Achieving Catalan-like structure against Slav response

Are there strong responses different from 4. .. e6 for black against 4. g3 that avoid the Catalan?

4...Bf5

One interesting alternative is 4...Bf5, with very original play. Before playing e6, Black wants to develop and exchange its "bad" bishop; a move favored by top GMs such as Nakamura, Karjakin or Inarkiev.

[fen ""]
[title "Mamedyarov (2760) vs. Nakamura (2772), Gashimov Mem 2014"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.g3 Bf5!? 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nh4 Be4 (6...Bg4 {was played by Karjakin}) (6...dxc4 {see next game}) 7.f3 Bg6 8.Qb3 Qb6 9.Nxg6 hxg6 10.c5 Qc7 11.e4 Be7 12.Bf4 Qc8 13.exd5 Nxd5 14.Nxd5 cxd5 15.O-O-O Nc6 16.Kb1 g5 17.Be3 f5 18.g4 f4 19.Bf2 Kf7 20.Re1 b6 21.Qa4 bxc5 22.Ba6 Qc7 23.Bb5 Rab8 24.Rxe6 Kxe6 25.Bxc6 Rhd8 26.dxc5 Bf6 27.Bd4 Kf7 28.Rd1 Kf8 29.a3 Bxd4 30.Rxd4 Qe5 31.Rd2 Qe1+ 32.Rd1 Qe2 33.b4 Qxf3 34.Kb2 Qxg4 35.Qc2 Qe6 36.Ba4 Kg8 37.Bb3 Kh8 38.c6 Rd6 39.Rc1 f3 40.Qc5 Qf6+ 41.Ka2 f2 42.c7 Rc8 43.Rf1 d4 44.h4 Qf3 45.Bc4 Rc6 46.Qxd4 R6xc7 47.Rxf2 Rxc4 0-1

[fen ""]
[title "Halkias (2552) vs. Inarkiev (2693), Sunway Sitges Op 2018"]

1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 c6 4.g3 Bf5 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nh4 dxc4 7.Nxf5 exf5 8.e3 Nbd7 9.Qf3 g6 10.Bxc4 Nb6 11.Bb3 Bd6 12.h3 h5 13.Bd2 Qe7 14.Kf1 Ne4 15.Nxe4 fxe4 16.Qe2 h4 17.g4 O-O-O 18.Rc1 Kb8 19.Ba5 f5 20.Bxb6 axb6 21.Ke1 Rhf8 22.gxf5 Rxf5 23.Qg4 c5 24.dxc5 Bxc5 25.Rc2 Qd6 26.Bc4 Bb4+ 27.Ke2 b5 28.Qxe4 bxc4 29.Qxc4 Rxf2+ 0-1

4...g6

Another response is 4...g6 also played by top GMs including Caruana, Grischuk, or Giri.  Caruana and Grischuk play this line with Black and also White! But sometimes after a transposition (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 c6 4.Nf3 d5)

A recent example:

[fen ""]
[title "Caruana (2819) vs. Giri (2779), Croatia 2019"]

1.c4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.g3 g6 5.Bg2 Bg7 6.O-O O-O 7.Nbd2 a5 8.b3 Bf5 9.e3 a4 10.Ba3 Nbd7 11.cxd5 Nxd5 12.Qc1 Nc7 13.Nc4 Nb5 14.Bb2 Be4 15.b4 Nb6 16.Nxb6 Qxb6 17.a3 Qd8 18.Nd2 Bxg2 19.Kxg2 Qd5+ 20.Kg1 Nd6 21.Qc2 e5 22.e4 Qe6 23.dxe5 Bxe5 24.Bxe5 Qxe5 25.Rae1 Nb5 26.Nf3 Qc3 27.Qxc3 Nxc3 28.Re3 Nb5 29.Ne5 Rfd8 30.Nc4 Rd4 31.Rc1 Nd6 32.Nxd6 Rxd6 33.Rc5 Rad8 34.b5 cxb5 35.Rxb5 Rd3 36.Rxd3 Rxd3 37.Rxb7 Rxa3 38.Ra7 g5 39.Kg2 Kg7 40.e5 Kg6 41.Ra6+ Kg7 42.h4 gxh4 43.gxh4 h5 44.f4 f5 45.exf6+ Kf7 46.Ra5 Kxf6 47.Rxh5 Rb3 48.Ra5 a3 49.h5 Kg7 50.Ra6 Kh7 51.Kf2 Rh3 52.Kg2 Rb3 53.Kf2 Rh3 54.Kg2 ½-½


