience.
* Another point you brought up was "chess focus": One's mind may very well be completely at ease before sitting down and playing a game of chess, but may still lose his/her focus easily during the game if not careful. At any stage of the game, it is extremely crucial to stay completely alert of at least the most important elements of the position (no need for examples here really). But how? well apart from the fact that everyone has different ways of getting hooked into a game (concentrating), there are general ways of staying focused: e.g. whether it's your turn to play or not, you should be continuously calculating relevant lines to your postions, and absolutely avoid saying to yourself "I'll just wait and see what he/she plays then I'll think about my move", instead you should always assume that there are more things to the position at hand that you see at first sight, so the more you try to calculate different variations (within the time you have) regardless of whether they're *working* lines, you will nonetheless discover more about the space of possibilities hidden in the position, and always assume your opponent is going to play the best move you can think of. All of this, as part of your general attitude towards chess-playing, will to some extent improve your focusing abilities.
* Enough with speculations :) My last advice: just keep up your playing routines and don't allow for big gaps of inactivity in your playing as much as you can, don't be ignorant towards your losses, instead dig into them as much as you can and you'll have a lot more concrete improvements resulting from that than anything else. Hope this has been helpful!

# Answer
> 2 votes
One other possibility is that the average rating of players in online chess websites can also fluctuate quite a bit by the population of the online community.

A good example of this is that I've been playing pretty consistently on chess.com for the last 8 years, and my rating there peaked in the high 1500's, and I seem to be down to the mid 1400's.

I also noticed that this rating fluctuated in a lot of my friends who also play with me on that same community. Over the last 8 years, chess.com's ranked player count doubled, and thus all the ratings of players also shifted as more competitor's entered the community.

Rating points are always going to be relative and fluctuate with the community population as more beginners come into the game, they play and lose against each other keeping their group within the same range, while the players above them can pushed further up in the rating pools.

This is all based on my personal experience having played online for quite a while, and reading over the stats available to me.

# Answer
> -3 votes
Fluctuation in results is more normal for lower rated players than experienced GMs.

1900 is rather in the middle of the range, and since that is online, it is slightly to the lower end. Although you would be almost near the average of OTB players.

You need more practice and less playing especially blitz type games online. Try playing at G10-15SD with no addons or delays.

---
Tags: learning, rating
---


# Question
Title: How can a >2000 player stop making basic errors?
For the last 3 months or so I've been unable to concentrate and play chess to the level that I am used to. I'm rated 2050.

I've been suffering from the following symptoms:

* Being completely unable to see the board in it's entirety. I've done silly things like put my queen *en prise* because I just didn't see that an enemy rook is on the same file
* Being distracted whilst playing. I have this odd habit of working hard to gain a winning position, then my mind drifts to some music that I like. Inevitably I throw my advantage away
* Playing 'hope chess', i.e. I may analyse just one variation a few moves deep and conclude it is good for me. Of course I miss my opponent's best move

My question is, **how can I get out of the rut?**

# Answer
> 6 votes
From the way the question is written it seems like these flaws in your chess are uncharacteristic, and that you recently noticed that they've suddenly become way more apparent than before. The first point about putting pieces en prise does indeed seem uncharacteristic for any player \>2000 Elo, unless we're dealing with very short time controls.

For a beginner, putting a piece or two en prise during a game is to be expected, but for someone of expert strenght it's indicating that something is going on. Most likely it has to do with momentary lapses of concentration, and it is very difficult in general to know why these happen. Has something happened in your life recently that puts you under a lot of stress? Then that is very likely the culprit affecting this area of your game, and you should work on improving your personal life in order to get rid of these annoying mistakes.

The second part, about getting winning positions and then not being able to convert them, is not uncharacteristic for a ~2050 Elo player in my opinion. Strong players tend to be remarkably resilient, and they will not yield an inch unless you force them to. Keeping this in mind, it becomes clear that it is very dangerous to think of your position as "winning". That way of thinking makes it much more likely that during a game you will start relaxing too early thinking the position will win itself, and consequently letting your opponent off the hook. Instead, I believe it is much more appropriate to always keep in mind that **your position is nothing without you!** Without you there to accurately improve it, your position will most certainly deteriorate, no matter how good it is to begin with. Don't forget this; do not relax until the game is over!

The part about "hope chess" should be taken care of if you remember that your opponent is not supposed to be your friend during the game. If they can avoid it, they will never actively cooperate with your plans. However, if the hope chess has increased in the last couple of months it could be caused by the same thing that is causing you to drop pieces. Stress has a way of making people mentally exhausted, and this will inevitably lead to chessplayers 'letting go' the moment they think they see a solution to their problems, unwilling to strain themselves mentally even further by double-checking to make sure the plan is air tight. In this case the solution to the issue should be to work on improving your personal life to eliminate mental exhaustion as a factor in your game.

# Answer
> 5 votes
I have a FIDE 1996 rating and I had the same problem you have now. What fixed for me was to play many slow games G/30 minimum and G/60 ideal, and then have Shredder do a quick blunder check on these games. I slowly learned where I am most likely to make silly mistakes. I also changed my game mindset. Rather than try to get a winning position I chose to aim for a solid position all the time with small improvements, nothing too greedy. I chose to win games by exploiting my opponent's mistakes and not because I blew him out of the water with amazing moves. I consistently get winning positions 90% of the time. Now my problem is to efficiently win these won positions. Good luck.

# Answer
> 5 votes
I would take quite seriously the possibility of taking medical advice. Our chess ability, measured objectively by rating, is a very sensitive measure of our mental health is several ways.

