# Question
Title: In the United States, what are the universities and colleges with the best chess club?
Webster University undeniably takes first place.

But I would like to know more American universities and colleges which have a big chess club.

# Answer
> 1 votes
The top four US college chess schools participate in the Final Four of College Chess. This year's (2015) participants were Webster University, the University of Texas at Dallas, Texas Tech University, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Especially, the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, have consistently had very good results in the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship in the last ten to fifteen years.

You can find other college chess clubs at the site of the USCF.

---
Tags: uscf, clubs
---


title: The 50 Move Rule

text:
# Question
Title: The 50 Move Rule
Can the fifty move counter be increased after white's move? I thought that it could only be increased if both white and then black had not moved a pawn nor captured a piece that qualified for a whole move. The reason I ask is that the other day while playing against a chess engine, after white moved, the engine sent the 50 move violation message, where as my count was 49 until black's move.

# Answer
> 6 votes
Fide Laws of Chess

> 5.2 e. The game may be drawn if each player has made at least the last 50 moves without the movement of any pawn and without any capture (see Article 9.3).
>
> 9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if: \[...\] b. the last 50 moves by each player have been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.

So it doesn't matter who is black and who is white. If the last pawn move or capture was made by white, the rule comes into effect after white's move.

---
Tags: rules, draw, 50-move-rule
---


# Question
Title: Queenside vs Kingside pawn majority: Looking for comprehensive resources
I am looking for a resource that describes plans for both sides in the following pawn structure:

```
[Title "Queenside vs Kingside pawn majority"]
[fen "8/pp3ppp/4p3/8/2P5/8/PP3PPP/8 w - - 0 1"]

```

This pawn structure can arise from the Caro-Kann, or Rubinstein French, as far as I know.

I could use books or online resources that cover plans for **both sides** in a very comprehensive manner. I am especially interested for game plans of the side with the kingside pawn majority.

After searching through Internet I was not able to find anything, so I really hope I will have more luck here.

## EDIT #2:

On member *Rauan Sagit*'s request, I am providing a game I played against `Shredder` with difficulty level set on `hard`. I must add that I took back moves twice in the bishop ending and those moves shall be listed as sidelines. Both times I had to resign. Third time I took 3 minutes to look at the board and calculate the lines, which enabled me to properly draw:

```
[White "Shredder Online, hard level"]
[Black "AlwaysLearningNewStuff"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[fen ""]

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Bd3 Ngf6 6.Nxf6+ Nxf6 7.Nf3 c5 8.O-O Be7 9.Be3 Qc7 10.dxc5 Bxc5 11.Qd2 Bxe3 12.Qxe3 O-O 13.Ne5 b6 14.c4 Bb7 15.Rad1 Rfd8 16.Bb1 Rac8 17.Rfe1 h6 18.a3 a5 19.b4 axb4 20.axb4 Ba6 21.b5 Bb7 22.f3 Rd6 23.Rxd6 Qxd6 24.Qd3 Rd8 25.Qxd6 Rxd6 26.Kf2 Nd7 27.Nxd7 Rxd7 28.Ke3 Kf8 29.Rc1 Ke7 30.c5 bxc5 31.Rxc5 Kd6 32.Rc1 Rc7 ( 32...e5?! ) 33. Rxc7 Kxc7 34.Bd3 Kb6 35.Kd4 f6 36.Kc4 Bd5+! ( 36...e5?! ) 37.Kd4 Bb3! 38.Kc3 Bd5 39.Kd4 Bb3 40.Kc3 Bd5 41.Kd4 1/2-1/2

```

I must admit that in the past I have relinquished the `d-file` way too easily trying to reach the endgame as fast as possible. After reading through the member *Rauan Sagit*'s answer, I have decided to reread *M.Shereshevsky-Endgame Strategy* again, and after reading through another book he wrote ( *Mastering the endgame-Volume 1* ), I was able to understand the importance of contesting the `d-file`. It was not too hard to find `22...Rd6!` which enabled me to contest the `d-file` and enabled me a smooth transition to the equal endgame.

I will test this approach in more games, and will read the recommended book *Romanovsky-Middlegame method* first, before I decide to officially accept the answer. Thanks *Rauan*!

Here is another game that illustrates the problems I face in a much better way:

```
[White "Shredder Online, hard level"]
[Black "AlwaysLearningNewStuff"]
[fen ""]

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Bd3 Ngf6 6.Qe2 c5 7.Nxf6+ Nf6 8.dxc5 Bxc5 9.Bg5 Be7 10.Nf3 h6 11.Bf4 O-O 12.O-O Qb6 13.c3 Rd8 14.Nd4 Bd7 15.a4 a5 16.Be5 Be8 17.h3 Rac8 18.Rfd1 Rd5 19.Nb5 Bc6 20.h4 Qd8 21.Na7 Ra8 22.Nxc6 bxc6 23.c4 Rd7 24.Qf3 c5 25.Bxf6 Bxf6 26.Bh7++- Kxh7 27.Rxd7 Qxd7 28.Qe4+! g6 29.Qxa8 Bxb2 30.Rb1 Qd2 31.Qb7 Bg7 32.Qxf7 Qc2 33.Rb7 Qd1+ 34.Kh2 Qd6 35.f4 Qd4 36.Re7 h5 37.Rxe6 Qd3 38.Rc6 1-0

```

Here I had no idea what to do after `18.Rfd1`. This game illustrates exactly the problem I face:

White has more space, better minor pieces and slight pressure. I really do not know how to defend here. To make matters even worse, on the highest level *Rubinstein French* is said not to give Black full equality and this was not even the sharpest line.

*I have fixed the typo in the game for White's `24.` move.*

## END OF EDIT

Thank you.

Best regards.

# Answer
The main idea can be summarized as follows

> The deciding factor is the control over the open d-file

Thus, you should play this position with one, two or three heavy pieces each still on the board and make sure you will control the d-file. As usual, invade the seventh rank, bring your king to the center (as long as the king is safe when doing so) and cramp the opponent.

EDIT (2014-03-14):

If you want to win this position, you should exchange down to a rook endgame where you control the d-file. If you want to prevent a loss, you should avoid a position where your opponent exchanges down to a rook endgame where the opponent controls the d-file. The middlegame (more pieces on the board) adds more complexity. Learn the clean cut case and that will guide you in more complex situations.
> 5 votes

# Answer
The book mentioned in a comment by @Rauan Sagit has been translated to English: Endgame Strategy by Mikhail Shereshevsky (Everyman Chess) (1st First Edition) \[Paperback\] and can be found on Amazon.
> 1 votes

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


title: Where does the word 'gambit' come from?

text:
# Question
Title: Where does the word 'gambit' come from?
According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary, a gambit is

> a chess opening in which a player risks one or more pawns or a minor piece to gain an advantage in position.

But I was wondering, why do we use the word 'gambit'? Where does it come from? How we came to use it?

# Answer
> 8 votes
The name 'gambit' was coined in the *16th century* already by Ruy López. He derived it from the old Italian expression

> dare il gambetto

(literally: 'to give the leg'). It means 'to trip (someone) over' - gambits were often used in attempt to win a game quickly.

---
Tags: opening, history, terminology
---


title: Working with UCI protocol (coding)

text:
# Question
Title: Working with UCI protocol (coding)
I'm currently writing small application for a chess interested friend. The application is supposed to automatically annotate his chess games. When giving the engine a position to analyze, and a depth (or time) for doing it, I'm looking to get the following info in return: 1. The best three (or any other given number) moves and their scores in centipawns. 2. An evaluation of a given move (ie his move). I would really appreciate if someone could tell me how to accomplish this. I guess my lack of knowledge about chess and chess engines makes it harder for me than it actually is.

/Tom

# Answer
> 12 votes
Let's use Stockfish to find out the moves for this position

```
[fen "N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34"]

```

The FEN string is: "N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34". You should copy-and-paste my commands to experience yourself.

Load the position by "position fen ..." and then use "d" to print the position. Please note that "d" is a Stockfish-only command.

```
tedwong@:~$ stockfish
Stockfish 6 64 by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski
position fen N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34
d

 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 | N |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 | P |   |   |   | p | k |   | p |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   |   |   | p |   |   | p |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 | r |   |   |   |   | p |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   |   |   |   | b |   |   | B |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   |   |   |   | P |   | K | P |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   | R |   |   |   |   |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

Fen: N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34
Key: 4E025494EA4A7523
Checkers:

```

Ask the engine to think for 30s and set the number of principal variations to 3.

```
setoption name MultiPV value 3
go movetime 30000

```

You'll see a bunch of engine outputs. In particular, you should something like:

```
info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 1 score cp -5 nodes 1540 nps 54 tbhits 0 time 28098 pv a8b6 e3b6 b1b6 a5a7 e2e3
info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 2 score cp -8 nodes 1540 nps 54 tbhits 0 time 28098 pv a8c7 e3a7 c7b5 h7h6 b5a7
info depth 4 seldepth 5 multipv 3 score cp -10 nodes 1540 nps 54 tbhits 0 time 28098 pv g2f3 a5a7 a8b6 a7a3
info depth 5 currmove g2f3 currmovenumber 3
info nodes 1618 time 30049
bestmove a8b6 ponder e3b6

```

Here, Stockfish gives three possible lines: Nb6, Nc7 and Kf3. The lines are sorted in terms of the advantage for the side to move.

Let's check what if your friend blunders a rook by Ra1... We expect Stockfish to report ...Rxa1 with a winning advantage for Black. I use http://analysis.cpuchess.com to make the move and get a new FEN.

```
[fen "N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/R7 b - - 1 34"]

```

The new FEN is: "N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/R7 b - - 1 34"

```
position fen "N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/R7 b - - 1 34"
go move time 30000

```

You should see something like:

```
info depth 25 seldepth 38 multipv 1 score cp 692 nodes 34732679 nps 1391812 tbhits 0 time 24955 pv a5a1 a8c7 e3a7 g2g3 a1a3 g3g2 a3a5 e2e4 a7b8 c7d5 f5e4 d5c3 d6d5 h3c8 b8e5 c3d1 a5a2 g2f1 e5h2 c8b7 e7e6 d1e3 a2b2 b7a8 b2b5 f1f2 h2f4 e3d1 b5c5 a8b7 c5c2 f2e1 f7f6
info depth 25 seldepth 38 multipv 2 score cp 62 nodes 34732679 nps 1391812 tbhits 0 time 24955 pv a5a7 a1a7 e3a7 g2f1 d6d5 h3g2 e7e6 h2h3 f7e7 a8c7 a7b6 c7a6 e7d6 a6b4 b6d4 b4c2 d4c5 f1e1 g6g5 g2f3 d6e5 e2e3 f5f4 e1e2 f4e3 c2e3
info depth 24 seldepth 38 multipv 3 score cp -480 nodes 34732679 nps 1391812 tbhits 0 time 24955 pv e3a7 a1a5 a7d4 a5a4 d4e3 a8c7 e3b6 c7d5 b6c5 e2e4 e7e6 d5c7 f7f6 a4a6 f6e5 e4f5 e6f5 g2g3 c5d4 h3f1 h7h6 c7e8 d4c5 a6a5 e5e6 e8c7 e6d7 c7d5 c5d4 g3f3 d4e5 f1b5 d7e6 d5f4 e6f7 a5a8
bestmove a5a1 ponder a8c7

```

As can you can see the evaluation drops to "cp 692". It was "cp -5" before our move. Therefore the move Ra1 must have been a gross blunder.