Can the book 'Grand master Preparation: Calulation' by Aagard be useful for a Class B chess players?

I'm rated around 2150 Elo and I used the book two years ago, to solve exercises on the way to work. I could solve approximately 50%, which felt somewhat disheartening, though objectively, I guess, it's pretty ok for my level. I definitely profited from the training.

I wouldn't recommend the book for players significantly weaker than me. Mostly because it's demotivating if you are always struggling to even think in the right direction. I have found that the final instalment of the Yusupov series fits my own level better (i.e. tough but solvable).

But if you can keep your motivation up, even without much positive feedback, of course you can profit from thinking deeply about just about any position.


How can I build my opening repertoire and memorization?

This is a pretty broad question.
But you can follow some simple steps.

1. "What kind of player am I?"

This is the first question you should ask yourself. Do you like complicated tactical combinations that can give you attacking chances? Or your playing style is more quiet and you prefer positional battles, where you build your advantage little by little? Once you have answered this question, you can choose openings according to your preferences, finding positions you feel more comfortable with.

2. Black and White

To build a complete repertoire you may choose openings you like the most, and your choice should include openings for both Black and White side.

Instead of memorizing long sequences of moves, variants, and so on, I tend to privilege a different approach, more gradual and less "automatic". To help you in this work, you'd better have a general "opening book", or follow a general "chess openings website". It should cover the most common openings, giving you also explanation for each move, and maybe some example games. And last but not least, it should be recent, since theory is running fast.

You should start choosing your repertoire when you play with White, since it's easier.

Let's begin considering only the 2 more common moves for White, 1.e4 and 1.d4.
Are you a tactical player? Do you like attacking your opponent's King? Then you should start with 1.e4. Do you prefer positional play and a solid approach? Then go for 1.d4.

Let's assume you chose 1.e4. Now, what are the most common responses for Black? I think they are: 1...e5 (Open games), 1...c5 (Sicilian Defense), 1...e6 (French Defense), 1...c6 (Caro-Kann). Once you have found which are those responses, you have to face them ONE BY ONE.

For example, in case your opponent plays 1...c5 and goes for a Sicilian, what should you do with White? Again, find the most common choices: 2.Nf3 (Open Sicilian), 2.c3 (Alapin), 2.Nc3 (Closed Sicilian). Let's say you choose 2.c3. What are the most common responses for Black? ...and so on.

To help you in your choices, read your opening book, and choose moves whose comments seem to adhere to your playing style (that's why step-1 of this answer is important). Never choose a variation just because it's said to be "the best" or "the most popular". Pick moves according to what you feel about it, unless there's a clear confutation to that move.

After you've have arrived at a certain point (after 2-4 moves), you should go back and face the next "mosto common choice" you've left behind. Now, let's assume that Black plays 1...e5. What move should you choose? You find the most common moves, choose one, and go on a little bit. And again, and again, until you exhaust all those "most common choices" you left behind.

With Black you do basically the same thing, with the exception that you have to face from the beginning different first moves by White (at least, you should find your responses agaist 1.e4 and 1.d4).

3. Learning, not memorizing

In this way, little by little you build some "trees" of opening moves, one for White and at least two for Black. Each branch of those trees is a "path", a choice you make when you make your move. But you should never "memorize" the move itself. You'd better learn the meaning that lies behind each move: "why you play this instead of that?" is the question you always have to find the answer to, when you study openings.