Some years ago my thyroid gland became underactive (hypothyroidism) which leads to a slowing down of mental processes. This went undiagnosed for two years, because being normally quite a bright chap I was just a bit more normal. My rating fell during this period by at least 200 points. I knew that I was playing badly and felt furious about it.

After treatment had begun I was playing in a tournament and I recall exactly when the cloud lifted. I looked at my opponents k-side attack, and suddenly realized that g5 was not a threat. Quite suddenly, I was analyzing accurately again.

I am not offering a diagnosis of your condition, but this very similar experience of mine was in fact symptomatic of something quite serious. The fact that you post here indicates that you are quite worried about it. I think you need to talk to a doctor. A good one will not think that complaining about your loss of chess skill is frivolous.

# Answer
> 3 votes
**General Play**

Building habits is a good way to get out of the rut.

Depending on the the time it could be fundamental to analyze the board and the opponents move to gain a general sense of the direction and goals of each side, of course this is most likely acknowledged by you.

A way to reduce blunders is to manage time, which imposes how you multitask.

If anything, multitasking isn't as much about the ability to effectively tackle on each individual thing, but of being well acquainted with certain aspects so you can focus on certain parts.

Certain sports such as football have many dynamic aspects, but certain things practiced heavily become more natural, such as throwing/ catching, which allow you to focus more on field awareness, position,and the oncoming defenders.

Following this it may be helpful to practice tactics by playing a bunch of chess tactics on chess.com, lichess, etc, or playing chess engines that follow similar moves so you can expand on your knowledge of the systematic processes in opening.

Generally following/ or making a system before playing may help too (analyzing undefended pieces in your side, blundercheck, etc)

---

**Listen to Music**

Another thing is it could be useful to listen to music while playing. I personally listen to jazz, classical, or lofi hip-hop while playing. Something calm and relaxing so I'm not as impatient, and aggressive when I play. Something without lyrics is awesome, and can help tame part of your wandering mind.

Though I do expect the use of headphones would be banned in tournament play.

---

**Time Management**

You also have to take into account the type of chess you are playing

**Classical Chess** Using FIDE standard for Classical Chess, which allows an hour and a half for the first 40 moves and another half an hour for the rest of the game, you have a large amount of time to calculate. In this variation major blunders are pretty much absent at higher level play, as the players are able to completely analyze their moves, anticipate responses, calculate lines and attacks, and even delve into intrinsic theories of the board/ color/ control/ etc.

**Rapid Chess** With 10 minutes to an hour you have a fair amount of time to analyze your moves and board. I personally find this variation ends with who has the stronger end game moves, so with standard opening principles I like to spend half of the time in mid-game setting up a strong, preferably 2 rook, or rook and bishop ending with a faster king centralization

**Blitz** Blitz is 10 minutes or less, commonly played with 2,3 or 5 minute variations. With 5 you may not have a large amount of time to analyze the opponent's goals and motive, but you should still get a general sense of why they make each move. Personally a quick blundercheck in mid-game, 2-5 seconds, and you should be good, just check common moves like how the position could be exploited (fork, discovered attack, skewer) and structure (pawns, defended pieces).

In the 2 and 3 minute variations it is common to find weaker, less analyzed moves, with stronger players still rarely making blunders. The key to this is memory and intuition, with a large history of chess allowing you to find similar positions, piece combinations, and ideas. This variation is heavy on tactics with both sides waiting for the other to make a blunder or a weaker, exploitable move. The harder part is implementing strategy, but with study of the piece combinations, and chess theory you can practice powerful, unexpected attacks that could force the opponent out of their comfort zone. So using this the key to making less mistakes in this variation is practice, and with the above allusion to football, make tactics inherent.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Rated 2050 where?
Is that FIDE OTB?; or some online site with inflated ratings?

One old GM said to sit on your hands. That was to keep you from moving impulsively until you really thought about the position.

You need to train yourself to slow down and be sure before you move.

I would add that you need to stop playing blitz if you care about your OTB ability.

---
Tags: training, psychology, losing
---


# Question
Title: Rating rise: luck or actual increase in playing strength?
The FIDE rating of very active chess players can vary a lot: rating fluctuations of 50 rating points are not unusual.

Is there a way to distinguish whether a rating rise/drop can be explained by random factors, e.g. "(bad) luck", being "in/out form", etc..., or an actual increase/decrease in playing strength?

Does it make sense to say "a rating increase of X over minimum Y games is statistically significant"? If yes, what is the value of X and Y?

# Answer
> 2 votes
> Is there a way to distinguish whether a rating rise/drop can be explained by random factors, e.g. "(bad) luck", being "in/out form", etc..., or an actual increase/decrease in playing strength?

No, would be my answer, at least there is no easy way to distinguish.

The problem is that there are very many factors affecting ratings.

For instance, about 5 years ago FIDE changed the system. I'm not sure if it was lowering the minimum rating, changing the k factors or a combination of these but the net effect was a rating deflation. Talking to a range of players it seems that there was an influx of very underrated juniors into the system. One disgruntled player complained of losing or drawing to juniors who were, in his opinion, as much as 400 points underrated.

Over the following 2 years I noticed a 150 point drop in my rating and anecdotal evidence is that many other older players who have had stable ratings for many years noticed the same kind of drop. Over the last year these same players have reported that their ratings are rising back towards their old averages and attribute this to the system regarding rating of junior players (perhaps with their higher k value) as "settling down". I have to admit I haven't noticed this effect yet ;-), but then I played very few games in the last year. I hope this means I have something to look forward to if I go back to playing a lot more games!