Please read the UCI specification for more details.

**Your job will be:**

1. Connect an engine to your favourite programming language. You can do it by inter-process communication. There are lots of examples on Google.
2. Issue UCI commands like how I did.
3. Parse the commands. You might want to use like a string tokeniser.
4. Make a move (like how I did with Ra1) to get an evaluation of the move.

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


# Question
Title: How do Kramnik and Topalov indicate a resignation when they play together?
From What is the correct resignation procedure? it is clear that, although FIDE has no special rules governing on *how* you resign, it is common to either offer your hand or make some sort of exclamation (i.e. "I resign!"). What is important is that your intention to resign is unambiguous.

Now, the rivalry between Kramnik and Topalov has gone to such an extend that each player refuses to shake the other's hand or engage in any kind of pleasantries. Which raises the question - how do they go about resigning when playing each other without creating confusion about their intention?

# Answer
> 20 votes
If I remember correctly, they either just sign the scoresheet or stop the clock first and then sign the scoresheet to indicate that they resigned. There is no handshake, and they do not speak to each other since the WCC2006 controversy.

Here are two examples: Candidates Tournament 2014, Rd. 13 (Kramnik-Topalov 1-0), Norway Chess 2014, Rd. 6 (Topalov-Kramnik 1-0).

**Addendum.** Not asked in the original post, but one interesting (and related) question is also: How do Kramnik and Topalov agree to a draw? Signing the scoresheet or stopping the clock is not appropriate in this case, since the opponent might want to continue playing.

One obvious way is to repeat the position three times. If there is no threefold repetition on the horizon, the players can offer a draw through the arbiter (like in Sofia rules, used, for example, during the WCC 2010).

# Answer
> -3 votes
Knocking over your king has always been a perfectly acceptable way of resigning.

With the king being the tallest piece on the board it can often happen that somebody wearing a long sleeved shirt can accidentally knock over their king when moving a piece near the king. I often, as a joke, hold out my hand before they've had a chance to pick the king up as if accepting their resignation. If they look puzzled rather than amused I point to their horizontal king. Hopefully at that stage they'll smile.

---
Tags: resigning, kramnik, topalov
---


# Question
Title: Any reference material on the Franco-Benoni defense?
The **Franco-Benoni defense** is characterized by the black moves:

```
[fen ""]
[startply "4"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 c5

```

The books I've read on the French defense contain none or very little information about this opening. Are there any "authoritative" or "main line" references or books that investigate this opening? Are any of you using this opening in your games? Where do you get your information from?

# Answer
> 6 votes
There is a book on the Franco-Benoni. (Using the alternative name "Barcza-Larsen")

It's rather old (1991) but I would guess theory doesn't move that quickly in the Franco-Benoni. It's probably a good way to get started, but you might want to check the lines with an engine.

Edit: There is also a short article by Harding on chesscafe.com.

---
Tags: opening, theory, franco-benoni
---


# Question
Title: in Sinquefield Cup how is white player determined?
Do they flip a coin to determine white player? Does the person in that round who has higher points choose? Do they rotate (and if so, how is the first round white player determined)?

# Answer
In round-robin tournaments, the schedule is known in advance. A very common schedule for 10 players starts with the following games in the first rounds:

```
Round 1: 1-10 2-9 3-8 4-7 5-6
Round 2: 10-6 7-5 8-4 9-3 1-2

```

(see this Wikipedia article for more details)

Which player corresponds with which *pairing number* is determined before the tournament. Traditionally, this is just some kind of lottery, where each player is assigned a random number. It seems this was also the case for Sinquefield 2015:

> Pairing numbers will be drawn randomly at the Sinquefield Cup

For another Grand Chess Tour tournament, Norway Chess 2015, they had a blitz tournament the day before. The winner of that tournament could pick a number first. Because with an even number of players, you play an odd number of games, the winner could pick a number, say 1, that would give him white in 5 games and black in only 4. The runner-up of the blitz tournament could pick next, and so on.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: tournament
---


title: Opening creation-is it ever possible?

text:
# Question
Title: Opening creation-is it ever possible?
I have invented (to the best of my knowledge) a really decent opening. I would like to note that over the ICC I have actually beaten a few masters with this opening, with one master having an ICC rating of 2400 (45 45). I would like to popularize my opening without somebody else stealing it from me, but I really don't know how. Is there a way to do this type of thing?

# Answer
> 7 votes
Openings cannot be copyrighted, but analysis and comments can be.

The best you can do is probably to publish an extensive analysis of the variation online (or in a magazine, but you should make sure it is available online as well). In that article you should explicitly name the variation. You might also want to throw in some engine-engine games, instead of just concentrating on your own games. Real tournament games would probably be more convincing than online games as well.

If you do that you can always prove precedence by pointing out your article if somebody tries to reinvent and rename the variation. If the article is well written and contains high-level games, it is also quite likely that other people interested in the variation will quote/link you, i.e. accept and cement your precedence.

# Answer
> 5 votes
I suggest you to read the story of the invention of the Kingston Defence by Gavin Wilson. Based on this story I would advise you the following actions:

1. Be sure to triple check your opening hasn't got a name yet. See here. You never know, it could appear in some obscure publication you don't know about...
2. Work on your opening until you are sure you have analysed all the main responses for white and for black. Better testing it with your computer than against real players at this stage, to diminish the probability of it being "stolen".
3. Find a good name for your opening.
4. Publish your opening, as suggested by BlindKungFuMaster. A book, an article in a chess magazine, an online video... that's up to you.
5. Get some publicity for your opening/publication. See if you can find someone to make a review/comment on your publication. And be sure to play it.

---
Tags: opening
---


title: Extracting features from chessboard

text:
# Question
Title: Extracting features from chessboard
So i am implementing an intelligent chess agent with the use of reinforcement learning.I intend to use Java.

After reading the master thesis of H.Mannen i decided to use some of the features listed on Appendix B of his master that can be found on page 67.

*Edit- Description of the features:*

-**Board control** : amount of empty squares controlled by a side

-**Connectivity** : amount of connectedness between the pieces of a side

-**King’s distance to center** amount of squares a king is separated from one of the center squares e4, d4, e5, d5

-**Total mobility** : total sum of squares reachable by a side

-**Center control** : amount of pawns occupying the squares e4, d4, e5, d5.

-**Isolated pawns** : amount of pawns without a pawn of its own side on an adjacent line.

-**Doubled pawns** : amount of pawns, greater than 1, on 1 line.

-**Passed pawns** : amount of pawns without an enemy pawn ahead of it on the same or an adjacent line.

-**Pawn forks** : amount of pawns which attack two superior pieces.

Due to the fact that my project is focused on the AI part of the chess agent i would like to use some preexisting open source Java libraries or functions that automate the proccess of extracting these features from the chessboard.

After searching, the only thing i found was Chesspresso but it comes with no tutorial and i was unable to find one. So i have two questions:

-Do you know any good tutorials for Chesspresso?

-Are aware of any Java open source library that will help me extract the features i want from the chessboard so i can reduce the programming cost of the project?

Thanks in advance.

# Answer
> 0 votes
While I certainly don't know every Java library for chess, I'd be surprised to see a library designed to extract features like what you describe. There shouldn't be one because nobody else needs it.

Fortunately, everything you said is implemented and more or less there, but you'll have to do some works. You should consider to use an open-source project that has bitboard implemented (such as Droidfish or any Java engine uses bitboards). You'll need to learn how to use bitboards, but you'll find it useful to do what you want to do.

For example, you can get total mobility by masking the attacking pieces with the opponent pieces, something like:

```
(squares attacked by my pieces on an empty board) & (their pieces)

```

As another example, we can get board control by:

```
(squares attacked by my pieces on an empty board) & !(squares attacked by their pieces on an empty board)

```

For the documentation on Chesspresso, I doubt there is anything better than it's Java docs. You'll need to learn to read their documentation.

---
Tags: engines, software, pgn, evaluation, chessbase
---


# Question
Title: How many possible combinations for the number of pieces on the board?
My question concerns the total material available on the chess board (black+white pieces). At the very beginning of a game, there are 2 Kings, 2 Queens, 4 Rooks, 4 Bishops, 4 Knights and 16 pawns. These can be represented by an array (2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 16). As the game progresses, the total amount of material will change, thus the array will change. My question is as follows. Looking at all theoretically possible games played from the initial position, how many unique arrays are possible to reach? The fact that a pawn can be promoted to any light or heavy piece makes the problem even more tricky!

Initial Board

```
16 Pawns
 4 Rooks
 4 Bishops
 4 Knights
 2 Queens
 2 Kings

```

After a pawn capture

```
15 Pawns
 4 Rooks
 4 Bishops
 4 Knights
 2 Queens
 2 Kings

```

Only kings left

```
 0 Pawns
 0 Rooks
 0 Bishops
 0 Knights
 0 Queens
 2 Kings

```

But it get more complex when you include pawn promotion (to any piece excluding pawn and king).

So what is the total number of combinations?

---

I've listed 3 combinations above. Here a 6 more

```
 P  R  N  B  Q  K
32  4  4  4  2  2  Initial Position and remains the same until a capture
32  3  4  4  2  2  First capture frequency combinations.
32  4  3  4  2  2
32  4  4  3  2  2
32  4  4  4  1  2
31  4  4  4  2  2  Pawn
etc
etc
0  0  0  0  0  2  Only Kings

```

It get tricky at pawn promotion cos each of the 16 pawns can turn in one of 4 pieces (R B N Q). Which is why I curious to know the total number of (unique piece frequencies)

# Answer
It's :
numberOfPawnsPieces(=17) * numberOfRooksPieces(=5) * numberOfBishopsPieces(=5) * numberOfKnightsPieces(=5) * numberOfQueensPieces(=3) * numberOfKingsPieces(=1)
= 6375

I added one to each number of same piece in case there is no one of its kind(for queens for example, there may be two queens, one queen, or none), except for Kings where there always must be 2 kings on the board, so the number of combinations for kings number is only 1.

\**

**EDIT : In cas there is promotions of pawns**

\**
My idea to tackle this is to separate all possible cases, i.e. when there is promotion of 1 pawn, promotion of 2 pawns,...,promotion of 8 pawns. ( 8 pawns is the maximum number of possible promotions )
Generally speaking, when `x` pawns are promoted, we will proceed same as above, but the number of pawns will be in each case (16-x), plus an other group of `4 * x` possibly created pieces. Finally we will sum all over the cases :

```
                17*5*5*5*3*1 + SUM[x=1-->16,(16-x+1)*5*5*5*3*(4*x)] = **1 230 375**

```

This is approximate, I may have forgotten some cases, or added some positions that are just impossible to happen in a chess game,...etc.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Initialy I posted that only 8 promotions for both sides are posible because pawns are oposed in the same file and to promote one have to be taken.