At first, your trees might be very short, and you might get confused even after sequences of 3-4 moves. But if you play regularly, you'll manage to master the openings you've chosen, and then you can deepen your tree-paths, add branches (variations), and choose many of them during the game, thus varying your game (and this will improve your playing strenght, since you'll run into different tactical-strategical situations).

When you'll feel more confident you can go and read books that focus on specific openings. You will widen your trees, play various kind of games, and learn that sometimes tactical-strategical ideas behind an openig are used also in a different opening. You'll learn evetually about the good and the bad in moves transposition, and how to manage them. But you'll have to work hard to get there. :)

Take just one step at a time. :)


Can one use alternative identifiers (from languages other than English) for chesspieces in PGN?

The specification you have in your link has no practical meaning as the format is not enforced consistently. Steven J. Edwards introduced the format, but he didn't have authority to control how programmers implement PGN.

Most PGN parser would only support the English language.

I've been distributing PGN parsing softwares for years, but I don't think I'll add foreign language support. I assume anyone who is intelligently capable of playing chess would be able to read English piece identifiers.


Can doping increase/decrease a player's level of play?

One way to think about this - if there was no societal stigma or legality surrounding the issue, would the use of stimulants improve one's chess game?

A while back, there was a thread around this topic on chess.com, though be warned that a lot of it is just noise.

Seems like an interesting choice that has to be made - short-term increase in concentration (there are drugs for that: taking Adderall, Ritalin or caffeine) versus stimulants that enhance right-brain thinking that help one see increased connections.

When I read Jonah Lehrer's book "Imagine" I thought of possible connections to chess. The book covers this at some length, especially as it relates to Bob Dylan's creativity. This NYPost article covers it well:

  Stimulants increase the flow of dopamine, creating a state in which
  “the world is suddenly saturated with interesting ideas,” Lehrer says.
  “Dopamine makes even the most tedious details too interesting to
  ignore.”

So it is arguable that these dopamine stimulating drugs can make players see connections and become a better player, at least for a period of time. For concentration improving stimulants, with a lot of immediate incentives riding on it, a player might opt for the short-term gain, even knowing the long term deterioration.


Any reference material on the Franco-Benoni defense?

There is a book on the Franco-Benoni. (Using the alternative name "Barcza-Larsen")
It's rather old (1991) but I would guess theory doesn't move that quickly in the Franco-Benoni. It's probably a good way to get started, but you might want to check the lines with an engine.
Edit: There is also a short article by Harding on chesscafe.com.


What is the best reply to Qe5+/Qe6+ in Scandinavian?

Keeping the queen in the center vulnerable to attack cannot be Black's best option. Be2 is the obvious move for reasons you gave. Black can't exploit it, and while e2 is not the best of squares for the bishop, it's still development.

David Letterman played the 3...Qe6+ line against Kasparov in a televised game. Kasparov played 4. Be2, and after 4...Nc6 5. d4 Qg6 5. Nf3 Qxg2 6. Rg1 Qh3 he had a massive lead in development. This is the line I'd go for against Qe6.

3...Qe5+ is just as bad since a future Nf3 will gain another tempo. 3...Qe5+ 4. Be2 c6 (or where is black going to put the queen after Nf3?) 5. Nf3 Qc7 and white again has a massive lead in development.


This happened once, I was white and had misplayed the opening:

[FEN "r1bq1rk1/ppp2p1p/3p2p1/2nPp2n/1PP1P3/2N1bP2/P2NB1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 1 12"]

I thought that Kh1 would lead to a deadly black attack, so I sighed and played 12.Rf2. There followed 12...Qh4 13.Qe1 Qxf2+ 14.Qxf2 Bxf2+ 15.Kxf2, I had lost an exchange, the queens were off and I assumed I would be lost.

I then proceeded to blow black off the board -- black's rooks turned out to be completely useless, my pieces found great squares, and I won in 32. Of course there were also many more mistakes, according to the computer.

So if a completely unintentional sacrifice can work, then so can intentional sacrifices, right?

I believe that a good move is a good move. If a sacrifice gives compensation (in terms of great squares for pieces, or an attack, etc), then it does, regardless of the level of the players.