You can also have anomalies due to the average strength of the players you play against. If you play a lot of players who are much, much weaker or much, much stronger than you then this can also distort your rating due to the way they are calculated.

Finally, I would just add that FIDE only attempts to measure my rating "sitting down". My rating "standing up" is at least 300 points higher ;-).

# Answer
> 2 votes
This can be a very difficult problem in practice, depending on your expectations. You would firstly need to assume that in no games were there blunders, and already you can see problems begin to crop up as it is difficult to define what constitutes a blunder (Win to loss? Win to draw? Queen blunder? Positional blunder? Touch-move?).

If you make the further assumption that all of a player's opponents are 'fairly' rated (although this is something fairly dubious to say), then it may be somewhat possible to come up with statistical tests. But first off, it is better to rephrase the question from "X rating points in Y games" to "X *game* points from Y games", because rating changes depend on the K-value.

Consider the following: you have n games, and are expected to win "rating change"/"K-value" of them. You can also compute the expected score for each game (which depends on rating difference), and use these as your probabilities in a sequence of multinomial trials. For example, say you have 5 opponents, with rating difference relative to you and "win expected" as follows:

+43, WE=0.44

-12, WE=0.52

+135, WE=0.32

+22, WE=0.47

-50, WE=0.57

Then your total wins expected is 2.32. Constructing a statistical test here is tricky, because you can't use the binomial distribution properly (as it assumes that only two results are possible, whereas in practice, a third result, a draw, is also possible), and the Elo rating system only gives you the expected score, and not the win/draw/loss probabilities, which depends on the absolute value of the players' rating (i.e. a draw is much more likely between 2700 vs. 2800 than 1700 vs. 1800) as well as colours (whose significance, again, depends on absolute rating)!

You could, of course, go for a naive test and ignore the final factors, but if your total score contains a half point, you won't even be able to use this test!

Anyway, supposing you have the easy case of a sequence of wins/losses without draws, say you scored 3/5 in the above example. Then for your p-value, you would need to compute the probability of scoring 3 points or more, which you get by summing over the probabilities of all possible ways to score 3 points or more (wins vs. players 123, 124, ..., 345, 1234,..., 2345, 12345) which would take quite some time to be done by hand (you need to calculate and sum 5C3+5C4+5C5=16 products of 5 numbers), and if this sum is less than some critical value, say 0.05, then according to this very naive test, your actual performance is indeed better than your rating suggests.

Actually, the test would not be too bad if you knew the drawing probabilities: you can do the above again, though there will be much more work; the assistance of a computer is definitely necessary.

At the end of the day, the best test is time and exposure. Play in international tournaments, and if you maintain your rating change over time, then your playing strength has certainly changed.

(Technically, the tests I described are one-tailed, and you might need to consider two-tailed tests, but deciding on which to use and their impact is relatively trivial and unimportant compared with the other problems you need to address!)

# Answer
> 2 votes
The man who invented the rating system (Arpad Elo) likened it to measuring the depth of a stream using a yardstick that was hanging from a tree branch being blown in the wind. Elo himself didn't think differences of less than 100 points were even worth trying to measure. The only reason the system was worked out as a four-digit number in the first place was because the USCF rating system he was trying to fix was a four-digit system; he would have been just as happy with two-digit numbers.

Too many things affect the outcome of a chess game, including slight variations in health and the current physical condition of both players (one may be tired, didn't sleep well, etc.) for anyone to be able to characterize the strength of *any* chess player with any sort of precision. A rise in rating may mean your opponents have been playing below par, or it may mean they were playing above par and your skill actually improved far better than the rise indicates. The pertinent question is, does chess make more sense to you now than it did? Ae you seeing more, and understanding more? Ratings can't answer those questions. Only you can.

# Answer
> 1 votes
If such a method exists, it is either very difficult, very subjective or very unreliable. If it was easy, objective and reliable, FIDE would incorporate it in their rating system.

More pointedly, your question makes the assumption that a player has a "true objective actual" strength and that his Elo is a (possibly fallible) approximation of that strength. This assumption is debatable in itself: does every player have a true "real" rating? Or is it more nuanced than that? I am of the opinion that our playing ability on any given day is influenced by a large number of psychological and environmental factors, which means that you can never say "my REAL rating is x even if my official rating is y". As philosophers sometimes like to say, there is no "fact of the matter" of what your actual rating is.

Update: to everybody who thinks this is just a matter of statistics, here is a challenge. Last year at the Sinquefield Cup, Caruana won 7 games in a row and increased his "live" rating to over 2850. Show how statistics can be used to prove that it was just a random streak, or whether he actually had an improved playing strength over that period.

The problem with using elo as a statistical measure is that it forces you to make assumptions that are difficult to justify. Can you model a player's strength as a constant probability distribution? Or do players' strength change over time? Is this change frequent, stuttery or smooth? Do elo's expected results match up with history (empirical studies shows that elo becomes less reliable when rating difference is large). There are many others: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo\_rating\_system#Mathematical\_issues

Elo is a useful agreed upon number that is easy to calculate, and we think it approximates playing strength well enough to organize our tournaments around it. But be careful when making grand claims about what it can tell us about the state of our mental abilities without adding a big disclaimer.

# Answer
> 0 votes
When your new rating, over a large number of games , has a minimum rating that is higher than your previous highest rating then you are sure you have improved. A handful of games and certainly less than a year in elapsed time unless you play tournaments every month if not more often are not that significant.