Edited:

I think that for each promotion one pawn or a piece shoud be taken. Because pawns are in front of each other ,blacks and whites ,to promote one of both have to move to the side(take another piece or pawn) or be taken. then I recalculated the final result to **80094** diferent legal piece combinations. I created this script to show all (i modified thanks to the comments of lodebari)

```
(function (pieceset) {
    'use strict';
    var n = 0,
        cc = function cc(arr) {
            var temparr=arr.slice(0);
            while (temparr[0]>=0) {
                while (temparr[1]>=0) {
                    while (temparr[2]>=0) {
                        while (temparr[3]>=0) {
                            while (temparr[4]>=0) {
                                var maxp = 0;
                                var nump = temparr[1]+temparr[2]+temparr[3]+temparr[4];
                                if (temparr[1]>4) maxp+=(temparr[1]-4);
                                if (temparr[2]>4) maxp+=(temparr[2]-4);
                                if (temparr[3]>4) maxp+=(temparr[3]-4);
                                if (temparr[4]>2) maxp+=(temparr[4]-2);
                                nump = nump - maxp;
                                if ((maxp+temparr[0]<=16)&&((nump+temparr[0]+(maxp*2))<=30)) {
                                    n++;
                                    console.log(n,"->",temparr);
                                }
                                temparr[4]=temparr[4]-1;
                            }
                            temparr[4]=arr[4];
                            temparr[3]=temparr[3]-1;
                        }
                        temparr[3]=arr[3];
                        temparr[2]=temparr[2]-1;
                    }
                    temparr[2]=arr[2];
                    temparr[1]=temparr[1]-1;
                }
                temparr[1]=arr[1];
                temparr[0]=temparr[0]-1;
            }
            return 0;
        };
    cc(pieceset);
}([16,20,20,20,18,2]));

```

When you run it it print lines like this:

```
1 '->' [ 16, 4, 4, 4, 2, 2 ]

```

the fist number its the combination number followed by Pawns,Rooks,Knights,Bishops,Queens,Kings. The fist line corresponds the fist position with full board, and the last with the two kings alone.

You can try here : https://repl.it/xlO/4
> 2 votes

# Answer
I know that the upper limit can not be greater than **2304000** Which is the answer to the following

```
16 (Pawns) * 20 (Rooks) * 20 (Knights) * 20 (Bishops) * 18 (Queens)

```

But not all of those are possible, so doing a quick programming

```
 c:= 0
 p:= 0 .. 16
 r:= 0 .. 20
 b:= 0 .. 20
 n:= 0 .. 20
 q:= 0 .. 18
 if Sum( p, r, b, n, q, 2) <= 32 then c+=1

```

Calculates **c** to be **305090** combinations. (218 \< c \< 219)

If I just focus on end games (no pawns) I calculate **c** to be **3060** 211 \< c \< 212

Is my algorithm producing the correct results?
> 1 votes

---
Tags: mathematics, pieces
---


# Question
Title: Is this a kind of training software that actually exists?
This may seem like a silly thing to want to do, but I have been thinking lately that some kind of training software that does the following might be helpful to me:

1. Show me a board position, and let me study it for a bit.
2. I click a button or something, and the position is no longer displayed.
3. After some (hopefully configurable) period of time, it displays the next position in the move sequence.
4. I have to identify the move that was made that got from the first position to the second.

The reason this is something I'm interested in doing is in the interest of time management during tournaments. If I want to get up and leave the board during a game (to use the restroom, get something to drink, just stretch my legs and walk around a bit - whatever), I never do it on my opponent's time - because if I return to the board and they've made a move, I can never tell what move they actually made without trying to peek at their scoresheet, or asking (which seems rude...). So I end up only ever getting up and leaving the board when I'm on move, with my own clock running, and this seems sub-optimal. This is something I've never been good at (being able to identify what move has been made if I don't actually see it happen), and I'd like to be better at it.

Is there anything available that's intended for building this skill?

# Answer
I'm not going to answer your question directly, but will attempt to address the root cause of your problem. The skill of seeing which move your opponent played in your absence is something that you should acquire naturally over time. In the beginning I also struggled with this, but after a few months I found that I can easily pick up which move my opponent played. This is probably due to:

* Becoming familiar with popular moves in your opening choices.
* Anticipating opponent responses. It goes without saying that you should have an expectation of how your opponent will respond whenever you make a move, which cuts down on the number of potential moves you need to actively remember.
* An improved ability to keep track of all the pieces on the board - in the beginning, 32 pieces feel like a lot, but over time your mind start to keep track of the individual pieces.
* Improvement over time at spotting common tactical themes/motifs/patterns. Doing chess puzzles will probably help in this department.

In normal playing conditions you should never ask your opponent for anything, but you have a right to look at his scoresheet at any time, so don't feel uncomfortable when taking a peek if you are unsure about which move he played. When it is your move (as it would be in this situation) it is OK to even take his scoresheet physically and study it. I see this happening all the time.

A quick note on your habit of leaving the table when it's your move - I believe it is now against FIDE rules to leave the board while it is your turn - you may want to make sure about whether that rule applies to your local competition to avoid any unpleasantness.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: software, training
---


# Question
Title: What happened to the official website for the World Chess Championship 2010?
The official website for the WCC2010 is supposed to be (and previously was) located at (**please do not visit the page until you read the whole post**): `http://www.anand-topalov.com/`.

Now, unless I am very mistaken, the persons appearing on the above web address at this particular moment, do not look much like Anand or Topalov (protagonists of the WCC 2010). Nor does the content look to be related to chess (well, at least not to how I see chess).

I do not understand the language or the script, but from the pictures it seems that the new main topic of the site is breast enlargement. This leads me to believe that the site has been hacked.

Does anybody know where to report this sort of thing? Is there another copy of the website, on some other location?

# Answer
> 4 votes
Apparently, FIDE didn't renew the site, so somebody purchased it. You can check the old contents at http://web.archive.org/web/20100701000000\*/http://www.anand-topalov.com

---
Tags: world-championship, anand, websites, topalov
---


title: Thoughts on this game, please

text:
# Question
Title: Thoughts on this game, please
I played the below recently in a U145 ECF (~U1800 FIDE) rapidplay, and would appreciate your thoughts. There are obviously lots of tactical errors, and please be kind on the last few moves which were played in a desperate time scramble by both sides, made worse by prize money almost certainly hanging on the game, but any constructive comments would be appreciated. The 1-0 result is because black tried Nxa3+ at the end missing the check from the white queen, and so losing on the illegal move rule,

Ian

```
[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2015.09.12"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Somebody"]
[Black "Somebody Else"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B08"]
[PlyCount "79"]
[FEN ""]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Nc3 d6 4. e4 Bg7 5. Be3 O-O 6. Qd2 Ng4 7. Bg5 h6 8. Bh4
c5 9. h3 Nf6 10. O-O-O cxd4 11. Nxd4 g5 12. Bg3 Nh5 13. Bh2 a6 14. Be2 Nf6 15.
h4 g4 16. Bf4 e5 17. Bxh6 exd4 18. Qg5 Nh5 19. Qxh5 dxc3 20. e5 Qb6 21. b3 dxe5
22. Bxg7 Kxg7 23. Qg5+ Qg6 24. Qxe5+ Qf6 25. Qg3 Nc6 26. Rd5 Rg8 27. Bxg4 Kf8
28. Rg5 Rxg5 29. hxg5 Qxg5+ 30. Kb1 Qg7 31. f3 Bxg4 32. fxg4 Rd8 33. a3 Rd2 34.
Qc7 Qg6 35. Qc8+ Kg7 36. Rc1 Qe4 37. Qxb7 Qxg2 38. Qxa6 Nd4 39. Qc4 Nxc2 40.
Qxc3+ {Black now played Nxa3+ and lost on the illegal move rule} 1-0

```

# Answer
> 1 votes
All that I have analysed from the above game are enlisted below. I don't know which side @Ian Bush was on, so I am making suggestions for both sides. Hope it helps. Here it goes:

***FOR WHITE***

1. White had a slight positional disadvantage in the game as early as move no.7 since by this time, Black had castled, king is in safety, king-side pieces well developed, but White had a centred exposed king, queen-side pieces developed before king-side pieces (against golden rule), center pawns e4,d4 not supported by any pawn.
2. White should have played 3. c4 which is more mainstream and allows White an early control of the centre which can add to his advantage in the middlegame.
3. 10. o-o-o is not a good move because of the fianchetto bishop on g7 and also the centre is very dynamic. So white loses the opportunity to attack on the kingside early as Black has the option to blow up the center and rupture the attack.
4. 16. Bf4 is dubious. Better is 16. Nf5 which attacks the g7 bishop and occupies much space on the king-side and if it is captured by the bishop, pawn recaptures and the kingside attack is easier for White now.
5. 26. Bg4 is better and is followed with the idea of Rd5..h5..h6 which tries to mend the position.
6. 31. f3 might have been replaced by 31. Qd6 followed by 31. .. Kg8 32. Bf3 going for a fightback.
7. 36. Qh8# could have sealed the game however.

**FOR BLACK**

1. 6. .. Ng4 seems premature. Developing Queenside pieces might have been better.
2. 30. .. Qf6 would have been better, aiming for 31. .. Bg4 and 32. .. Rd8.
3. 35. .. Kg7 is a blunder. 35. .. Rd8 is quite stable.
4. 41. .. Nd4 was the best move.

Otherwise Black had a good game and the final position was almost equal , a little in favour of Black. However the game could go anyway because of White's passed pawns.

# Answer
> 1 votes
My rating when I was playing is around 2000-2100 ELO so hopefully some of this analysis is helpful.

## Early strategy

Trying not to be too overly critical and from a basic perspective I think White had a big upper hand early on with a classic Sicilian style setup. Castling on the alternate queen-side in particular suggests that you're going to be attempting a kingside pawnstorm

From the perspective on Black early on I think it's clear he was suffering from severe under-development. White had only one minor piece under-developed (by move 13) whereas Black still had his Queen underdeveloped plus two minor pieces hemming in his Rook. Also I'd argue Black was applying next to no pressure on the centre at all. I'd argue for a intermediate players it's not okay to concede the centre too early on. Some study of openings would be advantageous here.

A rule of thumb is not to move a piece more than twice in the opening unless it's either a) part of a repertoire or b) required because a piece or there is a severe threat. Either way it's a good rule of thumb to follow.