Yes, weaker players are more likely to make mistakes and lose the compensation. But guess what, they are also more likely to make mistakes without playing the sacrifice! Maybe the sacrifice is the best move, and not playing it is already a mistake.

  How well do these tactics work for amateurs? Do many make "correct" sacrifices (from the master point of view) and then lose because of incorrect follow up? Do amateurs sacrifice at the "wrong" times (when positional considerations don't warrant it)? Or is it usually to be the case that if "someone is good enough to sacrifice (correctly), they're good enough to win?"

This is hard to answer because at one hand, yes, of course weaker players are much more likely to screw it up, because that's what weaker players do, that's not really related to the move being a sacrifice. Weaker players will also play a conscious sacrifice less often, because it's easy to understand that you'll lose a piece, and less easy to understand that you get positional features in return that make up for it, or that the tactic actually does lead to a forced mate in 6. So most amateurs play it safe (but not all).

But if we assume the opponent is at the same level, so also an amateur, then I think sacrifices can be very effective at amateur because the opponent is also less likely to see them coming, and more likely to be confused by them.

So I don't think a general answer can be given, and think what matters is that a good move is a good move. Many moves gives up some type of advantage in return for another type, and sacrifices are just one example of that.

I think amateurs don't play them as often as they should, because of unnecessary fear.

Edit: I guess I need to add the whole game

[FEN ""]
[Date "2010.09.05"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1927"]
[BlackElo "2040"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 O-O 5.Nf3 d6 6.Be2 Na6 7.O-O e5 8.d5 Nc5 9.Nd2 Bh6 10.f3 Nh5 11.b4 Be3+ 12.Rf2 Qh4 13.Qe1 Qxf2+ 14.Qxf2 Bxf2+ 15.Kxf2 Na6 16.Ba3 Nf4 17.Bf1 c5 18.dxc6 bxc6 19.Nb3 Rd8 20.Rd1 Bb7 21.Na5 Rab8 22.c5 Nc7 23.cxd6 Nb5 24.Bxb5 cxb5 25.Nxb5 Bxe4 26.Nxa7 Ra8 27.N7c6 Bxc6 28.Nxc6 Rxd6 29.Rxd6 Rxa3 30.Rd2 Nd3+ 31.Kf1 Nc1 32.b5 1-0


Being a good coach takes a different set of skills than being a great, or world-class player. You can't just say that the coach makes better plans, as that is over simplification and somewhat inaccurate. The point of the coach is typically to help the player identify and eliminate their weaknesses, whether it's tactics, strategy/positional considerations, technique, opening, middlegame, endgame, etc, or non-chess considerations like diet and exercise. The coach will also have different ideas on how a position could be played, and can be useful in bouncing ideas around with, or analyzing opponents weaknesses.


Getting started in position-counting by computer

You can do that easily in Python.

  https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-chess

Create a FEN position based on your loops
Make it white to move in the FEN
Use the FEN position to create Board (http://python-chess.readthedocs.io/en/latest/core.html#board)
Use the legal_moves function to generate all possible moves
Use the push function to make the move
Use the is_game_over function to check for checkmate
Use the pop function to undo the move
Go back to push until you have tried all legal moves
Now make it black to move in the FEN and repeat step three

PS: If you want to add tablebase support. There're two ways:

Use API provided from https://syzygy-tables.info/apidoc?fen=4k3/8/8/8/8/8/8/4K3%20w%20-%20-%200%201.
If you prefer to do it locally, download Syzygy files from http://kirill-kryukov.com/chess/tablebases-online. Use chess.syzygy for probing.


These statistics come from a database of over 600,000 games:

White wins   37.35%
Black wins   27.41%
Drawn        35.23%

http://www.chessgames.com/chessstats.html

The stats suggest that White has a significant, measurable first-mover advantage. Not an overwhelming advantage, but better than the house advantage in any casino game.

Is that advantage structured into the game or psychological? Comparative stats on games between mature chess engines may help to decide that.


