# Question
Title: As Black, how should one respond to 4. Qe2 by White in the Russian Game, Damiano Variation?
I recently played a game as Black. My opponent and I transposed into, according to Lichess, the Russian Game, Damiano Variation, when White played 4. Qe2. I wasn’t sure how to reply, and I ended up losing my queen and soon resigned.

```
[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Nf6 5. Nc6+ Be7 6. Nxd8 Kxd8

```

As Black, how should one respond to 4. Qe2 by White in the Russian Game, Damiano Variation?

# Answer
> 7 votes
*This part of the answer pertains to the first version of the post, where (due to a typo in setting up the diagram in OP) the move `4...f6` was played:*

It started to go wrong for you from the move `4...f6,` which just walks right into `Qh5+` completely winning for white:

```
 [title "why 4...f6 is a mistake"]
 [fen "rnbqkb1r/pppp2pp/5p2/4N3/4n3/8/PPPPQPPP/RNB1KB1R w KQkq - 0 5"]

 5.Qh5+ g6 6.Nxg6 hxg6 7.Qxg6+ Ke7 8.Qxe4+ Kf7 9.Bc4+ d5 {forced to sac the pawn so Qg4 can be prevented} (9...Kg7 10.Qg4+ Kh6 11.d4+ Kh7 12.Bd3+ f5 13.Bxf5#) 10.Bxd5+ Kg7 11.Bxb7 Bxb7 12.Qxb7 Nd7 13.O-O {and white is completely winning, both on position and material count.}

```

**General advice:** Particularly against `1.e4` systems, you almost always should try to avoid moving your `f` pawn early on, as white's queen and light square bishop are activated early on and therefore kingside light square weaknesses can be easily exploited. Typical to the Russian/Petroff move order, is rather `d6` instead of `f6` in order to kick the knight back. Though `4...d6` happens to also have been a poor choice in your game, as in that specific variation `4...Qe7` is really the only reasonable move that maintains the balance of the position. So let's look at that next:

---

*The remaining part of the answer from here tackles the latest and corrected move order provided by the OP, with `4.Qe2 Qe7 5.Qxe4` and without `f6:`*

```
 [title "4...Qe7: cover your king and set up a pin on e5 knight"]
 [fen "rnbqkb1r/pppp1ppp/8/4N3/4n3/8/PPPPQPPP/RNB1KB1R b KQkq - 1 4"]

 4...Qe7 5.Qxe4 d6 6.d4 dxe5 7.dxe5 Nc6 8.Bb5 Bd7 9.Nc3 O-O-O

```

And black has a much more reasonable play than they did in the aformentioned line.

Generally speaking, inherent to this opening's move order, moves such as `Qe2` and `Qe7` come quite naturally as the `e` file is opening up quickly and the discovery threats have to be parried, and these queen moves allow you to do so with tempo. Moreover, as you can see from the last line we looked at, trades are abound in this variation, and as black, you should not worry about dropping a pawn if you manage to compensate with development and piece activity (specially in short time control games). By sacrificing the `d6` pawn on `e5`, we found a target pawn on `e5` to coordinate against, which resolves your development plan (in contrast to white's play, hesitating as to whether defend the pawn or to regain initiative), and you have a slight initiative after the long castles.

---

## **Addendum:**

Upon further requests in the comments regarding the latest move order provided by the OP, here I provide additional explanations.

**Important summary:** In the Petroff, if you want to take white's pawn immediately after `3.Nxe5` then you should definitely expect `4.Qe2` as it is white's best move and black has really only one playable reply and that is `4...Qe7,` as any other move either loses a piece or a pawn. For example the seemingly natural `4...d5` loses a pawn as follows:

```
 [title "4...d5 leads to a loss of pawn"]
 [fen "rnbqkb1r/pppp1ppp/8/4N3/4n3/8/PPPPQPPP/RNB1KB1R b KQkq - 1 4"]

 4...d5 5.d3 Qe7 6.dxe4 Qxe5 7.exd5

```

Therefore, it remains to cover all lines ensuing from `4...Qe7`, but luckily, white's continuation is also quite limited if they want to play for an edge. The mainline that follows after `4...Qe7` is already covered in the 2nd diagram of my answer and the discussions thereafter. For completeness, it's worth pointing out that if in the said line (2nd diagram) white captures the pawn on `e5` with the queen on move `7.Qxe5`, then black has two choices:

1. Avoiding the trade of queens with `7...Be6` and playing for the initiative with the added tempo we'll steal (with either `Nc6` or `Nd7`) from white thanks to their exposed queen on `e5.` Might be perfectly fine for a blitz game, but otherwise white stands clearly better.
2. 2nd and better option after `7.Qxe5` is: Trading queens on `e5` and playing the endgame with a lead in development which partially compensates for being a pawn down, additional compensation lies in the `e5` being somewhat weak as it is easy for black to target all forces on it. Clearly, white has a small edge, but that is expected from the line starting from `3...Nxe4` as it is not black's best reply in the Petroff.

That last point bring us to the mainline in the Petroff, which differs from your move order from move `3` onward: The main move for black after `3.Nxe5` is `3...d6` (played thousands of times more often than `3...Nxe4`), which simply kicks the knight back to `f3` and then black captures the pawn on `e4`. Here's a diagram to showcase one typical continuation:

```
 [title "One possible mainline with 3...d6"]
 [fen "rnbqkb1r/pppp1ppp/5n2/4N3/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 0 3"]

 3...d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Qe2 Qe7 6.d3 Nf6 7.Bg5 Qxe2+ 8.Be2 Be7

```

The difference with the line of `4...Nxe4` is the fact that after `Qe2` pinning the knight black can simply reciprocate with `Qe7` unpinning and maintaining material equality. Whereas in the previous line (with `4...Nxe4`) the trade of knights is forced and white's in time to play `d4` winning our `d6` pawn after `4.Qe2 Qe7 5.Qxe4 d6 6.d4 dxe5 7.dxe5.`

All in all, in the Petroff defense the queens tend to come off the board rather quickly, therefore, it all very quickly transitions into mid-endgame type of position, which requires very technical play (and as such generally not fun). So I definitely encourage you to explore other defensive systems for black against `1.e4,` e.g. the Sicilian or the Caro-Kann defense.

To finish on a fun note, the very line you're interested in is something GM Yasser Seirawan fell for when he was starting out his chess career (around age of 12), where he had come up with a plan: To replicate all opponent's moves and to catch them as soon as they make a mistake, and in the case of the Petroff, as you've experienced it yourself, it ended up costing him his queen of course... :) Here's the story told by himself (Petroff line is around 6:30 min mark), I encourage you to watch the whole thing as it is quite funny and instructive.

# Answer
> 10 votes
**Do not play 3...Nxe4 in response to 3. Nxe5**.

I feel this important aspect is missing in the other answers. You can see the primary reason it doesn't work in your game - you end up losing the queen. Given that you can't just move the knight after 4. Qe2, your next-best option is to play 4...Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6 (or ...f6), which still results in you losing a pawn. It's not a disaster because Black does have some compensation in the form of superior development, but Black's position is still undoubtedly inferior.

Avoiding this line is the main line of the Petroff, and is much more stable. The main line goes 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5. Black has gained a tempo (as seen from his advanced knight), but the knight is somewhat exposed and can potentially be forced to retreat, in which case White is up two tempi. In practice, White can usually achieve this, but needs to play pawn breaks like c4, which balances out. The Petroff is thought to be drawish for a reason.

# Answer
> 5 votes
In Damiano variant you respond 4. ... Qe7 to 4. Qe2. Yes, white takes the knight faster than you, but then you simply make d6 move, and if white knight retreats, white loses Queen. So to black's 5. ... d6 white have to respond with 6. d4, then: you take knight with the pawn and white makes a move dxe5. After those there's a bunch of possibilities that are better to be all checked on lichess.org via its analysis function.

Not to create any complications, you may not beat the e4 pawn after white knight grabs e5. Instead 3. ... d6 is a much better move, in my opinion, making white's knight retreat immediately, after which you can grab 4. ... Nxe4 without a thought after 4. Nf3, for example. And here to 5. Qe2 you simply respond 5. ... Qe7 and thus are able to retreat your knight next move without having a hidden check.

# Answer
> 0 votes
To expound upon Allure's totally correct comment, 3...Ne4 is just horrible, and borderline losing by force.

As he stated 3...d6 is the book move, and is the preferred move in 31907 games in my Mega 2019 database with a white winning percentage of 59.4% (which is still a lot higher than I would have guessed considering the drawish reputation of the Petrov).

Compare that to only 1248 games for the second most-played move, 3...Ne4?, which has a white winning percentage of 71.6%. That is a huge number in chess, and Stockfish gives this an eval of +.88. You are just down a pawn in this variation, and begging to try to win it back, and no more.

Please play 3...d6! if you play this opening, or you will just lose a lot of games.

# Answer
> 0 votes
3..Nxe4 is a mistake that loses at least a pawn.

The normal move is 3...d6.

The best line for black after 4.Qe2 is 4...Qe7 5. Qxe4, d6 (winning the N back but losing a pawn)

---
Tags: opening, queens, petroff-defense, counterplay
---


# Question
Title: Have any top players intentionally thrown a game for tournament reasons?
I'm thinking something similar to Women's Badminton at the 2012 Olympics. There, some pairs actively attempted to lose their games to gain a more favorable draw in the next round.

Has anything like this happened in chess? I'm aware of the Candidates tournaments of the past where Soviet players allegedly played quick draws against each other to conserve energy against Fischer, but I'm not aware of intentional losing.

As an example of what would qualify, suppose in some 20-player tournament, the top 6 qualify for the next stage (this has happened in Candidates tournaments in the past). In the penultimate round, the runaway leader Alice has more or less qualified, but the 6th and final qualification slot is still up for grabs, with three players Bob, Charlie and Denise in contention. Alice is scheduled to play Bob in the round. She thinks Denise is the most threatening opponent, so it's in her best interests to lose to Bob and give Bob some help in qualification.

I'm not interested in match fixing to, e.g., make money in the betting markets; I'm only interested in losing for personal gain because of the crosstable & tournament format. I'm also not interested in draws - only intentional losses.

# Answer
Yes. But not very many incidents.

In the old days,it was thought that some Russians were forced to throw games at times to help other players that were thought more likely to win the tournament so as to beat other countries' players.
> 2 votes

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Tags: history, master-games
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# Question
Title: Does playing correspondence chess improve your game?
My rating is around 1200 and I want to improve my chess. Will playing correspondence chess improve my game?