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Tags: rating, statistics
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# Question
Title: Determine ELO strength without playing in FIDE tournaments
I don't play club chess or tournaments, how can I determine my ELO strength? I often play on chess.com how well does it compare to the FIDE system? (I am aware that one cannot account for people cheating online)

# Answer
> 8 votes
This is going to sound tautological, but Elo is inherently a measure of how you do in tournaments. Your question is sort of like asking "I don't run, how can I determine how fast I can run a mile?" We could guess from how generally fit you look, but in reality you just have to go run a mile to find out.

There are correlations between various online ratings and a FIDE rating, but they're just correlations; the context of how you play online is very different from playing live (for one thing, online games are usually much faster).

I can tell you that the first time you play in a live tournament you will likely perform 100-200 points worse than you might expect from such a correlation, just because you're not used to the environment of a face-to-face tournament (moving real pieces, using a clock, writing down your moves, having your opponent right there in front of you, being distracted by other games). Luckily it does not take long to settle in.

# Answer
> 4 votes
The only way to get an accurate estimate of your Elo strength is to actually get an Elo rating.

If you accuracy isn't that important you could take a test like this. There are surely others somewhere. For example in some books (unfortunately I only know a non-English example).

Concerning the chess.com rating: In my experience your Elo should be a bit higher than your chess.com rating, but tournament games and internet blitz can be very different.

# Answer
> -1 votes
There was one psychologists site studying such things who had a sample test that would estimate your rating. While you really need to play enough games OTB and get a real FIDE rating you could use that site to estimate your rating.

Alternatively you could play at some online sites and subtract a few hundred points to roughly estimate your FIDE rating.

NOTE that the rating depends a lot on the time control!

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Tags: rating, elo
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# Question
Title: What is the most effective way to beat the computer at chess?
I have recently been playing a lot of games against the Computer level 9 on chess.com(not to be confused with Komodo 9). It is actually a reasonably difficult computer I would say rated definitely over 2200. I have been taking the King's Indian approach quite often due to the closed center it establishes and the strategic ideas that are brought into the position. The computer makes mindless moves since it doesn't have any plan and it underestimates

# Answer
> 1 votes
Computers have a few advantages over us: speed, memory, and they don't make mistakes (based off the code they're written on). This allows them to go very far ahead in the search tree, navigating the tree perfectly. However, with an engine you estimate to be around 2200, you may have advantages in position evaluation and intuition.

With this in mind, there are a few things you can do:

1) Aim for positions where a high search speed isn't as important. Closed positions are ideal, as you mentioned.

2) Try to drive the game towards positions that you feel comfortable evaluating. An engine rated only 2200 may have an advantage in a concrete tactical position, despite its vastly reduced search depth compared to an engine like Stockfish. But in a positional structure you have experience with, you may have the advantage.

3) Don't go too far out of your way to play differently though. If you get carried away with this, you'll only be playing the opponent and not the game. One reason Kasparov ran into trouble against Deep Blue was that he figured a computer wouldn't make a calculation mistake. If you yourself are around 2000-2200, you already have a decent chance of scoring against a 2200 player.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Even if you want to beat a computer, if it out-rates you by a lot, expect to lose a lot more than you win. If it out-rates you by enough, you still might not win at all.

While you definitely want closed positions, I do not know that the King's Indian will do that enough since there are too many ways to open the position up.

My main suggestion is to study the games of Hikaru Nakamura versus computers. He used to play on ICC versus computers A LOT, and he was probably the most successful player I have ever seen play computers. I would emulate his openings, and go from there.

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Tags: engines
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# Question
Title: Has there ever been a grandmaster-level win where a queen did not move nor get taken throughout the game?
Has there ever been a grandmaster-level win where the queen of the side that won did not move nor get taken throughout the game?

I feel like this is possible even at such a level as the side whose queen does not move could still castle but would need to position their rooks, knights and bishops very tactfully.

# Answer
As noted in the first comment to your question, there are certainly a lot of draws. To narrow it down to reasonable games that were wins, I searched the Mega 2019 Database for games with both players above 2500, and wins with moves between 4-10. It returned 131 games. Of those games, whether due to the remaining moves simply not being transmitted, someone losing for some reason like time or forfeit, or just the wrong result being reported, most were still bogus and equal at the end.

I went through the games quickly looking at the final position looking for games that were truly lost. I also left out a few Internet games that were clear premove/mouseslips like a GM hanging his Qd8 on move 6 to a Bg5. One game might have been legitimate, but a touch-move error with an ill-timed Rg1, so I also left that game out. I found these games that made sense. One has a very instructive tactic!

Let's start off with the least interesting example with a rare case of GM blindness, and simply blundering a piece.

```
 [FEN ""]
 [Event "Bad Homburg"]
 [Site "Bad Homburg"]
 [Date "1997.07.31"]
 [Round "6"]
 [White "Lutz, Christopher"]
 [Black "Dautov, Rustem"]
 [Result "0-1"]
 [ECO "B12"]
 [WhiteElo "2590"]
 [BlackElo "2595"]

 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dxc5 e6 5. Be3 Nh6 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. c3 Nf5 8. Bf4 Bxc5 9. Bd3 Nh4 10. Nbd2 Nxg2+ 0-1