This (Guide to P-R3) NM Dan Heisman Novice Nook is all that you EVER need to read to answer your question.


EDIT: You seem to be concerned if the opening is "tournament tested." I can affirm that almost all of the mainstream openings are well-tested, and you can figure out what these are yourself by doing the appropriate research online (i.e, which openings are most commonly played. See the links I supplied with this post.)

It would be great if you could clarify your exact question, but I feel as if you're asking if the Benoni Defense is a respectable opening. The Benoni positions arise after:

[FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5

And here Black can play the Benko Gambit with 3...b5or go into more typical Benoni lines with 3...e6. Of course, there are many other moves that can transpose into Benoni positions.

As for its reputation, the Benoni is certainly playable at all levels and has been played in World Championship matches. However, in recent times, the Benoni has been considered inferior to other Indian/Hypermodern defenses against the Queen Pawn openings such as the Grünfeld or Queen's Indian.

A few years ago at a coaching seminar in New York City, former World Champion Garry Kasparov remarked (perhaps jokingly) to my friend who played the Benoni that he should find a "real opening." That being said, Tal and Fischer employed the Benoni in the middle of the 20th century, with the former winning several brilliant games in the 1950s and 1960s and the latter winning a key game in the 1972 World Championship Match against Spassky.

You can read more about the Benoni Defense here.


What should the arbiter and what should have I done in this case?

First, we cannot tell you what the arbiter should have done because we were not there and certainly don't have all the facts. We only have your version of events. What you say was very disturbing may not have been perceived as so disturbing to others there at the time. We weren't there, so we just don't know. We can't judge.

As to what you should have done, you did the right thing by bringing the disturbance you suffered to the attention of the arbiter. If the arbiter took no action beyond issuing a warning you could have made another appeal to the arbiter during the game for more robust action.

At the end of the game you could also have refused to sign the scoresheet and instead raised the issue again first with the arbiter and then the chief arbiter. If this failed then you could have lodged an appeal with the appeals committee for the tournament. FIDE rated tournaments are required to have an appeals committee to which you can appeal during the tournament. This committee is usually composed of players in the tournament and disbands when the tournament finishes.

Finally, if you took all those actions and still did not get a satisfactory answer you could appeal to your national chess federation. You could probably still do that now but if you didn't make the previous levels of appeal and complaint you are unlikely to get any satisfaction.

Currently there is a high level women's tournament (candidates for world championship) taking place in Kazan in Russia which has a problem with noise from a band playing music outside. Some of the players have earplugs and are not being disturbed by it others do not and are being disturbed.


Book recommendations on Pawn Endgame for intermediate and advanced level players?

Chess Endgame Training by Bernd Rosen features 16 sections on different types of endgame, with 5 of them focused on pawn endgames. Each section has around 16 puzzles to solve featuring different themes : zugzwang, space advantage, pawn break, and so on. Some were quite tricky to solve (I'm ~1850 FIDE) and the author's lines and insights were helpful, even though I already knew basic endgames.

FYI, I haven't read Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual so I can't guarantee you there's no redundancy, but I'd say it's unlikely. Rosen also divided material by section and within sections, which helps focus on particular themes for practice.


What are some examples of promoting a pawn to a rook or bishop?

The wikipedia entry on promotion gives a position from a 2006 game at the Irish Chess Championship, in which a promotion to queen would allow stalemate:

[FEN "8/8/4Q3/8/5q2/8/1p2K2k/8 b - - 0 1"]
[StartFlipped "0"]

1...b1=R! $19 (1...b1=Q?? 2.Qh3+! Kxh3 $10)

The same entry also points to the 1972 game between Aron Reshko and Oleg Kaminsky, where promotion to a queen or rook would allow stalemate, and promoting to a knight would be insufficient to win:

[FEN "4Q3/Pq4pk/5p1p/5P1K/6PP/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.a8=B! (1.a8=Q?? Qf7+! 2.Qxf7 $10) (1.a8=R?? Qf7+! 2.Qxf7 $10) 1...Qb3 2.Qd7 $18

Rook and Bishop promotion is very rare in world class play.  Knight promotion is more common, but not as much as Queen promotion.  From the looks of it, it looks like Knight promotion is popular when promoting to any other piece would result in its immediate capture where as a Knight promotion would often be used to fork a King and a another piece resulting in material gain.