# Answer
Whether or not playing correspondence chess will help you to improve depends a lot on how you play. If you move after a quick look at the position and use it more like a Blitz game with the possibility of pausing, then I do not think you will improve much. If on the other hand, you use it to study the relevant openings, pawn structures, endgames, etc. then they can provide a real asset for improvement. In particular if you combine them with some theoretical inputs from books etc. as you can then immediately try to turn the things you learn into praxis (which means you really learn them).

Another thing that may be worthwhile is to keep notes during the games of what moves you were considering and how you evaluated them. In the post mortem you can then check your analysis and evaluation of the game and spot areas for further study and improvement (e.g., good moves you did not consider, or moves where your evaluation deviates strongly from that of, say, a chess engine or a coach).

Of course not everything improves by correspondence chess. For example, if in OTB games you often hang your pieces or fall for simple tactics, then you really need to work on this separately. The fact that you can try the moves in correspondence chess should help to eliminate these simple mistakes from your correspondence games but they will likely be back in OTB games.
> 9 votes

# Answer
A standard structure for a chess training program is broken down as follows:

Use a 4-day cycle.

Divide each day's chess time into 4 time units (the total of whatever time you can afford each day).

Activities include: \- Study (S) \- Solve (V) \- Play (PL)

Areas of the Game include: \- (O) Openings \- (T) Tactics \- (G) Strategy \- (E) Endings

So, a time unit consists of a combination of an Activity and an Area. For example, SO means Study Openings.

Each play unit involves a combination of games at different time controls. If you are serious, use 1 x 15, 2 x 10, and 3 x 5 minute games. That's 50 minutes (not including any partner-seek time). If you can spare more time, add more to the number of quick games while you're at a lower rating, and when you get stronger, add more of the longer time control games to the unit.

A typical 4-day cycle might start out as:

* Day 1: SO2, SG1, VT1
* Day 2: VE2, PL1, VT1
* Day 3: SG1, VG1, PL1, VT1
* Day 4: SO2, VE1, VT1

Note that Tactics are worked on *every day*.

After you have played a set of 20 games (however many days that takes), do a retrospective on your performance. If you've got a chess engine, run the games through it. Ignore what your opponents did. Look only at whether you made a mistake (and what kind of mistake it was), and whether you caught your opponent's mistake when he made one. Keep track of the number of mistakes in each category, figure out a way to reduce them, and introduce that into your training.

If you lose games in the Ending more often than you win them, increase the number of units you spend on Endings.

Never go higher than 4 units on one area in the 4-day cycle, though. Since Tactics is already at 4, that's only going to go down if you're doing well in it, but not higher than 4.

Also, never take away from Play time to increase another area. So, for example, if you find you need to spend more time on Endings, but your Tactics still need work too, reduce the time you spend on Openings and increase the time on Endings.

The source I used of this training scheduling method appears on the ChessOk website.

As for what specifics to study and where to get materials, there are plenty of good resources on the Web; I'll leave that to other sources to address.

Now to your question: Correspondence chess is *excellent* at helping you learn openings and endings. These involve *theory*, and you need to memorize it to be able to use it in a tournament where you're playing over-the-board (OTB). Study the theory, and then practice it a little, and then test yourself. Test yourself immediately, then again the next day, and then again a week later. That will reinforce the memory, and convert it from short-term to long-term memory.

*However*, correspondence chess has 4 major flaws when it comes to serving as training for OTB play:

1. It won't strengthen your board vision (your ability to see the potential combinations in a position), because the normal way to select a move in CC is by moving pieces on a board until you find the most promising variation.
2. It will hurt your time management ability. You will get used to thinking slowly, and to repeating your thinking, unless you are very strict in budgeting your time and limiting repetition in your analysis. It's very different when you have 3 days to decide on a move, instead of 3 minutes.
3. It will not help you learn and enforce your rights as afforded by the rules. For example, in a tournament, a player may knock over some pieces, and press his clock regardless, only bothering to set up the displaced pieces on your time. This is illegal, and you need to know it's illegal, and you need to act immediately to stop the clock and get a TD to enforce a time penalty on your opponent for the infraction. Such infractions never even occur in correspondence play.
4. It will not help you analyze variations in your head. Correspondence play allows as much note-taking as you want. You can analyze variations to ridiculously-deep levels, if you want. In OTB, you may only note the move, the time, and draw offers - that's it. Unfortunately, if you try to use correspondence games to practice analyzing in your head, you're going to get creamed by everyone else, because they're taking notes, and will make fewer mistakes and be analyzing deeper.

This is why you should play games at regular time controls (no blitz faster than 5 minutes) in order to strengthen your play, and you should play in an OTB tournament at least once per month, if you want to be able to improve your OTB (or online) play at all.

If all you want is to play correspondence chess, then you're all set. I still encourage you to use the regular time control games to improve your tactical vision, but you can survive by just moving the pieces around a lot and stumbling on 3-move combinations you didn't actually see at the beginning.
> 7 votes

# Answer
Well, it will help you certainly. Try to analyze the position when your opponent play his move. Take your time and see if you can find out his plans and ideas that stand behind his moves. **However**don't expect your game to improve much if you're only playing correspondence, and not working on your game. The best way to improve on your own is to work on all parts of your game, from opening to endgame. :) But all things considered, correspondence will help you out more than e.g. blitz or bullet will.
> 4 votes

# Answer
If you can get great learning value from playing correspondence chess (which usually nowadays allows engine use) or not, depends on your determination to use it as a learning device.

Let's assume, as you state, that you are a 1200 rated player, that you have no particular opening preparations, that you have a high error rate if it comes to tactics and that you know a few strategic elements (like open lines, importance of central squares...) and that you have nearly now deeper endgame knowledge (but you do know how to mate with a rook or a queen).

There are many areas, you will not be able to efficiently train, given the slow pace of correspondence chess. With 40 days for 10 moves, you will not reach endgames any time soon, for example.

So, first step is to make a list of what you can actually learn best with correspondence chess. Then focus only on those aspects, while you should try to find other means to train the other aspects.

Here my list, what you can learn best from (engine assisted) correspondence chess:

* Your basic understanding of positions. Before you turn on the engine, take 10 minutes and try to figure out your sorted list of candidate moves. Write down what you expect to happen and also try to verbally express your thoughts. Then, one by one, analyze your chosen moves with the engine and figure out when you were right and when you were wrong (and why you were wrong). Then, try to understand the engines best moves (especially if they were not in your move list). Once you have a bit of practice, depending on position, you would be done in like 15min - 60min with all of the above. And that should give you a move to make (you play for learning, not to become CC world champion, after all). Whatever time you have left, use it on non-correspondence chess training.
* Finding your opening repertoire. If you run multiple cc games in parallel, pick a number of different openings, which might interest you or deem you strong and study each of them as you decide for your opening moves (while still in an opening book). Over time, you will find out, which positions are fun and interesting for you and you will get a foundation of a repertoire for white and black.

The rest of your training should be tactics (hint: there are great puzzles on lichess and other chess servers), endgames and just playing (not bullet - something like 10min per game or even slower and a few blitz games (3+2 or 5min) - so you get fresh ideas about which openings give you trouble and to train reduce your blunder rate).

In my opinion, this his how the brain needs to tackle new tasks: Repetition, exploration and just seeing a lot of good examples. Try to find a good mix of those things and try not to waste time (by playing too much blitz or alike) and have fun.
> 3 votes

# Answer
It might. It depends how you use the game to augment your study and how you apply what you did study to make moves in the game

Just playing is nice for experience but not really that useful when compared to study of openings, tactics, end games, tactics, strategic items like pawn structure, and tactics -- at your level of ability.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Not really.

If You want to improve then study tactics.

Then learn to force yourself to move at exactly x seconds.
The goal should be ten seconds per move, no more no less. This will win in most time trouble situations if you can and they cannot. Even 15-20 seconds might give you a big edge if your games go that long.
> 1 votes

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Tags: learning, correspondence-chess
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# Question
Title: Are contemporary chess players now stronger than players in the 90's or 80's?
For example, take a Class A (a player with a USCF rating of between 1800 and 1999 inclusive) today and Class A from the 90's. Would the contemporary Class A be stronger because of the updates of opening theory or contemporary changes in chess play?

# Answer
> 40 votes
No. The vast majority of club level players still play like the vast majority of club level players always did. Changes in knowledge about chess mostly apply to high levels of play; the kind of mistakes class A players make were already known to be mistakes for ages, and opening theory doesn't help much if your opponent deviates from theory at move 5 anyway.

As evidence of this, see the paper "Intrinsic Chess Ratings" by Regan and Haworth, PDF. They analyzed the games of players of various rating ranges from various time periods with an engine, and found no significant difference in the mistake rate between games from the 70s and from the 2000s.

# Answer
> 13 votes
I don't think that there is a significant difference at that level. The main difference with chess 20 years ago is the use of computers and they are not extensively used by club players.

Also the advances in opening theory have been profited mostly by the top players (a club player normally doesn't know a lot of theory and doesn't memorize a lot of moves in depth of each variation).

Furthermore you can consider rating inflation and now the new K factors which make easy for a young player to improve his rating very rapidly in a good tournament.

In conclusion, I don't think that 1800-2000 players are stronger now than 20 years ago but I do think that top players are stronger now because of the facts mentioned above.

# Answer
> 6 votes
What do you mean by 'strength'?

Do you mean talent (IQ, natural ability, genius, w/e; Re IQ, see , 2 ft Josh Waitzkin, ) adjusted for time, resources, opening theory? That's probably a statistics, biology or cognitive science question. If the answer is yes, I don't see why that wouldn't hold true for math, basketball or singing.

If you mean talent unadjusted for such, then obviously today's top players are 'stronger'.

If you're talking about chess enthusiasts, probably not, but who's to say for sure? If you're talking about GM-level play eg Anand vs Morphy, **definitely**. If you're talking about NMs/IMs of today versus NMs/IMs (or their equivalents) of before, probably.

An analogy would be saying that Andrew Wiles is a 'stronger' mathematician than Taniyama, Leibniz or Euler. Of course e is, but that's mainly because of the works of the ones who came before him.

As Isaac Newton said:

> If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Anyway, going back to chess

Additionally, Bobby Fischer said (emphasis mine):

> In chess **so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn’t do well. They’d get bad openings**. You cannot compare the playing strength, you can only talk about natural ability. Memorization is enormously powerful. **Some kid of fourteen today, or even younger, could get an opening advantage against Capablanca, and especially against the players of the previous century, like Morphy and Steinitz**. Maybe they would still be able to outplay the young kid of today. Or maybe not, because **nowadays when you get the opening advantage not only do you get the opening advantage, you know how to play**, they have so many examples of what to do from this position. It is really deadly, and that is why I don’t like chess any more.