```

The second game has a very cool tactic that I have seen a few times. White calculated cxd7+ expecting Qxd7 and then capturing on e2, but forgot about Nxd7 leaving the Bg5 hanging.

```
 [FEN ""]
 [Event "Kolkata op 3rd"]
 [Site "Kolkata"]
 [Date "2018.05.21"]
 [Round "8"]
 [White "Sengupta, Deep"]
 [Black "Narayanan, Srinath"]
 [Result "0-1"]
 [ECO "D00"]
 [WhiteElo "2563"]
 [BlackElo "2525"]

 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5 d5 3. e3 c6 4. Bd3 Bg4 5. Ne2 Nbd7 6. f3 Bh5 7. O-O Bg6 8. c4 e6 9. cxd5 Bxd3 10. dxc6? Bxe2 (10...Bxe2 11.  cxd7+ Nxd7!) 0-1

```

And the last game is between the most famous players, although it is a rapid game.

```
 [FEN ""]
 [Event "EU-ch Rapid-30'"]
 [Site "Cap d'Agde"]
 [Date "1996.??.??"]
 [Round "?"]
 [White "Leko, Peter"]
 [Black "Ehlvest, Jaan"]
 [Result "1-0"]
 [ECO "B07"]
 [WhiteElo "2630"]
 [BlackElo "2660"]

 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nf3 d6 4. c3 Nf6 5. Bd3 O-O 6. O-O c5 7. h3 Nc6 8. d5 Na5 9. Re1 e5 10. b4 1-0

```
> 25 votes

# Answer
Here is another decisive game where neither queen moved:

```
[FEN ""]
[Event "36th Olympiad"]
[Site "Calvia ESP"]
[Date "2004.10.17"]
[EventDate "2004.10.15"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Alexander Morozevich"]
[Black "Viktor Korchnoi"]
[ECO "C77"]
[WhiteElo "2758"]
[BlackElo "2601"]
[PlyCount "25"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. d3 b5 6. Bb3 Bc5
7. Nc3 d6 8. Nd5 Ng4 9. O-O Na5 10. Bg5 f6 11. Bd2 Nxb3
12. axb3 c6 13. Ba5 1-0

```
> 16 votes

# Answer
I just happened to be reviewing the 2013 World Championship match a few days ago and asked myself a similar question because in round 9 Carlsen won without moving his queen or bishop.

### Anand vs Carlsen - Round 9:

```
[FEN ""]
[Event "Anand - Carlsen World Championship Match"]
[Site "Chennai IND"]
[Date "2013.11.21"]
[EventDate "2013.11.07"]
[Round "9"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Viswanathan Anand"]
[Black "Magnus Carlsen"]
[ECO "E25"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "56"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.f3 d5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c5 7.cxd5 exd5 8.e3 c4 9.Ne2 Nc6 10.g4 O-O 11.Bg2 Na5 12.O-O Nb3 13.Ra2 b5 14.Ng3 a5 15.g5 Ne8 16.e4 Nxc1 17.Qxc1 Ra6 18.e5 Nc7 19.f4 b4 20.axb4 axb4 21.Rxa6 Nxa6 22.f5 b3 23.Qf4 Nc7 24.f6 g6 25.Qh4 Ne8 26.Qh6 b2 27.Rf4 b1=Q+ 28.Nf1 Qe1 0-1

```
> 15 votes

# Answer
This is a relatively long one (37 moves) with the white queen keeping on d1 during the whole game.

```
[FEN ""]
[Event "Belgrade Invest"]
[Site "Belgrade"]
[Date "1991.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Damljanovic, Branko"]
[Black "Kamsky, Gata"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2585"]
[BlackElo "2595"]
[ECO "A09"]
[EventDate "1991.11.??"]
[PlyCount "73"]
[EventType "tourn"]
[EventRounds "11"]
[EventCountry "YUG"]
[EventCategory "15"]
[Source "ChessBase"]

1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 c5 3.Bg2 Nc6 4.O-O e5 5.c4 d4 6.d3 Nf6 7.e3 Be7 8.Re1 Nd7 9.Na3        O-O 10.Nc2 a5 11.Rb1 f5 12.exd4 cxd4 13.a3 a4 14.Bd2 Bf6 15.Bb4 Re8 16.Nd2 Kh8     17.c5 e4 18.dxe4 Nde5 19.f4 Nd3 20.e5 Nxe1 21.Nxe1 Be7 22.Nc4 Be6 23.Nd6 Bxd6 24.cxd6 Nxb4 25.axb4 Qb6 26.Nd3 a3 27.bxa3 Rxa3 28.Nc5 d3 29.Kh1 Ba2 30.Rc1 Qxb4 31.Nxd3 Qb5 32.Nc5 b6 33.d7 Rd8 34.e6 bxc5 35.e7 Qb8 36.exd8=Q+ Qxd8 37.Rxc5 1-0

```

White sacrifices the exchange and breaks through with two connected passed pawns.
> 11 votes

---
Tags: queens, master-games, otb-chess
---


# Question
Title: What should a player do in blitz if he knocks a piece on to the floor after pressing the clock?
This question is prompted by an incident in today's World Blitz championship in Moscow as described and shown in this tweet.

What happened was that Nakamura made a move, pressed the clock, on the way back from pressing the clock his hand caught his rook and knocked it off the board about 10 cm. He immediately picked up the rook and replaced it. This maybe took half a second.

His opponent, Sergei Zhigalko, thought for about 12 seconds before having a long look around, presumably to see if an arbiter was watching the game. Then after another 2 or 3 seconds he gestures over to the arbiter to call him to the board and indicates something with his hand. Finally 22 seconds after the incident he reaches out to pause the clocks. There then follows a long discussion between the players and the arbiters which suggests that Zhigalko was trying to claim an illegal move before the game continues with no action taken.