## Early mistakes

I would argue that White is in an excellent position by move 14. Both 7... h6?, 11... g5?, 12... Nh5? and 13... a6? are all early mistakes putting Black in a very bad position. Generally it's not advisable to weaken the pawn structure in front of your king (again without good cause) and here there's too much time for White to capitalise and punish Black's weak pawn structure. White missed 14.g4! Nf6 15. f4! gxf4 followed by 16. Bxf4. Threatening to win the pawn on h6 which either forces black to open his Kingside which is obviously not advisable or making a lot of concessions.

Having observed the whole game the fact that Black was allowed to blockup White breaking open the Kingside (with g4) meant that he could buy himself sufficient time to generate counterplay. For me everything after that is a formality since a player who capitalises early on mistakes and follows through with conviction is often the player that ends up winning at the level you're talking about.

I would recommend you check out books by Isaac Lipnitsky if you'd like to understand a bit more about positional play and the likes of Capablance or Nimzowitsch, who are positional masters, to understand what makes a good or bad positional move. This should improve your natural intuition.

Best of luck - I hope that's helpful!

Two books I highly recommend:

Aron Nimzowitsch - My System

Isaac Lipnitsky - Questions of Modern Chess Theory

# Answer
> 0 votes
After Black accepted the sacrifice with 19. dc3, White has some chances. An immediate 20. Rd5 aiming for g5 is interesting. For example, `20. ... f6 21. Rg5! fg 22. Bc4`. Black counterattack with `20. ... Qb6 21. bc` doesn't seem to lead anywhere (unless I am missing something obvious).

---
Tags: analysis
---


# Question
Title: If an opponent's clock is pressed by mistake, how much extra time is given?
Today at the local tournament I noticed something strange. It was my turn, and my opponent's clock was running.

My opponent had pressed the his neighbor's clock by accident. We were playing two boards on each table, sitting four people on each table in a room. Some time had gone while our dear neighbor had lost time on the clock. How much extra time would our neighbor get, the one whose clock had been pressed accidentally?

I called the arbiter and we tried to correct the mistake in a very improvised manner.

We did not know how long it had been this way. What to do?

# Answer
> 4 votes
First of all: unbiased sources might be available. A spectator might have noticed it or a player might have recorded clock readings on the scoresheet. DGT boards record the exact time, too.

Naturally, the player who lost time *should* get back exactly the time he lost.

Now three unreliable sources of information are available to the arbiter: the person who accidentally pressed the wrong clock and the two players on the other board. They should be able to agree on a rough estimate of the time elapsed. (Has it been five minutes or ten? You should be able to tell.) The arbiter should adjust *both* clocks accordingly, maybe adding a minute for the disturbance caused.

This is governed by article 6.13 in the FIDE laws of chess:

> If an irregularity occurs and/or the pieces have to be restored to a previous position, the arbiter shall use his best judgement to determine the times to be shown on the clocks. He shall also, if necessary, adjust the clock’s move counter.

---
Tags: rules, time-control
---


title: Search Algorithms used by top engines?

text:
# Question
Title: Search Algorithms used by top engines?
what are the top parallel search algorithms used by top engines ,and which one is the best ? And is there a reference implementation of them in any programming language ? I know most of the top engines are open source but they tend to be extremely complex and unsuitable for learning .

# Answer
> 1 votes
Best performing algorithms are YBWC and DTS. Lazy SMP is probably giving best performance/complexity ratio. You can read more about parallel search algorithms here (make sure to check referencies and links. As for reference realization, I haven't seen any, so I just used simpler engines with parallel search, and, mostly, algorithms descriptions.

# Answer
> 0 votes
For most engines, this is proprietary information. However, Stockfish is quite good and is open source; its search algorithm is found here

# Answer
> 0 votes
You can read all about chess programming here.

In general, chess engines start with some form of minimax algorithm with alpha-beta pruning, then add in refinements.

---
Tags: engines, software, chess-algorithms
---


# Question
Title: What happens if a player mistakenly thinks they have been checkmated?
A quote from Wikipedia:

> The objective is to 'checkmate' the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture.

Suppose two players (A and B) play the game using the old fashioned way (no computer involved). If player A has player B's king checked from two positions. Player B only knows how to block one of those two attacked positions. But there is a way for Player B to make a single move and block both attackers. What would be the proceeding of the game next? Should player A show player B how to do it? Or does the game end with player A winning even through this is not a checkmate?

# Answer
> 7 votes
If player B is checked in two different ways, then there is by definition no way for player B to block both attackers *with a single move*. The only way to get out of double check is to move the king.

If there's a square for player B's king to move to that is safe, then he can get out of the check. If player B simply doesn't see it, then in a friendly game player A can certainly show player B where to move his king. In a competitive game player A should probably just let player B lose on time or forfeit by making an illegal move.

If there's no square for player B's king to move to that is safe, then it is in fact checkmate. Player A wins.

# Answer
> 6 votes
Each tournament has its rules, but what I was taught as a child when I played was that the agreement of the players was the end of the game; if you weren't checkmated, it was treated as though you resigned because you thought the position was a lost position. Shake on it, and the game is decided.

As the winning player, it was considered unsportsmanlike to not point out the available move, but not obligatory. The winner may not notice the move itself! I remember one game where castling was the difference between being mated and winning the game, but it never occurred to either player that, that late in the game, someone might not have moved either their king or rook. I also heard of one game which would have been won by an en-passent (but I never did confirm that it occurred).

In the end, it really depends on the situation. **If there's more important things than winning (like having fun and learning), not pointing it out is bad form.** If winning is all there is (which might happen in some master level play for large money), then... well... hopefully you don't make a mistake like this. Usually the mistake at the masters level is resigning from a winning position, and they usually don't need their opponent to tell them about the mistake later -- all of their friends and their chess computers will make sure they know afterwards.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I guess the question is what to do if one player doesn't find a legal move, but it is not checkmate.

In a tournament game he would lose on time, lose because of repeated illegal moves or possibly resign.

In a friendly game between amateurs you can handle the situation any way you like. It depends on whether you value the competitive or the social side of playing chess more. I would say if you allow takebacks, you might as well show player B the defence, otherwise a loss is the sensible result.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Once the players agree that the game is over and agree who has won, it's over. If later the player who lost realizes they had a saving resource, it is too late. The game is over.

---
Tags: endgame, rules, checkmate, check, winning
---


# Question
Title: How to use Stockfish to automatically analyze big DB of games
I would like to have Stockfish (or another strong engine) automatically analyze a very large database of games (\>1M games), so that the analysis is as strong as possible while making the best use of my computational resources. A naive approach would be to run Stockfish on every position in every game to a certain depth, and then report the evaluation. But this would waste CPU cycles on calculating trivial positions for way too long, for example positions in which a simple recapture is obviously the only not-losing move. How should I determine how long I should let the engine think in each position?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Run a shallow search (you might want to add multi-pv). Check the magnuitude of the lines if you want to re-run a proper search. Although this sounds weird, but this is a very common strategy in Stockfish (eg: move reductions). Your won't waste your previous search because the hash-table should speed up your next search. You can read more here.

For example, you wouldn't want to waste CPU cycles in a position where white is a rook ahead.

Otherwise, I don't see a non-trivial way to detect if a position is "interesting" to search.

---
Tags: analysis, programming
---


# Question
Title: In a ChessBase opening tree how can we put a column that displays the percent of time each move is played or a column that displays "Perf" minus "Av"?
Here are the columns displayed in an opening tree on ChessBase 12:

I would be interested in adding two columns:

* A column which displays the percent of time each move is played in the position.
So for the starting position it should display something like that: 1.e4 42% - 1.d4 40% - 1.Nf3 9% - 1.c4 6% - etc.
* A column which displays "Perf" minus "Av".
"Av" is the average Elo before the game has started of the players who played that move. "Perf" is the average Elo after the game has ended of the players who played that move.
So "Perf" minus "Av" is equal to the average Elo one is expected to gain by playing that move.
In my opinion "Perf" minus "Av" is even more useful than the average score (the percent of time White wins plus half the percent of time it ends in a draw). And it takes me a lot of time to calculate and remember them every time.

# Answer
> 1 votes
You cannot do this in ChessBase 12.

# Answer
> 1 votes
You will have to use one of ChessBase's chess playing programs like "Fritz" to display additional statistical information. In this example the column "Prob" gives the general probability for each move of a specific position while the column "\[%\]" shows the actual preference of a chess engine to play the move from the openings book. The engine preference can be tweaked based on variety of play and influence of learning value.

---
Tags: opening, engines, software, database, chessbase
---


# Question
Title: For White, which variation of the King's Indian Defence tends to lead to the most solid, positional, slow, strategic, quiet and closed positions?
I am a 1750 Elo player with a very positional, quiet and strategic style of play.

I would like to know which variation I should play when, as White, I face the King's Indian Defence: 1...Nf6 2...g6

The variation must meet these two conditions:

* On average it must tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, quiet and strategic as possible (I want nothing sharp and tactical).
* I should be able to play it both by beginning with 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 and by beginning with 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4

Don't hesitate to suggest me more than one variation, so that if I don't like the first variation maybe I shall like the second one.

# Answer
> 8 votes
According to *Joe Gallagher-Starting Out The King's Indian Defense* and *David Vigorito-Attacking Chess-The King's Indian Volume 2* the most solid line for White in King's Indian is the Fianchetto variation. I tend to agree with it.

Before explaining why, let me just show you the *tabya* so I can better explain my point of view :

```
[Title "KID, the Fianchetto variation"]
[fen ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 O-O 5.Bg2 d6 6.O-O Nc6

```

After briefly looking through the lines ( there is a vast amount of work to review ) I came to the same conclusion as the above writers based on the following :

1. Center remains fluid, so Black can not pursue standard `...f5` idea as in other lines;
2. Because of the first point, and the fact that fianchetto castling is very hard to crack, White king is ultra safe ;
3. White has more space;

It is not easy for Black to find counterplay, but he can reach equality if he knows how to play this line. Tactical shots are limited to the rook sacrifices along the `b-file` so `Nf6 + Bg7` battery can profit from discovered attack, but otherwise things are positional and **dynamic.**

There are several sub-variations here, but I would recommend you to play *Panno line*, since *Yugoslav attack* is quite sharp and theoretical.

```
[Title "KID, the Fianchetto variation-Panno line"]
[fen ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 O-O 5.Bg2 d6 6.O-O Nc6 7.Nc3 a6 8.h3 Rb8 9.e4 b5

```

White has 2 options here, `cxb5` and `e5` but I advise you `cxb5` as it is safer one. Play will become dynamic, but you have dodged a lot of theory and sharp tactical mayhem from *Classical line* or *Saemish attack*... For detailed coverage of this line get Vigorito's book. It is printed in 2011 and is very well written, in my opinion.

Do not forget that KID is a sharp opening and that you can not "sterilize it", you can only reduce the level of sharpness and that is it.

# Answer
> 5 votes
The Petrosian system ( 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.d5) is relatively high in strategy and low in tactics (for a King's Indian).

# Answer
> 3 votes
King's Indian has many variations but I will try to be short. There are some variations which you should prefer and some to avoid. I can't provide you full information. It's better to look some books. By Eduard Gufeld, for instance.