Magnus Carlsen seems to think he could defeat Fischer or Tal, and why wouldn't he? He knows their games, has the Internet and is granted opening theory that Fischer, Tal and others had to discover themselves (eg  ).

As chess.com user fabelhaft put it (emphasis mine):

> the main thing is that there is very little difference in talent between the best players of any time. The big difference is in the opportunisties the players had. Without **professional coaching since childhood, modern opening theory, engine assistance, game databases, tournament circuits, Internet**, etc, it was just impossible to play on the same level as those with all these advantages that were similarly talented.

# Answer
> 1 votes
They are more equipped with chess technology and have a bigger circle of experts around to hire/train with. This means that contemporary players have better opportunities than players before their time. Hope this helps.

# Answer
> 1 votes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn\_effect is a theory that we, on average, are getting smarter.

"Ulric Neisser estimated that using the IQ values of 1997, the average IQ of the United States in 1932, according to the first Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales standardization sample, was 80." "Trahan et al. (2014) found that the effect was about 2.93 points per decade, based on both Stanford–Binet and Wechsler tests; they also found no evidence the effect was diminishing."

If chess performance has any collaboration with intelligence then yes.

# Answer
> 0 votes
There have been a lot of interesting points made here. I had been playing postal chess using books only and around 1988 it became clear that most of my opponents were using computers. I had some talent for chess growing up and I used it to play before I ever read a chess book.

Of course having a lot of resources will make you play well in the opening, often giving you an advantage over anybody that is not prepared the way you are.

I would venture to say, talent for chess is not much different in the 2000s. People that have a simple interest in chess, play it just as entertainment are not much different than people 50 years ago with the same vision. Some people do try to study, and are only able to retain some much knowledge and can only work with facts in certain ways.

At the higher level, I would guess because of all the materials available, the more talented players could develop into top players more quickly with dedication. I think you can see this in all sports. There is also a point where your talent seems to fade out a bit, like in your 40s.

Top pool players, a game whose decisions are similar to chess, find themselves affected by age, health, and other factors. There are players in their 60s and beyond that are quite good, but they dedicated their every waking moment to their skill and remain good in most situations. For a champion, that is what it takes.

50 years ago, it was not possible to imagine the kinds of resources available today. If you owned 1000 chess books and had read a lot of it, you already had some advantage, even if you were not a top player.

Players that have dedication and talent should be helped to reach their goals. Players that are playing to have a good time of just find interest in the game should be encouraged to enjoy it as much as they can take in. Better players should be able to recognize which players are their competition and act accordingly.

I see and have experienced a bit too much ego dealing with people that had a stronger interest and investment that me. That hasn't changed much. I revel in the fact I am just a hack at pool, and I wear the fact I am out to have a good time and bang the balls around. I am just a coffee-house player, and although a lot of what I thought was weaker players now know the openings better, its just as easy to trick them into bad positions by bearing down on their game, even in good positions, since they are likely to make as many errors as I am.

# Answer
> 0 votes
It is hard to measure ability meaningfully.I find that the good players are much better and the bad players much worse.The question is where is the middle and that is unclear.

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Tags: rating, history
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# Question
Title: What is the English maxim for "Rather losing a material / piece, than losing a tempo / an initiative"?
Chess, Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) and Go all highly value the tempo/initiative.

The Chinese saying "宁失一子,不失一先" literally means

> It is better to lose material/piece, than a tempo/initiative.

(宁=prefer; 失=lose; 一=one; 子=piece (e.g. pawn, rook, knight); 不=not; 先=initiative, tempo, momentum)

I understand the principle/tactic, but I don't know how to express it idiomatically. Is there an English maxim for it?

---

If there hasn't been an established proverb in English, we may invent some.

For example,

**@T.J.Crowder**:

"**Damn the material, full speed ahead!**"

**@Remellion**:

"**Speed over greed**"

Pros: rhythm.

Cons: The saying emphasizes to accept your own pieces' loss; while "greed" is about taking your opponent's pieces.

# Answer
Excellent question. Translation is always a tricky business.

There isn't an established chess saying, although Patrick McElhaney's answer "Time is money" comes closest in meaning, and is an idiom in English.

So I would simply invent another phrase with the same meaning, if you want to convey the idea *and* keep the catchiness that it has in Mandarin. I propose **"Speed over greed"**, which rhymes and is relatively self-explanatory.
> 5 votes

# Answer
I might not understand the Chinese idiom correctly, but to me it sounds like--

"Lose the battle but win the war"

--which has the meaning of, it is better to sacrifice some small thing for the bigger picture (to me, that sounds like the crux of the Chinese idiom you shared).
> 10 votes

# Answer
I am not aware of an idiomatic way of saying it. However, I would express it as "*seizing the moment*".

For example, there is a book by Ivan Sokolov, "Sacrifice and Initiative in Chess: Seize the Moment to Get the Advantage," which I think talks exactly about the importance of the initiative vs material that you mean in your question.
> 6 votes

# Answer
*Time is money.*

It’s an idiom not typically used in the context of chess, but I think the meaning would be clear in context to a native English speaker. You’re losing “money” (a piece) in order to gain “time” (a tempo). You expect to gain an advantage because the latter is more valuable.

In more formal economics lingo, there’s *opportunity cost*. For example, your opponent offers a trade by taking a piece that is guarded. You choose not to take the piece back because the opportunity cost of losing a tempo (or two) is higher than the cost of being down a piece.
> 6 votes

# Answer
It sounds like you want to **keep up the pressure**. You might be taking a loss of material, but a coherent, rapid, intimidating overall strategy maintains your tempo.
> 5 votes

# Answer
One fiery saying that might work is this one.

"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"
> 4 votes

# Answer
"You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs"

This is a good English idiom for accepting losses/sacrifices to achieve your goal. It doesn't express anything about keeping up the tempo/pressure though.
> 4 votes

# Answer
When I used to play chess, I would say something like "I sacrificed pieces to gain/maintain tempo".
> 2 votes

# Answer
Not exactly equivalent to the Chinese saying, but sacrificing material for initiative is also known as "playing like Tal". Tal was well-known as the greatest attacking player the world had ever seen, who's produced many magical, sacrificial combinations.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Looking at this slightly obliquely:

> A stitch in time saves nine

In other words, spending a small amount of effort to do a small thing (e.g. sew a stitch into a piece of fabric that has started to tear or fray) before it gets worse (i.e. "in time") prevents you from having to spend far more effort later ("nine" - literally meaning needing to do nine times as many stitches later)

On a similar note - but, I think, far less related to your own idiom - there is

> More haste, less speed

which means *"if you try to rush something now, and have to redo it properly later, then it will take more time in total"*
> 1 votes

# Answer
Here are a few sayings that have potential to be such maxims

1) "Who dares wins."

2) "Fortune favours the brave."

3) "The early bird catches the worm"

4) "c4 is explosive."
> 0 votes

# Answer
This is about sacrificing one thing for the other. I'm not a linguist myself, but I imagine there are lots of expressions that say something about sacrificing for speed, initiative, continuity etc.

Also the word **meatshield** comes to mind where you intentionally sacrifice a piece to protect something (eg. you can proceed as planned).
> 0 votes

---
Tags: terminology
---


# Question
Title: How are online chess engines' architecture designed?
I recently build a chess engine using javascript (https://github.com/Ram-the-coder/ai-chess-engine-v2). It runs on the browser - because of this when the chess engine is computing the best move, the webpage gets unresponsive. So I thought if I move the processing to the server, then I can eliminate the unresponsiveness. But if I do that then I've to maintain the game state for each client of the server. The size of the game state I think is in mega bytes as it includes the hash tables.

Another problem I faced in keeping the processing on the client-side is that the processing speed becomes dependent on the client's device.

How are such online chess engines usually built?

I don't think storing the game state in memory is good as the server has to serve many clients. Maybe storing in a database in the same server might work...

If I use a client-server architecture, won't I be restricted to serve one client request per server at a time? If yes, how are online chess engines able to serve unlimited clients at the same time?

# Answer
> 3 votes
WASM defines how an engine is compiled but not how it runs. Browser chess engines always run on a web worker in JavaScript.

Sample code for running a chess engine on web browser:

```
const x = new Worker('/stockfish.js')
x.postMessage("uci")

```

# Answer
> 8 votes
Lichess uses WebAssembly (Wasm) - as is stated on the analysis page (“Stockfish 10+ WASM in local browser”). Wasm is the obvious thing to use, as it runs on the client side but is faster than JavaScript.

Running Stockfish in a web browser is usually done using Niklas Fiekas’ Wasm+JavaScript port of Stockfish, which is what Lichess uses. This consists of a Wasm file `stockfish.wasm` containing the engine itself, and a smaller JavaScript file `stockfish.wasm.js` that controls the use of the engine. (There is also a large file `stockfish.js` that is used as a fallback on browsers that lack native Wasm support.)

---
Tags: engines, software, online-chess
---


# Question
Title: Why the extra rank on each side in 4 player chess?
Why do we have an extra rank (marked with the red lines) on each side in 4 player chess? What could be the possible logic?

(screenshot is taken from chess.com)

# Answer
As SmallChess notes, the rook pawns would be able to capture on the first move. That in itself wouldn't be a problem, since the player can just capture back, but then we have a situation with two half-open lines where the pawns are pinned against the rooks behind them. That's a lot of tension already after the first move, and on the flanks, which is quite rare in normal 1v1 chess.

I'm not sure how to visualize this, but if red takes the blue pawn, and blue responds by capturing with their rook, yellow's king's rook pawn is pinned by the red rook (and attacked by the blue pawn) and green's king's rook pawn is pinned by the blue rook (and attacked by the red pawn).

@RemcoGerlich notes another very early possibility for two players to gang up on the last player, by capturing two of their pawns on the first move. Perhaps this is part of a general problem with 4 player chess...
> 5 votes

---
Tags: chess-variants
---


# Question
Title: Good against low-level humans but bad against low-level computer
I'm probably what you'd call an advanced beginner. I spend most of my chess time solving puzzles on Lichess, which tend to focus on midgame calculation, making beneficial trades, and finding checkmates.

Lately, I've been trying to spend more time playing full games. I've noticed that I tend to do pretty well against humans in correspondence chess, but I usually lose against Stockfish, even when setting it to level 1.

The difference between low-level Stockfish and low-level human players seems to be that Stockfish plays consistently OK moves, whereas human players make occasional blunders that I can exploit. I would think that solving chess puzzles would be the best way to alleviate my dependence on opponents' blunders, but it seems to have had the opposite effect: If I can't spot an opportunity for a fork or pin, I'm never really sure what I'm supposed to be doing with my pieces. I'm wondering how I should go about improving my gameplay.