Nakamura acted perfectly correctly here IMHO, but what should he have done differently if instead of displacing the piece a few inches he had knocked it onto the floor requiring several seconds to retrieve and replace the piece?

# Answer
The relevant section from the rules would be Article 7.4.1:

> If a player displaces one or more pieces, he shall re-establish the correct position in his own time.

The rules do not specify a certain procedure, but what I have seen happening in practice is: Player A knocks a piece over on his opponent's time. Player B is now allowed to press the clock to make sure he does not lose time. After the correct position has been reestablished, player A will press the clock again so player B has the move. I certainly don't feel the rules mandate that the arbiter needs to be summoned in this case.

If the displacement caused an unusual disturbance or the affected player is *very* low on time (\<10sec), as an arbiter I would consider applying Article 12.5 regarding external disturbances and add something in the range of 20-30 seconds to the clock of the affected player.

The following objections could be raised, although I feel they are rather academic in nature:

* It would be in the spirit of the rules if the person displacing the pieces would stop their opponent's clock and start his own again. However, I have never seen this happening and it may well be inadvisable to do that just for practical reasons, depending on the circumstances.
* If the game is played with increment, the additional two clock presses add time to the players' clocks. Therefore, the clock settings (times and move counter) would be incorrect after such an incident. However, at least in the German-speaking chess community, Article 6.10.2 is generally considered to only apply in cases where there is a non-negligible time difference. As a rule of thumb, it should take an arbiter at most one minute to adjust clock settings. If the time differential to be corrected is smaller, the arbiter should not interfere. Additionally, the move counter of the clock is not a reliable indicator of the number of moves played.

In the comments, Article 7.5.3 has been mentioned:

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

This article has been added fairly recently to make sure a player can be penalized for pressing the clock for no reason. It should not be applied if the player enforces the rules.

Making a move and then expecting to correct the position of a displaced piece defeats the purpose of the rule: The distraction by the missing piece is immediately affecting the other player.
> 19 votes

# Answer
I do not know what FIDE and their rules are, but for our local games I would just push the clock and tell the other player to put all the pieces on the board properly before any of my time gets used up at all.

Unless it was a FIDE match AND FIDE rules specified a specific action then I would not be waiting around wondering if an arbiter is watching. Too much risk that your flag falls and then straightening it all out will be hard and may not go in your favor.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: rules, blitz, pieces, chess-clocks
---


# Question
Title: Kasparov said human+computer beats just computer. What does human bring to the table in such teams?
Its seems to me nowadays computers simply play better, i.e. they consistently choose better moves. Where does human factor come into play, how can a human help engine to beat another engine?

Or was Kasparov simply wrong?

Edit: here's the podcast, most of it is politics, chess part is near the very end https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-putin-question

# Answer
**Experienced** human correspondence chess players with a strong chess engine definitely play better chess than just the engine itself.

If you think about it, the human player could always simply follow the engine moves without any thinking. However, you're not going to win the world correspondence title if you don't do your own analysis. You have an engine, but your opponent also have an engine! You just can't win a game unless you guide the engine.

A strong **International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster** know how to analyze a chess position with a chess engine. They can make a move on a board, and evaluate the new positions again with the engine. There is no way the engine by itself can beat this human+engine **perfect** combination - tactics + long-term strategic thinking.

* Human can make some moves on the board, that simplifies the search process (searching at depth x is not equivalent to x+1)
* Human understands drawn endgames. They can guide the engine not to choose a line that wins a pawn but draw 50 moves later in a rook ending
* Human can try the engine lines, play some training games, test the new positions etc. Chess engines can't do that by itself!
> 11 votes

# Answer
This has been tested in 2014. A strong version of Stockfish (ELO 3200) was pitted against Nakamura (2800) with an early version of Rybka (3000) to help him. The Rybkamura team lost.

https://www.chess.com/news/view/stockfish-outlasts-nakamura-3634

This is evidence against Kasparov's claim.
> 7 votes

# Answer
The general thought is that computers still have problems with calculating long-term plans and positional considerations correctly.

There are many examples of modern computers getting "confused" in closed positions where long-term planning is worth more than brute force thinking. Many have a contempt factor which forces them to make a poor move rather than accept a draw against a weaker opponent. Nakamura has exploited this algorithm in many famous games.

For positional considerations, the reason for this weakness is the rarity of possibilities. Except for some lines in the Ruy Lopez, Alekhine, and the Caro-Kann, capturing toward the center is the norm. There are exceptions where capturing away from the center is better, mostly for attacking purposes. Programming in the exceptions would cause an increase in the size of the program and slow down the speed. However the computer does search far enough ahead the this is becoming less of a concern.
> 4 votes

# Answer
If you follow engine tournaments, you'll find that although computers are very strong, there are still times when they do the most stupid of things. Here's an example from the most recent TCEC superfinal between Stockfish and AllieStein.

```
[FEN "2b1r3/6r1/p2p1k1p/Pp1PpP1P/1Pp2pP1/2P2P2/1K2R1B1/3R4 w - - 23 149"]
[White "Stockfish"]
[Black "AllieStein"]

```

Try analyzing the position yourself before looking at what the engines say. What would you give this position?

If you said 0.00, I completely agree with you. After all, White can't make progress - all the pawns are firmly wedged. The only thing White can do is play g5, but that's just going to lose several pawns. Meanwhile Black is just as stuck. White can easily defend the pawn on d5. The only pawn break Black has is ...e4, but that will actually lose the game by not just throwing a pawn, but also opening lines for White to make inroads.