Let's start from fianchetto.

```
[Title "White to move"]
[fen ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. g3 d6 6. Bg2

```

There are many variations there. If black play `e5` or `c5` it seems to suit your style. After `Nc6`, `a6` and `Rb8` position can be sharp or cannot. for example

```
[Title "White to move"]
[fen ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. g3 d6 6. Bg2 Nc6 7. O-O a6 8. d5 Na5 9. Nd2 c5 10. Qc2

```

There if black plays Rb8, b5 and after that e6 they can sacrifice the rook (by taking your bishop b2) and the position will be rather sharp. If black plays e5, Ng4 and f5, the position will suit your style better.

```
[Title "White to move"]
[fen ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O

```

In the classical line black can put knight on c6 and this position will be better for white if you know how to play. You can look how Vladimir Kramnik does it. If black takes on d4 and plays Nd7-c5 many pieces will be on the board. But this continuation is not popular nowadays. So, you need some theory in main lines.

There is another positional variant for you, but it works well only against inexperienced people who don't know how exactly to play with black. If black plays right, you will not even think about advantage, but otherwise your chances to lose will be very low. The pair of bishops is amazing.

```
[Title "White to move"]
[fen ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. h3 e5 7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Qxd8 Rxd8 9. Bg5 Re8? 10. O-O-O c6? 11. Nxe5 Nxe4 12. Nxe4 Bxe5 13. Nf6+ Bxf6 14. Bxf6

```

I would recommend you start from the last option. I get the position above very often

# Answer
> 2 votes
You can try the Exchange Variation:

```
[fen ""]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Qxd8 Rxd8

```

GM Gregory Serper has an article covering the opening here.

---
Tags: opening, theory, strategy, positional-play, kings-indian
---


title: Castling rule clarification

text:
# Question
Title: Castling rule clarification
A quote from Wikipedia for castling rule:

> the squares between the king and the rook involved are unoccupied

What if the squares are not occupied at this instance but an opponent piece was there before?

I tried on a computer chess game, it would not allow a castling move.

# Answer
FIDE Article 3.8:

> (1) The right to castle has been lost:
>
> * if the king has already moved, or
> * with a rook that has already moved.
>
> (2) Castling is prevented temporarily:
>
> * if the square on which the king stands, or the square which it must cross, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, or
> * if there is any piece between the king and the rook with which castling is to be effected.

The fact that a enemy piece previously occupied a square between the king and rook does not make castling illegal. Instead, there is probably some other reason why castling is not permitted.
> 11 votes

---
Tags: rules, castling
---


# Question
Title: What positional play strategy should white adopt when fighting against the Philidor exchange variation?
What are the key squares to control? What are ultra aggressive moves white can play at the advance level (expert or higher class)?

# Answer
Why not follow that game? - he got a nice centralised position with pressure on d6.
No need to take risks with "Ultra-aggressive" moves.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: opening, positional-play, philidor-defense
---


title: Is there a checkmate in the next move?

text:
# Question
Title: Is there a checkmate in the next move?
My friend claims that there is a mate in the next move. White to move and checkmate. I am aware of 3 mates in 2 variations:

```
1. Qd1 Kd3 2.Rxd5#

1. Qd1 Kc5 2.Qg1#

1. Qd1 Kxe5 2.d4#

```

But I cannot seem to find a mate in one move!

I ran it through Houdini and Rybka, both spat out the above variations.

I am aware that the engines dont normally miss these mate in 1 moves, still He seems to be sure (maybe he's wrong). Just want some 'experts' to confirm this.

# Answer
> 10 votes
It's a silly trick. The board is upside-down! The bottom left square is h8, and the top right is a1. A legal move for white (but not a mate in 1) would be `1. e8=Q`. Look at it upside-down for a minute, readjust your perception of which squares are controlled by pawns, and you'll soon find a mate in 1.

# Answer
> 6 votes
Essentially, for mate in one, white needs to give check and guard e5. If the Q checks on b2, this opens c5 and d3 for the black K. If the Q checks on c3 or e4, it can be captured. If the Re5 checks on e4 or d5, it can be captured.

There is no mate in one.

---

However, now I look at this again, I can see that it might be the *wording of the question* that is wrong. White can certainly **end** the game in one move. f4, Kf4, Kf5, Rbf4 and any non-checking move by the Re5 will end the game.

In stalemate.

So you might say, by a trick of phrasing, that's a kind of "mate in the next move".

# Answer
> 3 votes
There is no mate in one move here, as there is 9 (Txb4+, Txd5+, Te4+, Dc5+, Dc4+, Dc3+, Dd3+, De4+, Db2+) way to do check black king but none of them gives mate.

Also it could be very interesting to find some example where Rybka or Houdini (or others...) can miss a mate in one.

# Answer
> 1 votes
There is no mate in the next move but very good move is Qd1! You always may use online tools to calculate next move. For example http://www.chessnextmove.com

---
Tags: analysis, checkmate
---


title: Evans Gambit variation

text:
# Question
Title: Evans Gambit variation
The generally very useful and interesting book *Bologan's Black Weapons* suggests the following line as a practical way to meet the Evans Gambit.

```
[FEN ""]
[Title "Evans Gambit"]
[Startply "12"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 b5!? 7. Bxb5 Nxd4

```

The line continues `7. Bxb5 Nxd4 8. Nxd4` (`8. Nxe5` is less good, see analysis in the book) `exd4 9. Qxd4 Qf6` with reasonable play for black.

However, the book doesn't mention the move `9. O-O !?`.

```
[FEN ""]
[Title "Evans Gambit"]
[Startply "17"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 b5!? 7. Bxb5 Nxd4 8. Nxd4 exd4 9. O-O!? (9. Qxd4 Qf6) dxc3 10. Bc4!

```

In a blitz game I played as black, I thought I should prevent white from building a big center with `cxd4`, so I played `9... dxc3`. But then after `10. Bc4!` I had a very bad position.

So my question is, what should black play after `9. O-O !?`?

# Answer
After 9.0-0, 9....dxc3 is indeed too dangerous. After 10.Bc4! black cannot finish his development as white's threats Qd5/Qh5/Bxf7+ are too strong.

However, 9....c6 seems to be a good move. White's strongest reply is probably 10.Bc4, as both 10.Ba4 Ba6 and 10.Be2 dxc3 are fine for black. After 10.Bc4, black can play 10....Ne7 and continue his development with 0-0 and d5. For instance, 11.cxd4 0-0 and black shouldn't be afraid to sacrifice a pawn after 12.Ba3 d5! 13.exd5 cxd5 14.Bxe7?! Qxe7 15.Bxd5 Rb8 because black's bishop pair and development are more important than the weak pawn on d4. Instead, white should play 14.Bd3 and after 14....Re8, the position is more or less equal.

```
  [StartPly "17"]

  [FEN ""]
  1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.d4 b5 7.Bxb5 Nxd4 8.Nxd4 exd4 9.O-O c6 (9...dxc3 10.Bc4!) 10.Bc4 (10.Ba4 Ba6) (10.Be2 dxc3) 10...Ne7 11.cxd4 O-O 12.Ba3 d5! 13.exd5 cxd5 14.Bd3 (14.Bxe7?! Qxe7 15.Bxd5 Rb8) 14...Re8

```
> 4 votes

---
Tags: opening, theory, evans-gambit
---


# Question
Title: When evaluating score of new position with UCI chess engine is the Hash used at all?
I am using a UCI chess engine (stockfish 6) to evaluate the score of specific positions from different games.

On this stockfish help forum thread it states: `Hash size is the amount of memory you want to designate for Stockfish to store positions (a temporary hash). You don't want your hash size to exceed your physical memory, but you don't want it to be too small either.`

In my case I am not using the engine to go through subsequent moves in the same game, but different positions entirely. For example:

after 4th move of Aldrovandi vs. Cocozza (2003):

```
position fen rnbqkbnr/pppp2pp/8/4pp2/8/5P2/PPPPPKPP/RNBQ1BNR w kq f6 0 3
go movetime 10000
info depth 16 seldepth 25 multipv 1 score cp -71 nodes 2171367 nps 879095 tbhits 0 time 2470 pv b1c3 b8c6 e2e3 f5f4 g2g3 d7d5 d2d4 g8e7 f2g2 f4e3 c1e3 e7f5

```

after 2nd move of Hirneise vs. Hirneise (2010):

```
position fen r1bqkbnr/pppppppp/n7/8/8/7N/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 2 2
go movetime 10000
info depth 19 seldepth 24 multipv 1 score cp 16 nodes 7228257 nps 723259 tbhits 0 time 9994 pv d2d4 g8f6 e2e3 e7e6 c2c4 d7d5 b1c3 f8e7 f1e2

```

In these consecutive uses of the engine, I am solely interested in **score cp -71** and **score cp 16**

It seems that the Hash is not used at all and thus I can set it to zero. Is that correct? Is there a way to disable the Hash entirely in the UCI specification? The reason I ask is I am using a mobile device so conserving memory is more relevant.

# Answer
**Short answer**

No, don't set it to zero, in fact the more the better. Stockfish *is* using the hash table *very* heavily, just that you can't see it.

**Long answer**

Let's briefly cover hashing in a non-technical way

*Q: What is hash table?*

Hash table is an internal data structure in chess engines to "memorize" previously searched positions. It's like the black-hole; you can't see it but it's part of the galaxy.

*Q: Why hash table?*

Because we don't want to the engine search the same position again and again. There're lots of repetitions in chess, hash table is a simple but very effective strategy to deal with them. Hash table also helps move reductions and pruncing.

Let's look at the quote:

> Hash size is the amount of memory you want to designate for Stockfish to store positions (a temporary hash). You don't want your hash size to exceed your physical memory, but you don't want it to be too small either.

If your computer has 4GB of RAM, you wouldn't set it over 4GB (google virtual memory if you are interested to learn more). But at the same time, making it too small would be a waste of resources. You would have to pay for the electricity to power up the computer anyway, so we want to maximise the size of the hash table as much as possible without affecting the overall performance.

Let's pretend we are using Stockfish to analyze the starting position.

You were confused because you thought hashing is like just storing the initial position:

Hash Table : { default position }

This is not correct, because the table is actually being used in the engine search. The hash table would look something like:

Hash Table : { default position, 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.e4 e5, 1.a4, 1.a4 h5 .....}

Although you can't see it, hashing is very important because it memories positions that you will need in the current search and next search. Let's say we play 1.a4, immediately from the hash-table we have an evaluation of 1.a4 h5 from the previous search.
> 3 votes

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


title: UCI undo move command?

text:
# Question
Title: UCI undo move command?
I checked the UCI specification here and I don't see a way to undo a move. I'm using stockfish, is there a way to do this?

For example, how would I accomplish the following:

```
position startpos moves e4c5
undo

```

With the intent of the above "undo" to result in a position of `e4`

# Answer
> 4 votes
Unfortunately the UCI protocol is stateless, there is no way to ask the engine to undo a move. The protocol is designed for communication between GUI and engine, you are supposed to have your own board representation such that you can update the engine.