**What are the likely areas of deficiency of a player who can win consistently against low-level humans but seldom against low-level Stockfish?**

# Answer
The computer is a calculator. Accordingly, its play will be tactically basically error-free at whatever level it is set. The number of ply (half moves) the computer is calculating ahead determines its level. So if you make any errors, even against a low-level computer setting, it will exploit them tactically and generally ulimately win. Human ratings are largely determined by tactics even up to relatively high levels, even Class A. So against a low-rated player who will generally make many tactical errors, you will have a lot of opportunities to exploit these and most likely win. I personally enjoy playing the computer at the lower and medium settings, since although I know I'll have to see everything within the fewer ply, I'll still have a chance to make a combination of additional ply depth to win, say 6 ply or three moves vs 4 ply or two moves, which I find difficult to do against the higher settings when it is "seeing" everything at a much deeper level. I find this to be a more human-like game. To succeed against the computer at its lower levels, you must accordingly refine your game to see all the tactical possibilities - forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, etc - both for and against you at these fewer ply. That's good practice for human play as well. And it's also important to remember that tactics tend to flow from good positions. So if you don't see an immediate tactic, you should try to keep improving your position (gaining space, controlling open lines, occupying holes, etc.) until such an opportunity might arise. And solving puzzles as you are doing is a good way to improve your tactics.
> 1 votes

# Answer
My guess would be positional play. Could be tactics depending on how good/bad that computer level really is.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: stockfish, study
---


# Question
Title: How can someone find their Morphy number?
The Morphy number is a measure of how closely a chess player is connected to Paul Morphy (1837–1884) by way of playing chess games. It's analogous to the Erdős Number for mathematicians.

People who played a chess game with Morphy have a Morphy number of 1. Players who did not play Morphy but played someone with a Morphy number of 1 have a Morphy number of 2. People who played someone with a Morphy number of n have a Morphy number of n+1.

In my case, in the early 1980s, I played Jonathan Penrose in a simultaneous exhibition, the cosmic significance of which was unknown to me at the time. Penrose is one of the few living MN3 players, having played Savielly Tartakower in 1950, who played James Mortimer in 1907, who played Paul Morphy himself "hundreds of times" from 1853. So that gives me MN4. A bit lucky: if I hadn't got that connection to Penrose, I might be hard-pressed to find my number.

Jonathan’s brother is the celebrated physicist, Roger Penrose.

So how does someone go about finding their Morphy number more systematically? Has anyone data-mined chess games databases from this perspective? Have any results been published? What are the paths implied in the Wikipedia article linked above from the MN1 to MN2 to ... to MN5 players listed there? And what's the expected MN for an active player today?

Has anyone else here managed to figure out their MN?

# Answer
You'd have to find a list of players Morphy has played. Then, you'd research as many players who played each of those players. This can all be done by searching by player in a large database. Eventually you'd have a large tree, and the problem comes down to an optimal search algorithm.

You'd search "branches" with a more likely chance of giving you a small Morphy number. This means looking at players who have played more games over their career. For example, if some player A was one of Morphy's opponents who played the most games, you'd look at him first. Then, find one of Player A's opponents (call him B) who played the most games in his lifetime, and look at him first. If doing this recursively with B never leads to you (or gives a poor Morphy number), go on to C: the opponent of player A who played the second most games. If eventually you find all of Player A's opponents don't lead to you, meaning Player A isn't connected to you, go on to the opponent of Morphy who had the second most games.

But it's still a massive job to search. Even if you find a link to yourself, you need to prove/justify that it's the smallest link. Perhaps you could organize all these players into a tree and write a program to efficiently search it.
> 10 votes

# Answer
I never heard of the 'Morphy number' until I read your post. I found that my Morphy number is 5. Here is how I did it.

I started with Wikipedia

After looking at the list I realized that my best bet was the simul where I played John Donaldson. I still regret not pushing the pawn after preparing it so well...

I looked at other American players John would have played and found that he played Reshevsky at Lone Pine 1981.

Per Wikipedia Reshevksy's number is 3.
> 8 votes

# Answer
I had a similar problem not long ago, though not chess related. If I were to pattern this solution off of that one, I would consider storing Morphy in an SQL table along with all of his opponents, along with all of their opponents, and so on, in a parent/child relationship. So you would have one table with two columns (id and parent\_id). id would be the child of parent\_id and any id could be a parent\_id, child id or both. So if Morphy is `parent_id=1` and he played ids 2-10, you might have

```
parent_id  |  id
1          |  2
1          |  3
1          |  4

etc.

2          |  25
2          |  28

etc.

```

The last row would be you. Perhaps you are `id=1,100,000`

```
1,000,000  |  1,100,000

```

Say this table is call chess\_players, you could then recursively query this table to get your id and all of your ancestor parent\_ids. Something like this

```
with recursive cte (id, name, parent_id) as
(
 select     id,
            parent_id
 from       chess_players
 where      parent_id = 1 and id=1100000 -- Morphy is the parent and you are the child
 union all
 select     p.id,
            p.parent_id
 from       chess_players p
 inner join cte
         on p.parent_id = cte.id
)
select * from cte;

```

You will then see all of the parent\_ids of your id number all the way up to Morphy's parent\_id of 1. I suppose this is your Morphy count and you could use this technique for anyone in your chess\_players table.

I'm thinking you could probably scrape a database like chessgames.com to populate your table.
> 5 votes

# Answer
As far as an algorithmic answer goes, if you can get a set of games into a pandas dataframe (Python), the following code should get you the Morphy numbers, unless I've messed up somewhere:

```
def get_distances(games,
                  starting_player = 'James Morphy',
                  max_depth = 100,
                  white_col_name = 'white'
                  black_col_name = 'black')
    player_nums = {starting_player:0}
    games_left = pd.DataFrame(index = games.index)
    games_left[['white','black']] = games[[white_col_name, black_col_name]]
    for current_depth in range(max_depth):
        known_players = set(player_nums.keys())
        numbered_white = games_left.white.isin(known_players)
        numbered_black = games_left.black.isin(known_players)
        new_white = games_left.loc[numbered_black & (~numbered_white)]
        new_black = games_left.loc[numbered_white & (~numbered_black)]
        new_players = set(new_white.white).union(set(new_black.black))
        if not new_players:
            return {'player_nums': player_nums,
                    'result': 'Ran out of connections'}
        for player in new_players:
            player_nums[player] = current_depth+1
        games_left = games_left.loc[~(numbered_white | numbered_black)]
        if games_left.shape[0] == 0:
            return {'player_nums': player_nums,
                    'result': 'Analyzed all games'}
    return {'player_nums': player_nums,
            'result':  'Reached maximum depth'}

```

This gets the Morphy number for everyone. Getting just yours is "almost as hard" (for some definition of "almost as hard") as getting all the Morphy numbers. This gets the numbers for a fixed data set. If you want to update the numbers as more games are played, you can just keep rerunning the program, but there's probably some tweaks you can make to make updating more efficient. Also, there have been comments suggesting people think that calculating the Morphy number would have an exponential complexity with respect to the depth number, but as long as the number of games is fixed, this algorithm has polynomial complexity with respect to the number of games.

More information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra%27s\_algorithm
> 4 votes

# Answer
Pseudocode to iteratively compute morphy number.

assume you have a database with a table plays of two columns x and y where a row indicates two indeviduals who have played one another.

```
_morphy = {}
def Morphy(name):

   if name == 'Morphy':
      return 0

   if name in _morphy:
      return _morphy[name]

   _morphy[name] = math.inf
   score = math.inf
   results = execute(select x, y from plays where x=name or y=name)
   for x, y in results:
      if x == name:
         score = min(score, Morphy(y) + 1)
      elif y == name:
         score = min(score, Morphy(x) + 1)

   _morphy[name] = score
   return score

print(Morphy('Jar Jar Binks'))

```
> 3 votes

# Answer
This may not help if you do not have games in the ChessBase database (or even enough games), but ChessBase recently released a feature called "WinChain", which TRIES to find your "number" to any player, including Morphy. Nevertheless, I found that it still does not work particularly well for going back that far, but you still might be interested.

Here is an article called "Three Steps to Morphy" discussing the feature.

And here is a link to the page specifically for the Morphy number.

I could not get my Morphy number since my chain was still too long, but I was only four steps from Kasparov, Karpov and Carlsen, and 5 from Fischer.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Morphy numbers are something new to me.

It is the degrees of detachment little world marvel for chess players.

I was looking Gligoric and discovered he had a Morphy number of 3.

So Morphy (1837-1884) has a Morphy number zero.

Any individual who played him has a Morphy number of 1.

Any individual who played a Morphy number 1 has a Morphy number 2, etc.

I played John Littlewood in a simul.

John Littlewood had played Botvinnik who has an MN of 3.

That gives me an MN of 5.

Anand, Kramnik, and Gelfand additionally have MNs of 5.

Little world I have just 5 degrees of partition from Morphy who was conceived in 1837.
> 2 votes

# Answer
For me, it was a combination of Wikipedia, WinChain, USCF, and my own knowledge. I worked from both ends.

I started by assuming that getting a link to high-rated players was probably the way to go - if you follow the chain up, eventually you get to famous players with known Morphy numbers, or at least players who have many games in large databases. To that end, I used the USCF website to find my top opponents (using the "Show Game Statistics" link on the Member Detail page, which organizes opponents by rating.) The choice seemed easy: I've only played one IM in my life. I then looked at his top opponents, followed by *their* top opponents. At that point I lucked out and found a name from the Wikipedia page - Borislav Ivkov, listed as having a rather low Morphy number of 3. So that gave me a Morphy number of 6. I double-checked some other paths, but nothing beat that link.

Of course, I wasn't satisfied with just playing Morphy. I had to beat him. So, I used the USCF website to find the top players I'd beaten, and the top players they beat. This time I used a shortcut: I knew that a particular player that I had once beaten had scored a win against that IM I played. When I checked the Game Statistics, I found that she had also beaten a second IM. I then used the WinChain tool mentioned in another answer to try to link those two IMs to some players with low Morphy numbers (there were too many false positives if I tried to chain them directly to Morphy.) I also found a somewhat recent game using the USCF Game Statistics pages that wasn't in the database that WinChain uses, which shortened the path by one. Surprisingly, the win path ended up with *no* names in common with the ones that formed my original Morphy number path. I ended up beating Morphy in 7 steps by going through Arnold Denker.