However, if you look at the engine evals, Stockfish gave +0.90, and AllieStein gave -0.50. If you look at the charts of how the evals vary, you'll see they're straight horizontal lines (at least Stockfish's is - AllieStein, being a neural network engine, has a less consistent but still mostly horizontal eval). This is what computer chess viewers derogatorily call "horizone". The engines aren't smart enough to realize they're not making progress. They will happily shuffle until the 50-move rule helps them realize that it's a draw. This kind of fortress situation is quite common, but can be avoided. If you're a human piloting Stockfish, you can see this fortress come up several moves before, realize that Stockfish is heading into a horizone, and choose a different move that keeps some winning chances in the position.

But that's not all humans can contribute! As it turns out, AllieStein spotted an ingenious way to make progress. Check out what happened 15 moves later. By this time, Stockfish had realized it wasn't making progress, and its eval had dropped to +0.38. Meanwhile AllieStein's eval had increased to -0.79. And then there happened ...

```
[FEN "2b3r1/8/p2p3p/Pp1PpPrP/1Pp1RpP1/2P2Pk1/2K5/3R1B2 w - - 53 164"]
[White "Stockfish"]
[Black "AllieStein"]

 1. Ree1 Kxf3

```

What kind of fanatic plays 164...Kxf3? Is AllieStein insane? Who the hell ventures into enemy territory with a lone king to grab pawns anyway? Black can't even back off through g5 because the square is currently blocked.

If you're a human piloting AllieStein, you'd immediately realize this is a pivotal moment. Either AllieStein is seeing something profound, or it's making a huge blunder. Before actually making the move, you'd try out variations to see what might happen. You might not be strong enough to tell yourself, but AllieStein is sufficiently powerful to tell that within a few moves Black's so-called advantage has cratered. After 164...Kxf3 165. Be2+, Black is dangerously close to being checkmated. 165...Ke3 166. Rf1 threatens Rf3+, Re1 and Bd1 checkmate. Black is forced to take desperate measures like ...Bxf5, after which his position collapses. AllieStein on its own didn't see this, and lost this game. But human + AllieStein is likely to have avoided this.

This is just an example of the more obvious ways a human can contribute. Correspondence players will be able to say more, since they get familiar with their engine's strengths & weaknesses, and feed their engine ideas on how to get to their strongest positions while avoiding the opponent's. From what I've gathered talking to correspondence players, the odds are that they will draw against someone playing only engine moves (since chess is a draw after all), but they won't lose either, and they will score wins. That's where humans can contribute.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: engines
---


# Question
Title: Does playing bughouse have any benefits on your chess game?
I've heard that it helps your tactical skills, but can a chess variant really help you in tactics more than simply playing standard chess.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Bughouse really doesn't. What can help you is shogi. Shogi is similar to chess but with complications that start almost immediately and become much more crazy than in chess. The reports that I have had from multiple players who went from chess, to shogi, back to chess is that the chess tactics suddenly seem exceedingly easy when you return.

To speculate for a moment, bughouse is harmful because it is similar enough to chess that it interferes with your thinking about chess. Shogi is sufficiently different to be separable.

# Answer
> 1 votes
In my opinion it might be okay. Playing bughouse develops your imagination in some way. You might be a little bit better at attacking. But... such a slight improvement is obviously not worth investing that much time, that's for sure.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I initially felt bughouse (or crazyhouse) would definitely help improve one's chess. I thought this since you have to do the extra thinking of where you would optimally place the captured pieces that you have. But when I tried playing it, its way different and difficult and went out of hand pretty quickly for me. So I feel there's hardly any use trying to play bughouse inorder to improve your regular chess, as it is a completely different game altogether.

# Answer
> -1 votes
No. It will likely hurt your OTB ability. If you want to really improve then play Go. Go is so much harder than chess that when you come back to chess you will feel much more confident with your moves.

It is like bulking up at the gym.

---
Tags: learning, chess-variants, bughouse
---


# Question
Title: What is the proper etiquette in Team Chess Championships?
In Team Chess Championships, what is the proper etiquette for being a player?

This question is mainly focused on:

* Can I see my teammates’ games during the match? (I suspect I can.)
* If I win quickly, can I go away, or should I stay?
* If I leave the hall after winning, can I return?
* Can I have contact with my teammates? If so, to what extent is this limited?
* Can I call a friend, and let him play in the now empty board of my match, for opinions on the game just finished, or am I forced to do it outside? (This is assuming, of course, that we don’t talk loudly.)

# Answer
> 13 votes
Officially most of it depends on the team competition, it will have regulations. But I think these questions will have pretty much the same answers everywhere.

1. Yes, you're sitting right next to them, and you can walk around as usual, so you can see their boards.

Usually teams have a team leader also, whose role is to advise you about offering or accepting a draw (but not in a way that gives you information about his opinion of your own position! If you ask him "Can I offer a draw?", he must answer yes or no immediately; he can't walk up to your board, think for a while, then say no. It would be obvious then that he thought you had the better position, which is a big no-no). He can otherwise watch all games all the time though.

2. You can leave if you want. The team leader has to sign the result form at the end, but the players are done when their game is over. Most of the time you'll be eager to know the end result and stay, though.
3. Re-entering the hall really depends on the regulations. You'll be a spectator. In most amateur leagues, spectators can just stand next to the boards if they wish, so so can you.
4. Officially you can not speak to anybody during any chess game, including team matches. Practice is slightly less rigorous. If you discuss the ongoing chess games, you're definitely over the line.
5. No, of course you can't analyze a game right next to ongoing games, that's clearly distracting for the players. Usually there will be a separate room where games can be analyzed.