For example, you would need to do:

```
position startpos moves e4c5
position startpos

```

---
Tags: engines, software, stockfish, uci
---


# Question
Title: Difference between tactic and combination?
What is the difference between a `Tactic` and a `Combination`? For reference, here is a game I played as white and I think I had a nice combination from move `16`, but I am not sure if it is classified as a `combination` or `tactics`. This what my thought process from move `16` was. There are probably multiple mistakes made in the game, but I am not looking for a complete analysis.

`16. Bc2` \- staring down the diagonal
`17. Ned4` \- I am hoping he will take it so I can advance my pawn to `e5`.
`18. exd4` \- He takes the sacrifice which is what I was hoping for.
`19. Qxh7#` \- Apparently, he didn't notice the open diagonal and probably was concentrating on me attacking his bishop.

```
[FEN ""]
1. e4 d6 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 Bg7 4. Be3 Nc6 5. Bb5 Bd7 6. O-O e5 7. d5 Nce7 8.
   Qd3 a6 9. Bc4 b5 10. Bb3 f5 11. Nc3 f4 12. Bd2 Bf6 13. a3 Nh6 14. Ne2 g5 15.
   c4 O-O 16. Bc2 Qe8 17. Ned4 exd4 18. e5 dxe5 19. Qxh7#

```

# Answer
The United States Department of Defense Dictionary of Military Terms defines the tactical level as:

> The level of war at which battles and engagements are planned and executed to accomplish military objectives assigned to tactical units or task forces. Activities at this level focus on the ordered arrangement and maneuver of combat elements in relation to each other and to the enemy to achieve combat objectives.

Your ultimate combat objective is to checkmate, and for that you'll have to assign specific tasks to the tactical units you have deployed in order to achieve the desired objective.

For example:

`17. Ned4` \- Tactical sacrifice, in order to allow e4 pawn to advance.

`18. e5` is merely the completion of the tactical maneuver.

From the moment you are considering the diagonal b1-h7 as one of your attacking strengths you are considering a "strategy" which is to checkmate on h7, or in other words you are considering the "combination" of the specific techniques (tactics) involved in accomplishing such objective.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Here is the way that I see the difference, and the way it has been explained to me:

A *tactic* is generally a short-term attacking sequence with little connection to the positional strategy. It is used to score points and gain an advantage.

A *combination* is typically a longer sequence and can involve a number of tactics. It also generally is connected to the positional strategy.
> 5 votes

# Answer
A combination is a more general term for a tactic. While both offer the player an advantage (when they're sound!), a tactic offers a very concrete advantage, such as material/mate. Whereas a combination is just a sequence of (sometimes) forced moves that doesn't necessary offer a very concrete advantage. It tends to be more positional in nature (i.e. a series of exchanges in the center may leave one player with a sizable space advantage, which can both support outposts for knight and also block in one's own bishops).

But really, it all comes down to semantics. To me, they are one and the same. But the connotation (to me) of tactics would be Tal and that of combinations would be Capablanca.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I think this is subjective, but your combination is the entire sequence starting with `Bc2`. Your tactics are a knight sacrifice and a double attack (`Qxh7` and `exf6`). Kudos for forming a plan and executing it. But out of curiosity, how would you handle `17. ... bxc4` ?
> 3 votes

# Answer
Books on tactics generally cover a number of standard devices that are in the toolkit of every strong player - checkmate, discovered attack, discovered check, double attack, double check, forks, interference, overloading, pins, removing the defender, skewers, stalemate, x-rays and the like. The tactic itself may only be one move long, and both players may have foreseen the move in advance.

Combinations require somewhat deeper calculation, and there is an element of surprise usually brought about by a sacrifice followed by a series of forced moves after which the position changes in the attacker's favour. Combinations have an artistic element. One player seems to conjure up magic from what seemed like a straightforward position. Games with beautiful combinations often win brilliancy prizes.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: strategy, learning, tactics, combinations
---


# Question
Title: Why does the Hyper Accelerated Dragon avoid the Rossolimo?
After 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6

Why is the Rossolimo line impossible for white?

```
[fen ""]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6

```

# Answer
In the Rossolimo proper,

```
[FEN ""]
[Title "Rossolimo variation"]
[Startply "5"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6

```

white usually holds back pawn to `d4` and doubles black pawns with `Bxc6`, or later builds a center with an eventual `c3` followed by `d4`.

In the Open Sicilian,

```
[FEN ""]
[Title "Open Sicilian"]
[Startply "9"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Bb5?!

```

none of these plans are available, and `5. Bb5` doesn't make much sense. Besides, the bishop on `b5` is tactically vulnerable to a later black `Qa5+` or `Qb6`.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: opening, sicilian-defense
---


# Question
Title: Alright so if you a pawn makes it to the other side can that player grab a castle and say its a queen?
**EDIT** \- Tony adds this interpretation, which hopefully the OP will accept by removing this line.

If one of my pawns captures a Rook (which is on the 8th rank) can I promote that pawn to a Queen in the same move? In other words, can I capture-and-promote? What if I already have a queen? What if I capture a Knight, instead of a Rook? Can I do it then?

# Answer
> 0 votes
**Edit**: The question has been clarified. I interpreted the original question to be "**can a pawn promoted to a queen be represented using a rook piece?**"

One explanation for this is that your opponent may have a Queen already and wants to promote to have 2 Queens. One way to represent this is to take a Rook and place it **upside down** to represent the second Queen.

You are not limited to which piece you can promote to based on what pieces are off the board, as long as both players understand what it represents.

---
Tags: engines, online-chess, chessboards
---


# Question
Title: What is the solution to this mate in 2 puzzle?
What could be the answer to it?

# Answer
> 30 votes
It is a nice little puzzle:

```
3k4/3P4/3Q4/8/8/8/8/4K3 w - - 3 13

1. Qd5 Kc7/Ke7 2. d8=Q# 1-0

```

---
Tags: checkmate, problems
---


title: What is the best move for Black?

text:
# Question
Title: What is the best move for Black?
```
[FEN ""]
[startply "25"]

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 d6 5. h3 Be7 6. d4 exd4 7. Nxd4 Bd7 8. O-O O-O 9. Bg5 h6 10. Bxf6 Bxf6 11. Nxc6 Bxc6 12. Re1 Re8 13. Qf3

```

What is the best move for Black here, and why?

# Answer
> 3 votes
As stated in my comment, I don't think this is a puzzle because there is no clear decisive tactical sequences.

A good move would be 13...Qe7, putting pressure on the e4 pawn and prepare for ...Bxc3. If White did nothing, Black could then continue with ...Be5 and ...Qf6. Note that it's unlikely a bishop pair can be retained in this position, as White can start the exchange by 14.Nd5 Bxd5.

# Answer
> -2 votes
I could be wrong but b5 seems interesting to me sacrificing a pawn

If he takes with 14.Nxb5 you can follow up with Bxb2 threatening a rook and taking your pawn back, the turn he takes to moves his rook can be used to play a6 kicking the knight back setting up to play Bb5

If he takes with 14.Bxb5 you can exchange with Bxc2, he takes with with pawn then d5, if he starts exchanging hes down a piece because his rook and bishop are misplaced, if he plays 15.Rd1 Qe7 is a perfect move he shouldn't have an answer to

---
Tags: analysis, middlegame, italian-game
---


# Question
Title: What books and videos would you recommend to an absolute beginner of Chess?
The entirety of my current chess knowledge consists solely of the valid moves which the pieces can make. I've played a few matches, but my moves tend to be aimless, by this I mean they lack any purpose. What books and video series would you recommend so that I can bring some structure to my chess game? I'm looking for something of an absolute beginner's difficulty that goes on to an intermediate level.

# Answer
> 5 votes
Absolute beginner? My best advice to you would be getting/buying Chess Master Grand Master Edition game. Install the Josh Waitzkin Academy (it will ask you while you're installing it's easy to notice) and go through his tutorial.

It's an interactive tutorial that teaches you how to start thinking as a chess player, it's completely voiced and will have puzzles and questions as it goes from one level to another forcing you to put what you just learned into practice. When you finish the entire tutorial, you should have at the end at least basic knowledge about openings (including some traps and how to avoid them!) middle game tactics and some sacrifices and last but definitely not least basic understanding of end game.

At the start it will even have you slightly practice memorizing the chess board annotations (like where b4 is or any other square) which **definitely** helps in the long run when you go into higher levels of chess.

After you're completely done with this tutorial and master it (you will most likely watch it more than once throughout your chess career to understand everything completely 100%) there is another course, which is less of a tutorial and more of a high level analysis between a GM and a ferocious Chess machine.

I advise you to not just watch and finish these tutorials but to also go out and play with other people... If there's a chess club out there near you or at least you can reach by bus or something, **definitely** go there and play against stronger players and you'll improve even faster.

Hope I helped :)

# Answer
> 1 votes
Regarding videos, there are some very instructive channels on YouTube. For an absolute beginner I would highly recommend Majnu2006. In particular, the playlists "Practical chess endgames" and "Chess middlegame training" are really good for getting a feel for positions where you normally get stuck and do not know what to do. Of course, other playlists are also very good, but for a start, the two mentioned above should do.

Secondly, I would also recommend the YouTube channel of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. There you have grandmasters like Yasser Seirawan (a living legend of the game), Var Akobian etc. giving lectures for different levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced). There are lectures on basic concepts, and there are lectures on some famous games, all varying in difficulty level, style and topics, so there is a lot of helpful material to choose from. In my view, Yasser Seirawan is especially gifted in conveying chess knowledge---his ideas are easy to follow and to remember. On top of that, he often tells chess anecdotes, which serve as a nice spice to an already good lecture. In short, he is a very good choice for people who are starting to play chess.

There are several other very good channels, mentioned in my answer here.

Regarding books, it is usually a good idea to learn from the masters. Therefore, my suggestion would be Capablanca's little gem "Chess Fundamentals". As the name says, the book is an introduction to the basic concepts in chess. How suited is the book to your needs depends, of course, on how seriously you are planning to study chess. As a general advice, though, I cannot think of a better introduction to the magic world of 64 squares.

Enjoy!

# Answer
> 1 votes
Guide to Good Chess by CJS Purdy

Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess

In order of recommendation. The Purdy book is an easy read, once you get past some of the slang (he's an Aussie and it shows) and covers all phases of the game from a very basic level. The Fischer book is a programmed instruction book, meaning every page asks a question or poses a problem for you to solve, and when you turn the page, the answer is revealed and explained.

The Modern Chess Self-Tutor by David Bronstein

This book is for when you get past either of the first ones. It will demand work from you, but you'll benefit from it for a long time.

Somewhere in between those levels are

Comprehensive Chess Course by Alburt and Palatnik

Secrets of the Russian Chess Masters Alburt and Parr

The first was originally a two-volume set, occasionally the two are bundled together in one volume. Albert wrote 3-4 more books in the series, but don't worry about them for now. The Alburt/Parr two-volume set resembles the first, but is written more for adult self-study (the other was written more for teaching children in a classroom).