Based on this experience, my tips are:

* First, try to find a link from yourself to a professional-level player. Use your own knowledge of who you played, and the website of wherever it is you play your games - USCF, FIDE, etc., to find who you played and who your opponents played. High rated players tend to play other high rated players a lot, so looking at your higher rated opponents first is often the best way to go.
* Once you get to someone rated high enough to be in databases, use WinChain. But remember that it only finds wins. Try swapping the names; sometimes that gives a shorter path, since a loss from one perspective is a win from another. And remember that WinChain won't find everything; you may still have to look elsewhere for more direct links.
* When using WinChain, instead of just searching for Morphy (which might result in a chain that's too long for it to find, or a false positive from some 1800s simul) search for several other players with known Morphy numbers, like Ivkov or Keres.
* Don't give up. Keep looking until you find that connection.
> 2 votes

# Answer
There is no magical way of finding it, of course, you just have to know the history of the people that you have played and then you can deduce your Morphy number. Of course, it is highly likely that the chain never reaches Morphy.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: history, database, morphy
---


title: How to Create Positional Theory

text:
# Question
Title: How to Create Positional Theory
I've been playing Kraton Chess, which is basically standard chess except there are 96 different possible starting positions that are similar to the standard starting position. All the rules of standard chess are in Kraton Chess including castling with no additional rules.

I have some interest in studying the possible starting positions in order to play quicker and stronger in my openings. I might memorize some potential moves to play, but I'm mostly interested in understanding the elements of the position. Understanding elements of a position would help me understand what I should be thinking about in my openings. For example, a pawn having no support in the starting position might be an element worth remembering. Does anyone have any advice on how to go about this? Also, if I do memorize moves, should I just memorize whatever an engine suggests?

It's not critical to know what Kraton Chess is to answer the question. But if you're interested, Kraton Chess has two main differences to Chess960. The king must start on the E file, and rooks can't start on the D or F files. (This improves castling.) The possible starting positions must have an equal chance of being chosen for each game, and the game must start right after the position is chosen. Kraton Chess is more thoroughly described in this post, although it is long: https://www.reddit.com/r/chessvariants/comments/f20xgw/kraton\_chess/.

# Answer
This seems to just be a version of Chess960 restricted to certain openings to make castling more like "normal". Thus **the positional considerations should be identical to regular chess**, and regular chess principles (e.g. control the centre, develop your pieces early, gain space, etc.) should apply with equal force here.

What does change is the pattern recognition, to an extent. Particularly for how to handle the minor pieces, the intuition built up by playing normal chess (put knights on f3/c3, bishop to c4/b5, etc.) is gone.

**Undefended pawn in the starting position**: Obviously this can be a target for early attacks. Watch out for these, and be alert for tactics that could win/lose you a pawn.

**Generalised opening principles**: The usual chess opening ideas of controlling the centre, developing minor pieces and getting the king to safety should still apply. However, some of those ideas are specific cases of principles applicable to other chess types and variants:

* **Mobility**. In the overwhelming majority of chess variants, mobility is the key principle, I would say even the most important one. Development is about improving your pieces' mobility. Controlling the centre is also about getting more mobility. Having more material means you have more pieces, and hence more options (more mobility!) than your opponent. Aim always to improve your pieces' mobility.
* **Speed**. In developing your pieces, you want to do so as quickly as possible. Finishing development first means you can start to increase the pressure on your opponent before they have the chance to react.
* **Piece coordination.** This is less focused on in regular chess than in other chesses like xiangqi and shogi. It ties in with the previous two points: you want to get your pieces to their optimal locations quickly (speed) such that they don't get in each others' way, and hopefully work together to control some squares (mobility).

So for the opening phase of Kratos chess, for instance, you'd want to look at your position and identify some kind of deployment of forces that, *as a whole*, brings your army to life. Try to identify the pieces that seem the hardest to develop, and work out a plan to get them active; don't neglect it and focus too much on your other pieces to the point where *they* get in the way of the neglected piece.

And of course plans must change with enemy contact. At every move, try to make sure your moves give you the flexibility to satisfactorily develop the rest of your pieces in as many ways as possible, so that you can adapt your plans if necessary.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: opening, analysis, learning, theory, chess-variants
---


# Question
Title: When Lichess analyzes a game, how deep does it analysis?
In reference to the request computer analysis feature, how how deep is Stockfish analyzing, such as looking 12 moves ahead?

# Answer
> 2 votes
It tells you at the top right.

The first number (19) tells you the depth it has analyzed to (19 ply = 9.5 moves). Note that because of engine heuristics, it doesn't exhaustively search for every single move 9.5 deep. The second number (23) tells you the max depth to which the engine is searching for. After the bar fills up, there is an optional feature that lets you increase the depth beyond 23 if you want to explore a specific position further.

---
Tags: analysis, stockfish, lichess
---


# Question
Title: Why this move is good here but not few moves ago?
```
[FEN "r1bq1rk1/p2p2pp/1pn1p3/5p2/1PP1n1P1/P4N2/1BQ1PP1P/R3KB1R b - - 0 1"]

```

Here, 1... fxg4 gives White an advantage. But 1...Nxf2 2.Kxf2 fxg4 is equal. Why is that?

# Answer
> 5 votes
The main point is that 1...Nxf2 draws White's king out to the vulnerable f2-square; this allows Black to hold the balance. After 2.Kxf2 fxg4 3.Rg1, Black can give a perpetual with 3...Qh4+! 4.Ke3 (4.Rg3 can be met with 4...exf3, as Rxg7+ is impossible) 4...Qh6+ 5.Kf2 Qh4+.

Meanwhile, 1...fxg4? 2.Qxe4 gxf3 3.Rg1 (hitting the g7-pawn) 3...Rf7 4.0-0-0 gives White a serious initiative. His king is safe enough on the queenside, and his pieces are pointed at Black's king. Also, note that Qxc6 is threatened, winning a piece, since on ...dxc6 White has Rxd8+.

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


# Question
Title: Why is the evaluation of the move h5 dependent on position of the bishop?
```
[FEN ""]
[startply "50"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O b5 6. Bb3 Be7 7. Re1 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. h3 Na5 10. Bc2 c5 11. d4 Qc7 12. Nbd2 Nc6 13. d5 Nd8 14. a4 Ra7 15. Nf1 g6 16. Bh6 Re8 17. Ng3 Nd7 18. Nh2 f6 19. Be3 Nb6 20. axb5 axb5 21. Bd3 Bd7 22. Qd2 Nf7 23. Rxa7 Qxa7 24. Qe2 Qa6 25. Ng4 Kg7 26. Bc1 Na4 27. Bc2 Ra8 28. Qe3 c4 29. Rf1 Nc5 30. Nh6 Ng5 31. f4 exf4 32. Qxf4 Bxh3 33. Qh4 Bd7 34. e5 dxe5 35. Nh5 gxh5 36. Qxg5 fxg5 37. Rf7 Kxh6 38. Rxh7#

```

I have two questions.

1) Why was a4 played?

2) According to chess.com engine, after 26. Bd2, h5 is best, but after 26. Bc1 h5 is good. Why is that so?

# Answer
> 1 votes
...h5 is indeed good because it kicks the knight away from its current position (where it's a very dangerous piece)

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


title: Checkmate with king, knight and bishop

text:
# Question
Title: Checkmate with king, knight and bishop
Today I was playing on a game on chess.com. In that game I lost by time.

```
[Event "azarigoli vs. vitthal20043"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2020-06-11"]
[White "azarigoli"]
[Black "vitthal20043"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1193"]
[BlackElo "1212"]
[TimeControl "blitz"]
[Termination "azarigoli won on time"]
[FEN ""]
1. c4 b6 2. Nc3 Bb7 3. Nb5 g6 4. d3 Bg7 5. Rb1 a6 6. Na3 d6 7. e4 e6 8. Nh3 Ne7 9. f3 Nd7 10. Bg5 h6 11. Bf4 g5 12. Be3 a5 13. g4 Nc5 14. d4 Nd7 15. Bg2 Ng6 16. d5 e5 17. Nb5 Nc5 18. Bxc5 bxc5 19. a4 c6 20. dxc6 Bxc6 21. Nxd6+ Ke7 22. Nf5+ Kf8 23. Nd6 Bxa4 24. b3 Bc6 25. Rb2 Ra7 26. Rd2 Rd7 27. O-O Ke7 28. Nf5+ Kf8 29. Rxd7 Qxd7 30. Qa1 Qc7 31. Rd1 Ne7 32. Nxe7 Kxe7 33. Bf1 f6 34. Nf2 h5 35. Nd3 Qb6 36. gxh5 Rxh5 37. Bg2 Rh8 38. h3 Rd8 39. Bf1 Rf8 40. Kg2 Ke6 41. Kg3 f5 42. Bg2 fxe4 43. fxe4 Rg8 44. Rf1 Bh8 45. Rf5 Bf6 46. Nxe5 Qxb3+ 47. Bf3 Bxe4 48. Rxf6+ Kxf6 49. Ng4+ Ke7 50. Qf6+ Kd7 51. Qf7+ Kc6 52. Qe6+ Kc7 53. Qxe4 Rf8 54. Qe7+ Kb6 55. Qxf8 a4 56. Qf6+ Ka5 57. Qxg5 a3 58. Qxc5+ Ka4 59. Qc6+ Kb4 60. Ne5 a2 61. Qb6+ Ka3 62. Qa5+ Kb2 63. Qd2+ Ka3 64. Qxa2+ Qxa2 65. c5 Qg8+ 66. Ng4 Qb8+ 67. Kf2 Qb2+ 68. Be2 Qd4+ 69. Ne3 Qxc5 70. Ke1 Qc1+ 71. Kf2 Qh1 72. Bg4 Qh2+ 73. Ng2 Qd6 74. Ne3 1-0

```

If I captured their pawn with my queen, would it be a draw, or would they have a win? As I would run out of time, that is for sure.

# Answer
As pointed out by Ian Bush, it is possible to mate with a knight and a bishop against a lonely king. Indeed, White can **force** mate if he plays correctly regardless of how Black defends.

But not even that is needed. For example, if White's bishop were a knight, mate cannot be forced, but the game would still be a win because it is indeed possible to reach a mating position (if Black defends incorrectly)

The rules state that the game will be declared a draw only if there is no possible sequence of legal moves that could lead to the flagged player getting checkmated (regardless or whether he "resists" or "collaborates") Can you find a sequence of moves that would lead to a White victory here?
> 7 votes

# Answer
Checkmate is possible with a king, bishop and knight against a bare king, and therefore it would have been a win for white if you timed out before the 50 or 75 move rules came into play. So for instance if the game had gone 72 ... Qxh3 73 Bxg3 and then you timed out within the next 50 moves it would be a win for white.
> 7 votes

# Answer
The final position is a forced win for black in 121 moves starting with 1... Qf4, according to the Shredder Tablebases. While it is objectively a win, it would be very tricky to pull it off in time trouble as you'd always have to watch out for knight forks while preventing white from advancing the pawn.

Therefore, with limited time, it makes a lot of sense to look for ways to force a draw.