What Openings can I play against most openings?

As white the task is much easier because you make the first move and dictate terms.
You have:

g4 The Grob

f4 Bird's

Nf3 Reti

b3

b4 Sokolosky

As black you are more limited and have to play much more passively to be able to play the same moves against almost any white response.
The Hedgehog where you play to try and reach this kind of position:
 [fen "2r1r1k1/1bqnbppp/pp1ppn2/8/2P1P3/8/PP3PPP/8 b - - 0 1"]

The Hippopotamus which looks like this (Don't mess with the Hippo!):
 [fen "r2qk2r/1bpnnpb1/pp1pp1pp/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1"]


What's the best way to learn the French?

The fact is that you will need to pick a good book, which is difficult since there are a million books out there on the French.

When starting out with a new opening, picking a book that is heavy on theory is not so important as is a book that presents ideas well. For this purpose, I suggest the book "Mastering the French" by GM Neil McDonald.

I also suggest the book "Winning With the French" by GM Wolfgang Uhlmann. He was probably THE authority on the French during his peak years, and never played anything but the French in response to 1.e4 during his career (or so they say). The book is exclusively taken from 60 of his games, and the explanations are very good, but watching how a master of this opening handles it will be invaluable.

From there, you need to just start taking in one chapter at a time, but not necessarily in order. You want to take the most common lines first since you are more likely to encounter them early on. Spend at least a week on each chapter, and play some blitz games with a friend, who is willing to give you practice in each variation.

You will pick up the main ideas pretty quickly this way.


Made two self-assessment book recommendations to a related question (How to automatically evaluate a player's performance in a game?). Igor Khmelnitsky's Chess Rating Exam is pretty thorough at evaluating every aspect of your game.

BTW, really like that you are approaching this in a analyzing/organizing your "biggest weaknesses" manner rather than embarking on the fairly commonplace it must be the openings, so I need to study openings knee-jerk/inefficient study plan.


Has anyone used the Anki decks to learn tactics?

Well, what exactly do you want to know? The essentials are very simple: Have a "front side" showing a tactical position and a "back side" showing the answer. For the former you can just use images taken from scans. But there's also a note type available for Anki which lets you store positions in FEN notation. Search for "chess" on AnkiWeb to find it. This method is more memory efficient (and in some cases looks better), but might require a little more work than images, unless you also have the puzzles in e.g. PGN format.

I started out as an absolute beginner a little less than a year ago. I'm still a beginner and at the very bottom of food chain in the chess club I joined recently, but compared to from where I started I have improved a lot.

In my informed opinion spaced repetition in learning chess aims at pattern recognition. In other words: It's not about actually memorizing the solutions (so don't bother creating very short repetition circles), but developing an intuition for where possible solutions might be. In effect, though, it trains tactical intuition more than calculation. So I find that I need to compliment my Anki training not only with actual play, but also with solving composed mate-in-2 puzzles that I set up on the board to improve my board vision and calculation ability.

The specifics of what types of puzzles/questions are suitable depend on your level of play. As always with spaced repetition the cards should have clear, unambigous, easy to state answers. Though what exactly constitutes a "clear, unambigous, easy to state answer" probably differs from person to person and today I find solutions clear that were confusing to me a year ago. That being said, at my level basic tactics still work best. I gave up on creating more strategic cards for now, until my abilities have improved.

I guess that, since this is about pattern recognition, it matters what book you are using. I'm using Susan Polgar's tactics book for tactical motifs and the mate-in-two puzzles from L. Polgars 5000-something book for piece-interaction, mating patterns etc. Since solving puzzles on your smart phone is a great way to pass the time in the subway, I also have a deck with beginner puzzles from the 'Manual of chess combinations': unlike with the other two, I don't put any pressure on myself to go through this deck every day, but use it only when I want some 'extra chess'.