# Answer
> 1 votes
Good Beginner Books:

* *Winning Chess...* series by Yasser Seirawan
* *The Soviet Chess Primer* by Ilya Maizelis
* If you can find it: *Journey to the Chess Kingdom* by Averbakh and Beilin

The last two are considered classics and were the 1st chess books for many great Soviet and Russian grandmasters.

---
Tags: learning, books, beginner
---


# Question
Title: Exploiting wrong deviations from theory in chess openings
What are some good sources about exploiting wrong deviations from standard chess theory during the opening? That is, given the fact that the opponent steps out of the canonical openings, and is not innovating a variant with style and making it stronger.

# Answer
I would recommend the Chessok Opening Tree.

You can browse the lines you are interested in and see which moves have already been played (which at the beginning of an opening is almost every halfway sensible move). And most importantly you'll get an engine evaluation for each move, which immediately tells you which of these halfway sensible moves is a blunder.

If you are further down the rabbit hole and the line has never been played before, of course you have to rely on your own chess understanding to come up with the most likely human moves and can then use an engine to find out how to punish them. Online, this would be possible on Chess24, though as non premium member you might have to wait a while for the engine evaluation to come up.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Chessok sells a software product called the encyclopedia of chess opening blunders. Also game collection books about miniatures will likely have some games where someone made a mistake in opening and proceeds to get punished for it.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: opening
---


# Question
Title: What are basic openings I need for black?
I'm an amateur player and want to learn a couple openings for black. I want to have a response for d4 and e4. I want one for each and hopefully one that is relatively straight forward (unlike Indian defense as I understand). It would be great if they were slightly obscure and therefore unknown to my opponents. As white I'm basically going to try and play Scotch opening (and maybe later some other e4 openings) every time.

# Answer
Since you want obscure openings, I would advise the Dutch defense against 1.d4 and the French defense for 1.e4. The Dutch is played less than Indians, queen pawn, Nimzo, Gruenfield, Slav..., thus your opponents won't know anything about it but you will. The Leningrad Dutch and Stonewall defense are played time to time. Nakamura has played the Leningrad Dutch numerous times, Magnus, Levon, Anand, etc have used the Dutch from time to time. I recommend the French because I think it is much easier to learn than 1.e5, which falls to a lot of traps and 1.c5, which is of course not obscure and has a lot of theory. Unfortunately, people can go into a very drawish line in the exchange French. You might want to consider Owen's defense 1... b6.
> 3 votes

# Answer
I agree with @CognisMantis regarding meeting 1. d4 with the Dutch defence.

I would advise playing the Scandinavian against 1. e4 (1. e4 d5), as it is 'obscure' in the sense that Black brings the Queen out early (1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5), but it is quite playable due to Black's pawn structure tends to be quite solid (similar to the Caro-Kann) making sure White is unable to exploit the slight lead in development.

Before trying the line out, check out the opening video by Dereque Kelley first.

(As a piece of advice in general, if you are new to an opening, see a YouTube video discussing the major themes. This way you can get a feel for the opening)
> 3 votes

# Answer
As noted in another answer here, the Leningrad Dutch may be an interesting option to look for as black against 1.d4.

Against 1.e4, you may want to try Alekhine's defense. It's actually quite dangerous for any white player who doesn't know how to reply to it properly. As far as I know, it's not a common opening, but I have noticed that I'm facing way more Alekhine players nowadays than I did in the past.

It all depends on your playing style if the Alekhine's defense suits you or not though.
> 3 votes

# Answer
As Black, I typically play the hedgehog but with both bishops fianchettoed.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: opening
---


title: How to visualize a position

text:
# Question
Title: How to visualize a position
I'm a decent player and am pretty good at tactics and visualizing series of moves with a board in front of me. However I have an extremely difficult time visualizing positions and moves purely in my head. Are there any tricks that make mentally visualizing easier, or is it just something that comes with lots of practice?

# Answer
> 12 votes
**Improving board vision**

* When studying on your own, use a book with many diagrams so that you can check your visualisation regularly, e.g. *Logical Chess: Move by Move* by Irving Chernev
* When studying with a partner, ask them to call out the moves of a variation then test your accuracy with questions like "what colour square is white's knight on?"

Source: Adapted from *Studying Chess Made Easy* by Andrew Soltis

**Notes on board vision**

* I like to put a small (often 2 or 3 whole moves) variation into words as a mini-plan. E.g. "Moves 4-6: White gambits a pawn to develop the bishop". It doesn't have to be a deep analysis at all, just a narration to the moves to convert algebraic notation into English
* "Long variation, wrong variation" - attributed to Bent Larsen in *The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess*, by Andrew Soltis. In other words, visualising a variation 20 moves deep is unlikely to be beneficial
* Don't get side tracked by sub variations
* To make the visualisations easier, study endgames (i.e. fewer pieces to visualise)
* "You can't see 64 squares at the same time" - attributed to Alfred Binet in *The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess*, by Andrew Soltis. This is a natural limitation to human perception. Even looking at a board, you can only really see 12-16 squares at a time. Try to 'chunk' information together to reduce the strain. E.g. you can condense information into words like "White has a castled king behind a fianchetto"

**Example with an opening that you want to learn using White**

Suppose you want to visualise the opening 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 e5 4. Nf3 Bb4+ 5. Bd2 Bxd2+ 6. Nbxd2 exd4 7. Bxc4 Nc6 8. O-O Qf6 9. e5 Qg6 10. Re1 Nge7 11. Nb3 O-O 12. Nfxd4

Let's visualise this step-by-step, checking your visualisation against the board in the spoiler tags below:

1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4

> How close was your visualisation? The way I remember this is in words to remember the mini-plan: White gambits a pawn to get an ideal centre

PS. I've used a screenshot of the position from Ubisoft's *Chessmaster*, as the replayer can't be hidden in a spoiler tag: How to hide chessboard in a spoiler tag?.

3... e5 4. Nf3

> Black tries to demolish White's centre with the thematic ...e5 and White aims to protect the centre

4...Bb4+ 5. Bd2 Bxd2+ 6. Nbxd2

> Black develops a piece with tempo. White offers a trade to develop another piece that will end up on b3 to regain the gambit pawn

6...exd4 7. Bxc4 Nc6

> Black keeps hold of their extra pawn for the time being as White will have to spend a tempo to regain it

8. O-O Qf6 9. e5 Qg6 10. Re1

> White castles to safety whereas Black posts the Queen to the Kingside

10...Nge7 11. Nb3 O-O 12. Nfxd4

> Black castles away. White regains the pawn. Let the middlegame begin!

Source of variation and abridged analysis: *Starting Out: Queen's Gambit Accepted* by A. Raetsky and M. Chetverik

**Example with an opening that you want to learn using Black**

This is slightly harder as the board is now rotated both for practical play and in the spolier tags. Suppose you want to visualise the opening 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. e3 e6 7. Bxc4 Bb4 8. O-O Nbd7 9. Qe2 Bg6 10. e4 O-O 11. Bd3 Bh5 12. e5 Nd5 13. Nxd5 cxd5 14. Qe3 Bg6

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3

> White's most popular try in the Slav is to develop both knights early

4...dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. e3 e6 7. Bxc4

> Black develops the light square bishop and locks it outside the pawn chain

7...Bb4 8. O-O

> Black develops a piece. White breaks the pin.

8...Nbd7 9. Qe2 Bg6 10. e4 O-O

> White expands in the centre

11. Bd3 Bh5 12. e5 Nd5 13. Nxd5 cxd5

> The centre is closed

14. Qe3 Bg6

> Black offers to trade bad bishop for good. Let the middlegame begin!

Source of variation and abridged analysis: *The Slav: Move by Move* by Cyrus Lakdawala

---
Tags: board-vision
---


title: No ways for whites

text:
# Question
Title: No ways for whites
I'm analyzing a situation that happened to me in a game ... is when I move my black queen to this position. Finally I won, but ... is there any chance to stop the attack for White?

```
6k1/2p2pp1/2b4p/1p2b2r/8/1BNQ3P/1PP2qP1/4R2K w - - 2 28

```

There is the png till this position

```
1. e4 e5
2. Bc4 Nc6
3. Nf3 Nf6
4. Nc3 d6
5. h3 Be7
6. d4 exd4
7. Nxd4 Bd7
8. O-O O-O
9. Bg5 h6
10. Bxf6 Bxf6
11. Nxc6 Bxc6
12. Re1 Re8
13. Qf3 Qd7
14. Ra1d1 Re7
15. Rd2 Ra8e8
16. Rd2e2 a6
17. a4 b5
18. axb5 axb5
19. Bb3 Qc8
20. Qd3 Qb7
21. f3 Qb6+
22. Kh2 Re5
23. f4 Rh5
24. e5 dxe5
25. fxe5 Re8xe5
26. Rxe5 Bxe5+
27. Kh1 Qf2

```

# Answer
White looks doomed, but `Rg1` seems to be the best line of defense though Black is merely gifted with the under-1800 brilliancy prize.

```

[FEN "6k1/2p2pp1/2b4p/1p2b2r/8/1BNQ3P/1PP2qP1/4R2K w - - 2 28"]

1. Rg1 Bxg2+ 2. Rxg2 Rxh3+ 3. Qxh3 Qf1+ 4. Rg1 Qxh3#

```

Other moves lose immediately.
> 2 votes

# Answer
25. Qg6 is killing blow (attack on both f7 and Rh5). I think it was white's last chance. Also 26.Qg6 can stop black's attack but black still has upper hand. For example: 26.Qg6 Be8 27.Ne4 Rhf5 28. Nxf6+ Rxf6 29.Qd3 and black is better.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: analysis
---


title: 'Build up Your chess' but a level lower

text:
# Question
Title: 'Build up Your chess' but a level lower
I've bought first tome of 'Build up Your chess' but it is too difficult for me. I am looking for the comprehensive self-study book exactly like 'Build up...' but for a little weaker player.

# Answer
I don't know of any books that follow the format that Yusupov uses in his series.

*The Soviet Chess Primer* by Ilya Maizelis, and *Journey to the Chess Kingdom* by Averbakh and Beilin are both good initial books. *The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess* by Patrick Wolff is also a nice book.

There are also series of books, such as Yasser Seirawan's *Winning Chess ...* series, and Lev Alburt's books.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: books, training
---


title: Teaching 3 years old kid chess

text:
# Question
Title: Teaching 3 years old kid chess
My new neighbors have a 2 years 10 months old kid. When he come to visit me, he often see me playing chess online. So he kept asking me, how to play this.

I got a plastic chess set and he opened it and grabbed the knight and screamed "duck, duck!"

I was kinda surprised that a two years old can recognize ducks, he's from Syria, he left Syria because of the war there so there's no ducks there. I told him, it's not a duck, it's a horse. He knew what a horse is. he seems very interested in chess.