Unfortunately for you, knight+bishop+king can mate you. I would expect players around Elo 2000 (plus minus) to be able to mate you with knight and bishop. So unless you play a weak player there is no point giving your queen for the pawn.

Instead, you could simplify the position to a theoretical draw in this position if:

* you exchange your queen for the knight AND
* get your king to the promotion square h8

White is then left with the h pawn and a bishop of the wrong color which is an easy draw for black if you just move your king around the squares h7,g7, h8,g8. This is easy to do even in time trouble.

However, if you lose on time in this position you'd still lose the game. The reasoning is, that if there is any way to mate you from the position it is lost (even if you'd have to help in getting mated).
> 5 votes

---
Tags: checkmate
---


# Question
Title: Caro-Kann Defense: Advance Variation, Botvinnik-Carls Defense
I seem to keep losing games as white in this opening. What systems is good for white and what are the developing ideas before the middlegame for white after 4. dxc5?

```
[FEN ""]
1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dxc5

```

# Answer
I play the Panov attack:

```
[fen ""]
1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 ( 5... Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Nf3 Be7 8. c5 O-O 9. Bb5 Bd7 10. O-O ) 6. Nf3 Be7 7. cxd5 Nxd5 8. Bd3 Nc6 9. O-O O-O 10. Re1

```

I scored multiple victories with this line and it's easy to play. In the first variation, you have an isolated pawn and you're looking for a kingside attack by creating a battery with the Bishop and Queen on the b1-h7 diagonal, and you play a3 in order to prevent the Knight from harassing you light-square bishop and rook on open files. In the second variation (5...Nc6) you need to prevent Black from playing e5. So you need to control it more, or trade your light square bishop for the knight on c6 to control it more and try to create a passed pawn on the queenside by pushing b4 at the right time.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: opening, caro-kann
---


title: How can I save this game?

text:
# Question
Title: How can I save this game?
I was playing a blitz game and the time control was 2m+1s. The end game was KQ vs KR and I (with KQ) lost on time as it took roughly 2 seconds for me to make a move. I would like to learn a lesson: in this endgame (KQ vs KR), can I force a draw if I am running out of time?

* I can try three-fold repetition, but my opponent will not cooperate.
* I can try exchanging, but my opponent will not block my check with their rook.

# Answer
> 7 votes
> can I force a draw if I am running out of time?

Of course! Just swap the queen for the rook.

There are two basic possibilities.

1. He keeps the king and rook very close (normal best practice when trying to draw this difficult endgame). In that case every time you threaten the rook with your queen he must move the rook and keep it close to the king. It should be easy to then skewer the king against the rook with a check or pin the rook against the king. This probably won't happen immediately but if you know what you are aiming for your opponent will find it very difficult to avoid for long, particularly since he also needs to avoid losing.
2. He keeps the rook and king well separated. This is fatal. The rook quickly falls to a fork.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Moving your queen next to your king and moving your king in a diamond around your queen for up to 30 moves seems like it’d be decently fast and not need much thought if you’re really low on time. Every move up to and including the draw is as short as possible, distance-wise.

---
Tags: endgame, time-control, queens, rooks, time-management
---


# Question
Title: What is the correct name for a part of a chessboard: 'square' or 'cell'?
I play shogi (Japanese chess) and there is a word "マス" to call a cell of a **square** lattice not only used in shogi and chess. As far as I have read the article about chess in Wikipedia, it seems that "square" is used more often than "cell" to call "マス" in chess. What is the most natural term to call a cell of the chess board? Is it "square"?

# Answer
Yes, that's a "square". The word "cell" is never used. E.g. from the Wikipedia article:

> Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid.

> The 64 squares alternate in color and are referred to as light and dark squares.

Or, if you prefer a dictionary:

> 3 : any of the quadrilateral spaces marked out on a board for playing games

(source: Merriam-Webster)

> 1.3 A small square area on the board used in a game.
> *‘move the white king's pawn forward two squares’*

(source: Lexico, more example sentences about chess in that link)

Finally, as @chaosflaws notes in the comments, the official FIDE Laws of Chess:

> 2.1 The chessboard is composed of an 8 x 8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately light (the ‘white’ squares) and dark (the ‘black’ squares).
> 7 votes

---
Tags: chess-variants, terminology, chessboards
---


# Question
Title: Would a piece that moved like a king – but could be captured (and could be moved en prise) – be considered a major or a minor piece?
I could be wrong, but it seems like the major determinant of whether a piece is a major piece or a minor piece is whether a king and one of that piece can force checkmate on a lone king. Would this be possible with a king and one of these hypothetical pieces? (Or is that not actually the determinant of what is a major piece and what is a minor piece?)

# Answer
> 5 votes
This piece is widely used in different fairy chess variants. It appears under several names, including Commoner, Guard and Man / Mann.

While the table in the Wikipedia article also linked to in @Allure's answer states it's worth about four points, the article itself limits that value to the endgame:

> In the endgame, where there is usually little danger of checkmate, the fighting value of the king is about four points (Lasker 1934:73). In the endgame, a king is more powerful than a minor piece but less powerful than a rook. Julian Hodgson also puts its value at four points (Aagaard 2004:12).

On the other hand, the Wikipedia article about the fairy chess piece says

> A man is approximately equal in strength and value to a knight, generally.

That would make it a minor piece. It might depend on the board size (it's less effective on large boards, and worth much more on small boards) or the other pieces available to the players.

---

> it seems like the major determinant of whether a piece is a major piece or a minor piece is whether a king and one of that piece can force checkmate on a lone king

That's close to the definition I've heard: a major piece is one which can cut off the enemy king from one side of the board. Rooks and queens can do this, but this non-royal king cannot.

On the other hand, there *is* a basic situation where this piece is even stronger than a rook. King + rook lose against king + queen, but king + commoner is a rather simple draw.

# Answer
> 4 votes
I haven't heard of that definition being used for a major piece, but it's a neat observation. Such a piece (call it X) should be able to force a checkmate in a K+X vs K situation.

Say White's pieces are on d3 and e3, while Black's is on d5:

1) White plays Xd4, and Black's king must retreat. Say ...Kd6 is played.

2) White plays Ke4. Now Xd5 is coming, forcing Black's king further back. ...Ke6 doesn't help him since it runs into Xe5. So Black could try ...Kc6, as White's king doesn't hold it back there.

3) Now instead of advancing the 'X' piece to d5 (since it would allow ...Kb5, although this would also work nonetheless), White could play Xc4, placing Black in zugzwang. In the case of ...Kd6, White plays Xd5. And in the case of ...Kb6, White plays Kd5, forcing Black further towards one side.

This general process can be repeated.

I don't know of a strict definition of what makes a major piece 'major'. Of the queen, rook, bishop, and knight, a major piece is just one that is in the top half strength-wise. So a king-like piece shouldn't be considered a major piece, since typically it only reaches the rough strength of a bishop/knight in sufficiently simplified endgames.

EDIT - one thing to note is that, because capturing this hypothetical piece wouldn't result in the game ending, it's usefulness would be higher than a normal king. It could be safely used in the middlegame like any other piece. So it's possible it could be stronger than a minor piece, but still below a rook.

# Answer
> 3 votes
The king is worth about 4 pawns if its loss didn't lose the game, which means it's neither a minor or a major piece, but something in between.

(Major pieces like the rook is worth 5+ pawns; minor pieces are worth 3.)

# Answer
> 3 votes
That is an interesting distinction theory. Although this king-like piece could deliver checkmate with the help of the king, I've always considered the difference to be based on the value of the piece. A king-like piece would only be worth the same as the other minor pieces.

---
Tags: chess-variants, pieces, point-value, unorthodox-pieces
---


title: Why pin knights early in the opening?

text:
# Question
Title: Why pin knights early in the opening?
I am a beginner amateur player, and I have been thinking about openings. On lots of occasions the opponent pins the white knight on Nc3 or Nf3 (as black) or the black knight on Nc6/Nf6. What is the main motivation for doing that? I am partial to bishops, and it seems even opening theory suggests that it is okay to get rid of one or even two bishops early in the opening at the cost of your opponents pawn structure? It seems very counter-intuitive to me. Can someone give examples of games/tactics where the pinned knight gives a big advantage for the opponent?

# Answer
> 7 votes
One of the key principles of opening play is that control of the center is vitally important. If one of the players has complete control of the center then they can much more easily launch an attack and it is much more difficult for the other player to defend.

A white knight on c3 supports/attacks e4 and d5.
A white knight on f3 supports/attacks e5 and d4.

Those 4 squares define the center of the board. A similar story is true for black knights on f6 (controls e4 and d5) and c6 (controls e4 and d5).

A pinned knight doesn't support or attack any squares. It is pinned. It can't move. It no longer plays any role in the fight for the center although it can come to life again if it is unpinned.

Hence the normal progression in the opening of moving a center pawn 2 squares to control one of the center squares, then move one or more knights out to also control center squares, then move bishops out to either control center squares or to pin opposition knights which has the same effect.

---
Tags: opening, knights, bishops, pins
---


# Question
Title: Black opening sequence that is equally solid versus d4 and e4
Is there an opening sequence for black that is equally solid versus d4 and e4? Obviously you have to take into account white's subsequent moves, but the goal would be to have an opening where the first, say five or six or so moves (maybe with variatios in move order as needed), would be solid against most common e4 and d4 openings.

# Answer
> 3 votes
You could try Owen's defense, which is very much under-represented in all levels off chess in my opinion. Smirnov's 2-part series is nice and clear (although sometimes slightly over-simplified maybe), and he has another 2-part series about using this strategic system with the white pieces.
I would recommend playing the Colle-Zukertort at white a bit, the ideas are definitely useful for the b6/b3 systems. This also provides a very comfortable and active setup to shoot for as black when your opponent does not put a pawn on e4. The themes from the Breaking Stereotypes series provide some nice complementary insights for these positions as well.

Another option is the Sniper, which is a lot of fun to play and is maybe even more systematic as far as strategical planning is concerned (get king's bishop to the longest diagonal by playing 1. .. g6 2. .. Bg7, then play for central and queen-side activity via the dark squares by playing 3. .. c5) but it's significantly less forced which means the total amount of relevant theory is a lot larger. Also you might end up in some fairly theoretical positions, or positions that are really though to play unprepared. Super flexible though.

And then there's the Hedgehog, which is by far the most systematic and repeatable chess opening I know of. It's not uncommon to play the same 10 to 13 opening moves five times in row or even more, without your opponent even following theoretical variations.
(btw John Bartholomew is excellent at teaching chess through actual understanding so that's an unrelated recommendation)

# Answer
> 1 votes
Another possibility might be the Old Indian where Black plays d6, Nf6, c6 and aims for an early e5. You can also play like this against 1. c4. I think Nigel Davis did a Chessbase DVD on this, called "A busy person’s opening system". But I don't know it and I don't want to advertise it.