# Answer
> 9 votes
Just from my experience playing in a lowly ECF English county league:

1. Does not seem to be a problem.
2. No problem - just check with your captain that he got your score and ask if he wants you to do anything else (perhaps he needs help with cleaning up the venue or such).
3. Does not seem to be a problem in the county leagues, but I believe FIDE is now quite strict with whom is allowed into the playing area. I would check with the tournament rules.
4. Not encouraged. I've had the occasional "supporting" smile or nod from a team mate while getting a drink from the club bar, or a "how do you do?" from non-playing members of the club, but generally I think you are asking for trouble if you start a significant conversation with anyone while your game is in progress. It is likely that the opposing captain will lodge a complaint if he thinks you may be discussing your game, and it does not take much to get their suspicion kindled in my experience.
5. It seems to be OK to use the empty board for a friendly with another player (and it does happen on occasion), provided that you maintain the match playing conditions - i.e. do not start a conversation or do anything that interfere with the players still at play. I don't think it is appropriate to discuss your game though, since that would cause unnecessary noise in the playing area. Once again, FIDE is probably more strict on this.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Late to the party for this question, but there is one more aspect of team chess that is very important that may, or may not, be considered etiquette; but it is definitely a firm guideline for team chess.

Don't lose. A draw is always fine, but try not to lose ever. Of course, this is not always possible, but playing on a team has a lot more responsibility than just playing for yourself.

I know that sounds funny since your opponent is trying to beat you, but you have to try to play positions that do not give you a high chance of losing, which puts your team behind the eight-ball. If you are a wild, out-of-control attacker, I probably do not want you on my team.

I have played a lot of team chess over the years, including being a multiple winner of the Northeast Chess League (it was a thing in NH and Massachusetts a long time ago), and finishing second in the open section of the U.S. Amateur Team East tournament in 1993.

In both of these events, you have only four boards, so losing forces your teammates to go 2.5/3 in the remaining games if they want to win the match. This is, obviously, a tall order.

So keep that in mind when picking teammates, and when you play in team tournaments.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Proper etiquette is to obey the rules including the spirit of them and not try to game them for advantage.

Usually players have to play boards in order of their ratings. And except for wide open events there is an average maximum or possibly actual maximum/minimum ratings allowed.

Normally you all play in one room so you can see all the games. What you are not supposed to do is talk about them and give help to your teammates. As I have said many times, cheating is rampant in chess.

If you win quickly what you do is up to you and to a lesser extent what your team mates want you to do. I usually stay to see who wins the match.

If you leave the hall you can usually return but that might depend on the event and venue. My events were usually local and more casual so there were no restrictions.

You have full contact with your teammates. But you are usually required not to discuss any games you are involved in. We often discussed other matters especially if our games had ended and we were waiting around.

Rules and etiquette would require you to make phone calls outside.

And any of this can be overwritten by specific rules for a given event and its location.

---
Tags: tournament, etiquette, team
---


title: Why isn't 3.e4 more popular in the QGA?

text:
# Question
Title: Why isn't 3.e4 more popular in the QGA?
According to the chess.com DB, 3.e4 is the third most popular reply in the Queen's Gambit Accepted - but why isn't it the most popular by a long shot? Isn't the entire point to remove black's central d-pawn so white can play a strong e2-e4? The moves 3.Nf3 and 3.e3 seem passive almost, but surely I am missing something. Maybe e2-e4 is taking up too much space too early, and you end up overextending yourself?

# Answer
> 6 votes
I'm not sure which database you are looking at: I see 3.e4 as the second, not third, most popular choice on chess.com, though not by much:

Here's what one author says about 3.Nf3:

> Throughout the history of the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, this has been White’s most popular move in this position. White does not hurry to win back the pawn that he has sacrificed. He calmly develops his pieces and offers his opponent as few targets for an immediate counterattack as possible.

Sterren, Paul Van der. FCO: Fundamental Chess Openings (Kindle Locations 1487-1489). Gambit Publications. Kindle Edition.

and about 3.e4:

> For a long time this very natural reaction to 2... dxc4 suffered the same fate as 3 e3 and 3 Nc3: it was thought to be inaccurate because of 3... e5. The difference is that in this case White has the promising pawn sacrifice 4 Nf3! exd4 5 Bxc4!, when his development is swift and aggressive and Black will have to take great care in getting his king into safety. This is in fact a lively variation with chances for both sides.
>
> \[...\]
>
> Another standard device for counterattacking against the white centre consists in 3... c5.

Sterren, Paul Van der. FCO: Fundamental Chess Openings (Kindle Locations 1438-1441). Gambit Publications. Kindle Edition.

My take is that it is not that 3.e4 is bad (it actually has better statistical results for White!), but it is a matter of taste and more people prefer to play more solidly.

# Answer
> 4 votes
I play e3 because I prefer more positional play. I want to first improve my position before a possible e4. In a more closed game the loss of tempo is not very important. That said, e4 is perfectly playable. To me, this is a matter of style.

I guess that most players who would play 3. e4 would play 1. e4

# Answer
> 2 votes
e4 isn't as popular because when you play e4 black can actually defend his extra pawn for quite some time, but with e3 if black is keen on actually defending his pawn he will lose material and will be left with a worse position due to (1.d4,d5 2.c4, dxc4 3. e3, b5 4. a4, c6 5. axb5, cxb5 6. Qf3!) and white wins a piece or a rook.

---
Tags: opening, theory, queens-gambit, queens-gambit-accepted
---