So I decided to try the same educational experiment that László Polgár did.

But I'm having some difficulties. The kid is not in school yet, he doesn't know how to read and write, he can't speak English and the names of the pieces are too hard for him. I've been trying to teach him chess for less than a week. I met him last week, started teaching chess the very next day :)

So far he know what's a knight and he call it a horse. He know what's a pawn and I told him it's called grandpa. He knows what a king is and he call it a king, I decided that the word king is too hard for him and I told him that it's called dad. He didn't yet memorized the rook, he call it uncle. I am going to tell him that the queen is mom and the bishop is bob or cat.

I noticed that he uses the shape. He first memorized the horse, because it has a very unique shape. Then he memorized the pawn, because it's the smallest piece on the board, then the king because it has a cross. It's hard for him to see the difference between a queen and a bishop.

* I was thinking of buying another chess set, one with superman and batman instead of real pieces. Is it a good idea or should I stick with the real pieces?
* Is it good practice to change the names of the pieces in order to help memorize them?
* If we keep at this pace, I think I can make him memorize every piece in a week or two, and next month I want to teach him the starting position, and two months after that, I want to start teaching him how the pieces move. Am I going too fast on him? Can his brain understand all this that quickly.
* Is he considered smart for his age, or is it normal for kids of his age to start understanding what I'm teaching him?

# Answer
> 4 votes
I learned to play chess when I was 3. My biggest challenge was learning the starting positions of the pieces, and I also remember mixing up the bishop and Queen because of the shape of the point.

At that age, I wouldn't think language acquisition would be a big challenge, as I've known kids of that age (2-5) to pick languages up faster than teenagers.

You're on the right track with the idea of buying a distinct set of pieces, but I have no idea if Batman would help or distract at that age being that the pieces may resemble toys. It would certainly make the pieces more memorable, but so would animals at that age. I would try to find a set with animals or at least something that resembles actual chess pieces shape but uses the profiles of something meaningful to him like animals. I don't see any problems in training his visual and spatial memory and teaching him the names after he understands how they move differently.

Everyone is different, but I remember that it wasn't until after I understood the differences between the pieces' movements that I actually managed to memorize the starting positions. Perhaps that is something he can learn by watching. As you set it up on your side, you can have him mirror you down the files. This physical action of placing them in space will likely help him learn.

I think you will be very successful. Kids are neuroplastic sponges. I hope it's rewarding and teach him to enjoy losing. Keep up the noble pursuit!

EDIT: I've since found this resource for teaching kids chess.

# Answer
> 2 votes
It seems that language is the biggest challenge that you are facing. Why not try another approach...

Why not forgo language altogether? Teach directly in the language of chess! We, especially children, learn by observation and imitation. Maybe you could ask the kid to just sit and watch some games and then ask him to tell you the rules instead of you telling him the rules! After all, when kids learn their mother tongue, nobody tells them the rules of grammar...kids figure them out on their own.

I am not sure whether this approach will work, but if it is to work, I think it will take a little time to show results because with this approach, I am guessing that the learning curve will be exponential.

And for some reason I think that if language is removed from the equation, the learner will develop greater insight into the great game.

Happy teaching:)

# Answer
> 1 votes
My two girls (2 1/2 and 4) are very interested in chess, since they see their dad play every single day. They both learned the names of the pieces at about 18 mo, learned the starting positions around 2, and started to grasp how some pieces move a little before 3, but it wasn't until the eldest turned 4 that she had the desire to learn, and the cognitive capacity and stamina to actually play a game.

One way we have the youngest share the pleasure of the game is to have her play alongside her dad. He'll ask her which piece she would like to move, offer two choices of positions, and let her actually move the pieces. And once she gets bored, she's allowed to play with the captured pieces. This lets her share in the social aspect of the game and associate chess with fun. The rest will be up to her once her brain reaches the necessary maturity.

# Answer
> 0 votes
(1) I don't think I would buy another set. The standard Staunton set has by far the most easily distinguishable pieces. I don't think the failure to distinguish the pieces is due to their similarity, but a function of brain development. If you felt the need to make them easier to recognize, you may just want to color the crown of the two queens with bright nail polish (green, in case the kid is color-blind.)

(2) I also doubt language is the problem. Chess is about symbolic understanding, spatial understanding, etc. So I doubt memorization is the long-term issue. I would continue in English, speaking clearly and repeating your self a lot.

(3) In terms of teaching, don't bother with memorization exercises. Just start playing. You announce your move like this, "I am going to move my bishop here. Bishops can move diagonal like this or like this (demonstrates). Now my bishop is can capture your rook on my next move (points to rook and demonstrates capture)". When it is the kid's turn, ask him which move he thinks is a good idea. Then suggest a better move and why. You are basically playing both sides. The kid will absorb it like a sponge. Don't get frustrated if the kid wants to be silly, eat a piece, etc.

(4) Is he considered smart for his age? Well, smart is a vague term. "Smart at chess"?--too early to tell. Is he smart for being able to name the pieces? No. A kid at 2-1/2 should be able to attach names to symbols with practice. They will know their colors. etc. To compare, my nephew just turned three a few days ago, and was memorizing the names of pieces that my kid showed him on the fly back in March. I think it is typical. If the kid is exhibiting positional understanding and tactics at an early age, then yes, "smart at chess".

*Source:* Teaching my kid to play. I taught my kid to the pieces and moves at 3-1/2, we stopped playing for almost two years, and he recently started playing again, having remembered the pieces and their moves, and is now a strong player for his age, with a growing understanding of positional play and tactics.

P.S. kudos for doing this

# Answer
> 0 votes
I am trying to teach my 2 years and 4 months to play chess. I am following the book Chess is Child's Play. But for the moment he knows the names of the pieces and he like to take all the piece and put them (semi-randomly) on the board, but he doesn't understand correctly the rock movement. I will wait some weeks and see if the develops more. In any case, I think that the approach of the book is very nice.

---
Tags: teaching
---


# Question
Title: Are you allowed to calculate on paper? e.g. corresponding squares? (FIDE/Club level etc)
I have been looking at corresponding squares recently.

It can be pretty hard to visually calculate and imagine them in your mind.

What I was wondering, would you ever be allowed to draw your plans on paper? I know in tournaments you are allowed pen & paper for your moves, could you scribble on that or under what circumstances would this not be allowed? I would have assumed in world championships you would not be allowed to do this. Is my assumption correct and what about club level / school players etc?

**Example of what I mean by calculation:**
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-mentor/tricky-chess-problem-elo1700---corresponding-squares?ncc=3

# Answer
This is never allowed in an actual, over-the-board tournament.

National chess federations ban analysis notes, and local chess organization follow their national rules for rating.
> 7 votes

---
Tags: strategy, endgame
---


# Question
Title: I'm looking for informations about calculating ELO (FIDE) rank
I'm looking this informations for new app to calculating ELO (FIDE) rank after games (live tournament etc.). So you can predict your future rank before it is pbulished on FIDE site.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Here is a blog post about elo calculation.

You can find the rules for determining the correct K-factor on this site, which also contains an official Fide rating calculator to check your results against.

Here is the official description of the rating calculation (based on tables instead of formulas).

---
Tags: elo
---


# Question
Title: Do you get moved down a section on a USCF chess tournament if your score is low?
For example, I would like to play a class championship tournament. I'm a class B, but I registered for the Expert class section. If I don't score enough points to play anyone in my section for the rest of the tournament, will I get moved down the class A section?

Could someone explain what would happen?

Master U2200 U2000 U1800 U1600 U1400

etc.

# Answer
> 5 votes
You do not get moved out of your bracket. If you're a B-player in the Expert section, expect to finish at the bottom. I'm not even sure if you're allowed to 'play up' unless you play in the open section.

---
Tags: tournament, uscf, tournament-directors
---


title: How to castle two times in a game

text:
# Question
Title: How to castle two times in a game
A simple question: Assuming that I'm playing as White, how can I castle twice in a game?

I've asked myself this question after seeing the following game from Tim Krabbe's chess records "**Greatest number of castlings**", in which White castles twice.

```
[Title "Heidenfeld - Kerins, Dublin 1973"]
[FEN ""]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Be3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. Nf3 Qb6 8. Qd2 c4 9. Be2 Na5 10. O-O f5 11. Ng5 Be7 12. g4 Bxg5 13. fxg5 Nf8 14. gxf5 exf5 15. Bf3 Be6 16. Qg2 O-O-O 17. Na3 Ng6 18. Qd2 f4 19. Bf2 Bh3 20. Rfb1 Bf5 21. Nc2 h6 22. gxh6 Rxh6 23. Nb4 Qe6 24. Qe2 Ne7 25. b3 Qg6+ 26. Kf1 Bxb1 27. bxc4 dxc4 28. Qb2 Bd3+ 29. Ke1 Be4 30. Qe2 Bxf3 31. Qxf3 Rxh2 32. d5 Qf5 33.O-O-O Rh3 34.Qe2 Rxc3+ 35.Kb2 Rh3 36.d6 Nec6 37.Nxc6 Nxc6 38.e6 Qe5+ 39.Qxe5 Nxe5 40.d7+ Nxd7 0-1

```

# Answer
> 20 votes
The answer is plain and simple: You **cannot** castle twice without breaking the rules. The only chance for this thing to happen is that the illegal move (the second castling) stays unnoticed until the game is ended with an accepted outcome.

---
Tags: rules, castling
---


# Question
Title: What would happen if I touch two different pieces with each hand at same time?
For example, I touch my king with the left hand and my queen with the right hand at the same time. Regarding the rules, I must move a touched piece, so what would happen in this case? Could I choose which piece to move? Would I lose the game automatically when doing such an action?

Is using both hands allowed at all? (e.g.: moving one piece with both hands).

As far as I know, at least in blitz, you must use the clock and move the pieces with the same hand, so what would happen there if you use both hands when moving a piece or touching two different pieces with each hand?

# Answer
From the FIDE Laws of Chess, article §4.1:

> Each move must be made with one hand only.

So you are not allowed to make a move with both hands (this includes castling) and the arbiter can give you a penalty (§12.9) for this behaviour. IMHO, this should be a warning the first time you do it. In any case, because you touched the king and queen, you must make a move with either piece (§4.3):

> If the player having the move touches (...) one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved.
> 5 votes

---
Tags: rules
---


title: How To Get Chess Titans on Windows 8/10

text:
# Question
Title: How To Get Chess Titans on Windows 8/10
I have noticed that the new Windows 8 and 10 do not have my favorite games, specifically Chess Titans. I really want it so, how can I get Chess Titans on my Windows 8/10 PC without getting a Windows 7 or earlier?

# Answer
Go to http://winaero.com/blog/get-windows-7-games-for-windows-10/ and follow the instructions there. One thing I do not believe they mentioned is that once you get Mega, and download the file, go to the Mega file in files explorer. From there open the .exe file and continue with the rest of the steps.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: download-games, windows
---