Although this might be "sound" more or less, I can't recommend such an approach. Not only will you fail to play the most challenging defenses against specific set-ups (as suggested in the comments) but also you might get stuck, playing the same (inferior) positions all the time. Chess is a rich game and exploring various types of positions (if only by playing them over the board) will not only improve your overall skill but will also enhance your enjoyment. And you will have much more to talk about.

---
Tags: opening, defense
---


# Question
Title: Looking for the complete game score of Vlastimil Jansa-Istvan Bilek, Rubinstein Memorial 1968
I am looking for the complete score of the game **Vlastimil Jansa** versus **Istvan Bilek**, **Polanica-Zdoj, Rubinstein Memorial 1968.**

Here are the first 20 moves of this Sicilian Dragon-Yugoslav Attack game that have been reconstructed.

```
[Title "Vlastimil Jansa-Istvan Bilek, Polanica-Zdoj Rubinstein Memorial 1968"]
[FEN ""]
[startply "38"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 Nc6 8. Qd2 O-O 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. O-O-O Qa5 11. Bb3 Rfc8 12. g4 Ne5 13. Kb1 b5 14. h4 b4 15. Nd5 Nxd5 16. exd5 Nc4 17. Bxc4 Rxc4 18. Nb3 Qb5 19. h5 Rac8 20. Na1!

```

This is the key position where Jansa played the fantastic backwards move 20. Na1! The opening sequence to this game could have been a little different however. The position after the first 19.5 moves should be correct. I have searched on ChessBase 15 and the Internet, but have been unable to find this game. I learned about this position from a video by IM Danny Kopec, which I no longer have, but I don't believe he gave the whole game. I would like to find out the actual moves played, especially those after move 20. In addition I would like to know the game result. I would most appreciate if you could help me find this piece of chess history!

# Answer
Here is the full game, as constructed from the OP's question and the video by IM Danny Kopec.

```
[FEN ""]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 Nc6 8. Qd2 O-O 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. O-O-O Qa5 11. Bb3 Rfc8 12. g4 Ne5 13. Kb1 b5 14. h4 b4 15. Nd5 Nxd5 16. exd5 Nc4 17. Bxc4 Rxc4 18. Nb3 Qb5 19. h5 Rac8 20. Na1 e6 21. hxg6 hxg6 22. Qh2 exd5 23. Qh7+ Kf8 24. Bh6 Bxh6 25. Qxh6+ Ke8 26. Qh8+ Ke7 27. Qh4+ f6 28. Rhe1+ Kd8 29. Qxf6+

```

Thesee three things not clear from the video:

1) What were the moves before 20. Na1? 2) Did the game continue on or not? 3) What was the outcome of the game?

Regarding 1)-The moves seem very reasonable to me since a large part of it is theory.

Regarding 2)-Perhaps. The position after 29. Qxf6+ is basically lost for black, but is not without hope. The white knight is currently out of play and there are still attacking chances for black, e.g. with a pawn storm.

Regarding 3)-It is likely that white won-see above.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: famous-games
---


# Question
Title: When was it possible for a player's king to be attacked by 3 of the opponent's pieces?
According to the current FIDE Laws of Chess:

> 3.9.1 The king is said to be 'in check' if it is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces, even if such pieces are constrained from moving to the square occupied by the king because they would then leave or place their own king in check.
>
> 3.9.2 No piece can be moved that will either expose the king of the same colour to check or leave that king in check.

It wasn't always so.

When was it legally possible in a FIDE rated game of chess to have your king attacked by 3 of the opponent's pieces? Please give an example illustrating this.

# Answer
In my thread on the English Chess Forum, which seemed to make the world go crazy on the subject, I gave all the major and minor events in the history of the “legal” triple check that my extensive research has uncovered. This loophole was even talked about recently in Episode 20 of "The Chess Pit" at the 12:13 mark. Here is all the information in chronological order.

The dubious phrasing in FIDE's laws of chess goes back to the 1984 FIDE Chess Congress when it was implemented. This is indicated by its first appearance in the 1985 laws-many thanks goes to @Stephen for pointing this out in a comment. Here is the 1985 law on checks, in whole. (All linked laws come from the Chess Arbiter's Association website.)

"ARTICLE 9. CHECK

**9.1 The king is in check when the square it occupies is attacked by one or two of the opponent's pieces;** in this case the latter is or are said to be "checking the king."

9.2 Check must be parried by the move immediately following.

9.3 If the check cannot be parried, the king is said to be "checkmated" ("mated"), (See Article 10.1.)

9.4 Declaring a check is not obligatory."

Beforehand, the 1980 laws instead stated **"The king is in check when the square it occupies is attacked by an enemy piece."** This itself is as vague since it can be interpreted to allow a king to be left in double check. However, since double check is widely known to be possible, such an argument obviously wouldn’t stand. Even so, it is no wonder then why they later rephrased it to "one or two” for clarity. But that still wasn't enough, as the saga of the “legal” triple check shows.

Within a few years, at least some people had realized the implications of the law’s wording. This is evidenced by a letter sent by Robert Norman, who is from Dar Es Salaam Tanzania, to "CHESS Magazine", then called "Pergamon Chess,” that was published in the June 1988 issue. This is the oldest known chess problem that utilizes the "loophole."

```
[Title "Robert Norman, CHESS Magazine June 1988, White To Move And Win"]
[FEN "1n5k/1r6/5K2/4Q1Pb/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. g6 Nd7+ 2. Kf7+ Nxe5++ 3. g7+! Kh7 4. g8=Q+ Kh6 5. Qg7#

```

Thanks to Jonathan Bryant on Twitter, we have a visual of Norman's letter.

The chess magazine EG reprinted it in April 1989, saying this about it: "**Definitely an oddity. Ridiculous, irrelevant, amusing or disturbing, as the reader chooses**."

Of course, it is arguable as to whether or not it can be considered legal. It can be countered that triple check is indeed accounted for in the letter of the law. The aforementioned EG magazine summarized it neatly: "The argument is that check by three men is not in check. Well, one can easily counter that check by three men includes check by two and is therefore covered (not 'specifically excluded') under the Laws, which do not need to be changed." Even under the counterargument, the idea of the triple check alone was enough of an ambiguity to change the law's wording, which definitely says something about it.

Norman’s problem is an online rarity online, so here are a few links to it.

1- A Dutch blog for bizarre chess problems. #2-An obituary for Robert Norman. #3-Page 29 in the 12/2001 issue of Internet træk.

A few years later in 1992, the idea again appeared in CHESS Magazine, then called Maxwell Macmillan Chess, in the column "Addicts Corner" by Richard James and the late Michael Fox. I found the relevant part of the February issue in an old Google forum.

> "CHECK THIS OUT!
>
> Right, N. Short, J. Speelman, J. Nunn, and the rest of you clever clogs. Break your heart on this: White: Ke3, Qb2, Ne5 Black: Kh8, Re8, Rg8, Ba7, Nb6, Pg7, h7 Black incautiously played a double check 1...Nc4+?? How did White crash through to victory? Admit it; you're baffled. Deduct one hundred Elo points \[and read on\]:
>
> Dead easy. White gets out of check by 2. Nf7 mate. Yes, it's perfectly legit. Consult Article 9.1 of the laws: "The King is in check when the square it occupies is attacked by one or two of the opponent's pieces..." It says nothing about a threefold attack, so White's move takes him out of check..."

```
[Title "Kevin Thurlow, CHESS Magazine February 1992"]
[FEN "4r1rk/b5pp/1n6/4N3/8/4K3/1Q6/8 b - - 0 1"]
[startflipped ""]

1... Nc4+ 2. Nf7#!

```

It seems that Thurlow's problem spread like wildfire, and FIDE finally got wind of it. In a short time, the wording was soon changed to the modern wording at the 1992 Fide Chess Congress for the 1993 laws-**"The king is in "check" when the square it occupies is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces"**

You can find various references to the subject on the English Chess Forum. Most are by Kevin Thurlow in reference to his problem; others are by Stewart Reuben, an English arbiter who was on the rules commission, and helped with the fix after its 1992 rediscovery.

In conclusion, from 1985, when the effect of the 1984 FIDE Chess Congress change took place a king could hypothetically be left in a “legal” triple or higher check in a FIDE rated game until 1993 when the law was again rephrased at the 1992 FIDE Chess Congress.

Additionally, this caused some effects on chess composition other than Norman's and Thurlow's joke. There exists a chess variant called **"Bosma Chess"** that was created in 1992 by Dutch problemist R. Bosma that is based on the "loophole." Bosma also noticed the odd wording of FIDE laws, after it was changed in 1992, so he incorporated it into fairy chess.

In Bosma Chess, a king is not in check if it is attacked three or more times. If a king is triple checked, it can't be captured. Here is an example problem that utilizes underpromotion to get the point across.

```
[Title "Henk Le Grand, 1st Price 151th Thematoernooi Probleemblad 1993, Mate In 2, Bosma Chess"]
[FEN "7K/1NRNkP1R/5p2/b1P2B2/2n5/8/8/3q4 w - - 0 1"]

1. Rc8! null (1... Bd8 2. f8=R#) (1... Qxd7 2. f8=N#) (1... Nd6 2. f8=B#) 2. Re8#

```

The announcement and award results for the Bosma tourney can be viewed on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/bosma-chess/

They can also be viewed in the Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database..

Finally, fast forward to 2008, 30 years after Norman's problem was published, a variation of it appeared in an obscure and now dead blog called **"Far Off Chess."** that was created by IM Jens Kristiansen. In a post entitled "In the twilight zones of chess rules", which is about old and new ambiguities in the rules, Kristiansen created a version of Norman's study from his hazy memory. It is as beautiful as the original and worth showing.

```
[Title " Jens Kristiansen, Far Off Chess 12/13/2008, White To Move And Win"]
[FEN "7k/rn6/5KP1/p1p4b/8/8/8/7R w - - 0 1"]

1. Kf7 Nd6+ 2. g7+! Kh7 g8=Q+ Kh6 4. Qg7#

```

This is the known history of the "legal" triple check. Whether or not you would consider it legal, the idea was and still is an amusing nitpick at the exact wording of the FIDE laws of chess.

The problems seen in the answer, and some more, can all be viewed under the keyword "Bosma" on the Die Schwalbe Chess Problem Database. It might also be worth reading this MatPlus forum thread for further discussion on the topic.

---

In the comments, @bof has discussed the effects of the triple check, which was only lightly discussed in the English Chess Forum. This section will supplement that discussion.