Is Chaturanga/Shatranj an early form of chess or is this altogether different?

Those two games are indeed early forms of chess. The pieces were similar, although their moves were different, and there were some chess rules that had not yet been invented; however, chess evolved from those early games.


How to beat King's Fianchetto Opening Modified (White)

You can develop your pieces pretty much any way you want and no big trouble can be caused to you by White.

However, I would postpone the ...e6 move, as your light-squares bishop gets blocked for no benefit (you could also try ...e5 with enough preparation). You may also want to break the center with a ...c5 push, so, although there is nothing particularly wrong with your play, my favourite move order would be

 [fen ""]

 1.d4 d5 2. g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 c5!?

now forcing White to make a choice


What is the least number of knights needed to cover the entire board?

Depending on whether occupied squares need to be covered as well, the number is:

[Title " 12 knights, Without Covering Occupied Squares"]
[FEN "8/5N2/1NN1NN2/2N5/5N2/2NN1NN1/2N5/8 w - - 0 1"]

[Title " 14 knights, With Covering Occupied Squares"]
[FEN "8/2N1NN2/2N1N3/2N3N1/2N1N3/1NN1NNN1/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

Problems like this are called domination problems and solutions for knights and other pieces as well as a reference are given on the wikipedia page on mathematical chess problems


How can I find all games between 2 specific players?

Try http://www.chessgames.com. Just write "Short" and "Carlsen" in the search box.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?yearcomp=exactly&year=&playercomp=either&pid=&player=short&pid2=&player2=carlsen&movescomp=exactly&moves=&opening=&eco=&result=

EDIT

Response to @Ywapom, Chessgames is quite good for top chess players like Carlsen. However, it can be incomplete for non top players. I'd suggest the expensive Mega Chessbase database.


If I understood well what you are asking, you are looking for a chess database application. Yes, they exist, and there many examples. Among non-commercial ones you can find Scid and among commercial ones you have for example ChessBase.


Sicilian, Smith Morra gambit pawn structure

2...cxd4 is the best move because it challenges White for coming up with something. If White just takes the pawn back with 3.Qxd4, Black can easily gain a tempo with 3...Nc6.

The gambit starts with 3.c3. White is sacrificing a pawn for rapid development (4.Nxc3 recaptures the pawn with a developing piece), open bishop diagonals (b3-f7 diagonal) and slightly better central control. Black is unable to move the central pawns two squares immediately (...d5 loses a pawn, ...e5 weaken the d5 square).

White has some compensation for the pawn but probably not enough against a skilled player. Black is still very solid, if Black can stop White's swift attacks, the extra pawn will pay off.


Why is this King and Pawn ending lost for White?

If you want to evaluate this ending with general rules, the rule of key squares is a good way to deal with it. However, this rule doesn't say "whoever reaches a key square first will get the result he is aiming for", it says "if the offensive king (here, Black) reaches one of the key squares, he will win."

Here after 1.Kc3 Ke4 2.Kd2 Kd4 you cannot prevent Black's king to reach one of the three key squares, so you lose.

[FEN "8/8/8/3pk3/1K6/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.Kc3 Ke4 2.Kd2 Kd4 3. Kc2 (3. Ke2 Kc3) Ke3


Stockfish: What is the maximum (minimum) centipawn score that a position might be evaluated at?

The best way to normalise a centipawn score to [-1,+1] range is using a sigmoid function, as that closely approximates the likelihood of a given centipawn advantage converting to a win, and avoids the need to identify a strict maximum or minimum.  This is discussed here.


The longest K + Q + Q vs K mate whilst maintaining optimality is a mate in 4.


While tactical skills (calculating accurately several moves ahead) can definitely translate, everything else is completely different


Most opening books claim to maintain the advantage for White and equalize for Black.  This is slightly different than winning and drawing.

Most of the incentive to write this way is the psychology of selling.  Nobody wants to buy a book on how to draw against a lower rated player.  You higher rating should make this act trivial.  Winning is your objective, so that is a key word they try to put into titles.