When triple checked, kings become normal pieces that can castle. Under the 1984-1992 laws, castling into, out of, and through check along with having adjacent kings is legal. However, the main interest is about king captures, which are not forbidden either. The answer is simple--if a king is captured, that side cannot be checkmated. This is the only possible conclusion going strictly by the law's letter. This is different from Bosman Chess's immune kings.

Here are problems of mine that show these bizarre conclusions.

**Castling Into Check**

```
[Title "Me, chess.stackexcange.com 6/15/2020, Mate In 1"]
[FEN "8/8/8/8/8/7n/5Rrp/2k1K2R w K - 0 1"]

1. O-O#

```

**Castling Out Of Check**

```
[Title "Me, chess.stackexcange.com 6/30/2020, Mate In 2"]
[FEN "4r3/4N3/8/b7/5pp1/3P1Bkp/2n5/2N1K2R w - - 0 1"]

1. Nf5+ Kxf3 2. O-O#

```

**Castling Through Check**

```
[Title "Me, chess.stackexcange.com 8/12/2020, Mate In 2"]
[FEN "8/8/8/5B2/5p1Q/5kn1/2NRb2n/31K2R w K - 0 1"]

1. O-O+ Nhxf1 (1... Bxf1 2. Rf2#) (1... Ngxf1 2. Qf2#) 2. Qg4#

```

**Adjacent Kings**

```
[Title "Me, English Chess Forum 6/13/2020, Mate In 1"]
[FEN "8/8/8/8/8/3p4/3rp3/RK1kN3 w - - 0 1"]

1. Kc2#

```

---

Lastly, here are some bonus problems. On page 3 of my English Chess Forum thread, it was asked if a quadruple check could be done, which I did, but I later managed a quintuple check!

```
[Title "Me, English Chess Forum 4/30/2020, Mate In 4, Dedicated To Marken Foo"]
[FEN "1RnkBB2/2p5/8/4K1Nr/4N3/6R1/1n5q/bQ2r3 w - - 0 1"]

1. Qd3+! Nxd3+ 2. Ne6+ Kxe8 3. Nf6+ Kf7 4. Rg7#

```

Per another request, I also showed a triple check via en passant.

```
[Title "Me, English Chess Forum 6/13, Mate In 2"]
[FEN "3r4/3B3N/4n3/3K1k1P/2pp2p1/3r1bP1/2Q1PR2/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. e4+! dxe3+ 2. Bxe6#

```

Lastly, as suggested by @supercat in a comment, here is a mate in 1 that removes two checks for a mate.

```
[Title "Me, chess.stackexcange.com 6/13/2020, Mate In 1"]
[FEN "8/7B/3B2NK/8/5k2/6P1/5Q2/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. Ne5#

```
> 49 votes

---
Tags: rules, problems, history, fide, loopholes
---


title: Method for precise calculation?

text:
# Question
Title: Method for precise calculation?
I'm tired of being stuck on a chesstempo rating 1530-1570 tactics in Blitz for like 5 days I'm "not" improving. Sometimes I take more than 2 minutes and sometimes I just move on quickly to the next puzzle to satisfy my ego. Is there a perfect way to calculate?

# Answer
Being stuck for 5 days is not a long period of time. Players get stuck at their levels for months or even years. It could just be that you got a particularly hard sequence of puzzles, or that you didn't sleep well, or many different reasons.

There is no "perfect" way to calculate. If there was, chess would be a very uninteresting game. You could just give 20 bucks to someone to explain you what that method is and congratulations! You've made it to GM!

As general advice, you should calculate forced moves first (checks, then captures, then immediate threats...) You can apply this recursively (start by your forced moves, search for the forced replies from your opponent, then your forced replies to his reply and so on... The reason why you should give preference to these moves is that, on one hand they are simpler to analyze and on the other, when they do work, they are often game-changers
> 2 votes

# Answer
Being stuck at a certain level is not unusual and I would not worry about it.

Since you asked specifically about "precise calculation"...

You should be aware that solving tactics is not only about being able to calculate accruately many moves deep. It is also about recognizing certain patterns / tactical motifs that appear in every puzzle.

Particularly at your level it is much more likely that you fail some puzzles because you are not aware of a motif, rather than missing a defensive option many moves down the line that you did not calculate.

After you solved a puzzle or failed to do so, chesstempo shows you the motifs. Make sure you understand each of these motifs in the solution.
> 3 votes

# Answer
When I focused on tactics every day my rating when up about 100 points after 6 months. Then it went up 400 points in a week and leveled off again. This is where I am 6 months later, but I am hopeful. Keep at it, you will get there.
> 2 votes

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Tags: tactics, calculation
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# Question
Title: Black to move, is there a possibility to win in this position?
With Black to move, is there a possibility to win in this position?

```
[FEN "3rk2r/1p2q2p/1Q1p1Bpb/1R1N3n/1P6/5N2/1P3PPP/4R1K1 b k - 0 1"]

```

# Answer
At a cursory glance you see that...

* white is up a piece and a pawn,
* the black queen is pinned to the king and will be lost,
* white's pieces are much more active than black's
* white's king is safer than black's
* ....

So no, there is nothing, really nothing in favour of black here. The only thing which needs to be checked is that Qxe1 is not mate, but in a millisecond you see that the rook is protected by the knight on f3.
> 6 votes

# Answer
> With Black to move, is there a possibility to win in this position?

Of course there is. If White's flag fell then this would be a win for black.

Here is one simple winning continuation for Black

```
[FEN "3rk2r/1p2q2p/1Q1p1Bpb/1R1N3n/1P6/5N2/1P3PPP/4R1K1 b k - 0 1"]

1... Nxf6 2. Nd4 Qxe1++

```

Of course the White move is very bad and only someone who is trying to lose (or teaching a young child to spot back rank mates) would play it but it is one of many possible ways that Black could win.

Of course in a normal competitive game it is never going to happen. With reasonable, half competent play by white black is going to lose.
> 3 votes

# Answer
The position is resignable for Black. White is already up a piece, and is about to win Black's queen for a rook. Technically it's possible White could play some horrible blunder and allow Black to win, but this could be said about any position where the losing side has mating material.
> 1 votes

# Answer
No, this is dead lost. According to stockfish Qxe1 is Black's best move. But even after this, White can force a checkmate in 13 moves.

1... Qxe1+ 2.Nxe1 Rd7 3. Bxh8 Bg5\ 4. Nc7+ Kf7 5. Rxg5 Nf4 6. Rg4 Ne2+ 7. Kf1 h5 8. Qe3 Rxc7 9. Re4 d5 10. Re8 Nf4 11. Rd8 Ne6 12. Qf3+ 13. Qxf4+ Ke6 14. Qf6#
> 0 votes

---
Tags: analysis, middlegame
---


title: Scandinavian Defence queen e5

text:
# Question
Title: Scandinavian Defence queen e5
I'm new to chess (around 1000), and I like to practice the Scandinavian defence. I started to check the theory related to it, and I've never seen a single source talking about this queen move after Nc3.

```
[FEN ""]
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qe5+

```

I guess it's a bad one, otherwise they would mention it. But why is it a bad move? I've been playing this since I started (unconsciously) and I see no particular drawback (I just need to be careful not to make my queen stuck).

I understand that this opening violates the rule of development, but I don't feel the late when I play it. I often find a way to harasa my opponent (maybe it's because of my low rank, it becomes more visible at high rank?). Here are 2 variants I often end up with. As you can see I develop as good as white and I have even the queenside castling (almost) ready.

When defending with bishop:

```
[FEN "eoui"]
1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qe5+ 4. Be2 Bg4

```

When defending with knight:

```
[FEN ""]
1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qe5+ 4. Nge2 Bf5 5. d3 Nc6

```

# Answer
> 11 votes
This is a bit trivial as an answer, but too long as a comment. You claim that you can develop "as good as White" but that is simply not true. White begins by interposing the Bishop 4.Be2. You play 4..Bg4. It is now a mistake to play 5.Nf3 because 5..Bxf3 spoils whites Pawns and makes his King insecure. But 5.d4! also gains a development tempo, and forces Black to choose one of the two moves that does not lose a piece.

If 5..Qe6, then I would choose 6.Bf4 from among many good moves. Then 6..c6 7.Qd3 and the contrast between positions is huge.

If 5. Bxe2, then Nxe2, with a similar outcome.

Perhaps you were only concerned about losing a tempo to Nf3 and forgot about d4? I think that White is close to winning. Even if not, you have a long and perilous defence to look forward to.

# Answer
> 5 votes
The 3. .. Qe5+ is not a great continuation for black. Because:

1. It does not threaten anything really. White can block with developing (!) a bishop: 4. Be2.
2. It places blacks Queen in the center very early in the game where it will be a target of the attack for many whites pawns and pieces. Square e5 is far from a permanent position for the black queen, and black will spend several more queen moves, while white **attacks the black queen with development**. In short, the black queen certainly does not belong to e5.
3. Usual black continuations are 3. .. Qa5, 3. .. Qd6, and 3. .. Qd8. In all of them, the theme is to get the queen out of the potential harassment. I strongly suggest looking at 3. .. Qa5 and 3. .. Qd6 ideas as they entail quite different plans and lead to interesting games.

# Answer
> 4 votes
> But why it's a bad move?

You are moving your queen to a square where it is going to be attacked again soon and then you will have to move the queen for a third time. Meanwhile white is developing fast and you have no pieces developed.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Qe5+ is not a blunder or a mistake but it is definitely inaccurate play. Qa5 (most popular line) keeps a check on 2 central squares as well as Qd8.

---

> Defending with bishop

Also in the second line you mentioned (Bc2) after Bg4, white has an excellent move d5! Now white has a tempo in development, space as well as development whereas black is trying to play with two pieces. Once you play the recommended Bxe2 Nxe2 the advantage for white is apparent as black scrambles to position his queen and *start* development when white has two pieces and a pawn out in the game.
This is why it's a bad idea to play Qe5+. It may not look like you're losing much but the advantage white has is more apparent the higher the level you play at.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I own the old books from Dr. M. Euwe, still the most comprehensive for chess opening moves. The 9th volume covers Scandinavian defense starting on p. 137; this variant is not mentioned. So I tend to agree that from a development standpoint this is a bad move

# Answer
> 0 votes
It's a classic beginner's mistake to make a check for check's sake. You have to ask yourself what you have gained from that check? You basically allowed your opponent to develop one more piece. Their king will be safe after castling which you have helped speed up, and your Queen will be ripe for the picking. In essence you lost a tempo (due to you having to move the queen out of harm later) while your opponent gets the opportunity to further their development.

---
Tags: tactics, queens, defense, scandinavian-defense
---