Since White starts with the initiative, White can choose a line which end in a lot of draws.  These line normally have "exchange" in them:  QGD Exchange variation, Slav Exchange Variation, and French Exchange Variation.

"The turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just steering for equality." Bobby Fischer.  This lesson should have encouraged editors to have put winning in both repertoire book titles.

There is some risk aversion psychology that could be used in selling books.  The Safest Sicilian by Delchev and Semkov is aimed at players who don't want to get into the hair-raising tactics of a normal Sicilian.  The Closed Sicilian has the same objective from White's point-of-view.  Petrosian and Giri have mastered this safety first approach.  (Capablanca may belong in this group.)

The general consensus is that below a rating of 2000, you should not study openings more than to reach a playable middlegame without falling into an opening trap.  My personal feeling is that these opening books forget to include the line which puts up the most resistance.  It would be better to get someone who knows the line to explain them to you or to play against a computer just to find all of the inferior moves.


Is there an opening where both knights get behind c4 and f4 pawns?

There is the Four-Pawn-Attack against the King's Indian.
I'm not sure how well it scores, but it has fallen out of fashion for some reason.

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f4 O-O 6.Nf3

In general it is hard to reach this setup because black usually stakes a claim in the center as well.

Conceivably you would also get this setup in a Stonewall-Attack, if your opponent doesn't play c5, or maybe in a kind of Meran, where you suddenly throw in f4 instead of Nf3. But this is rather un-theoretical and presumably too slow to be good.

And of course after 1.c4 c5 you could go 2.f4.
This has been played by a handful of players and there seems to be no immediate refutation.


@Bad_Bishop is almost correct, and this illustrates a general pattern in chess tactics: if a sequence of moves almost works, try changing the move order:

   1 ... Bxf3! 2. gxf3 Rxb5 3. Qxb5 Qd1+ winning the rook, or 2. Qxf3 Rxb5 winning a piece.


The Wikipedia reference gives 3 names for 1970 - Bukhuti Gurgenidze, Walter Browne and Anatoly Karpov.
Wikipedia's Bukhuti Gurgenidze article lists only the Tbilisi tournament taking place in December 1969.
Walter Browne's Wikipedia article says this:

His zonal result earned him an invitation to an international
grandmaster tournament in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There, he gained the
Grandmaster title by tying for 2nd–4th places, with Bruno Parma and
Arthur Bisguier, behind reigning world champion Boris Spassky

So, San Juan was his final norm.
In neither case do we know from these sources when the actual title was awarded because titles are not awarded until federations apply for them on behalf of the players and applications cannot be considered and approved until there is a FIDE congress or board meeting.
For Anatoly Karpov we do have a specific date in Bill Wall's blog:

In June, 1970 Anatoly Karpov tied for 4th place at an international
tournament in Caracas, Venezuela, gaining a Grandmaster norm.  He was
awarded the Grandmaster title at the 1970 FIDE Congress in Siegen in
September, 1970 at the age of 19. He was the world's youngest
Grandmaster.

Given that Browne and Gurgenidze's tournaments took place in 1969 it is unlikely that their title applications came in after Karpov's. The Siegen congress was the congress at which the changes were made and so it could be that all three were agreed at the same time. In any case, Karpov is certainly one of the first.


Websites for online all-vs-all tournaments

Sadly I don't know of any such site, but I also manually conduct tournament in my small group( 12 members) via Lichess.

Just manually draw a Swiss tournament and setup a Discord for your club. announce the pairings and format and the players can decide the time of play with their opponents. collect the results and repeat the same for the next round.

Edit : Lichess is adding a Swiss tournament feature (source)


Chess books about how to deal with time troubles

There are a lot of books that tackle the problem of time trouble at least somewhat. I would recommend The Seven Deadly Chess Sins by Jonathan Rowson. It's not solely about time trouble but touches upon time trouble often enough to be definitely useful in that regard.


There is a post about Stockfish improvement over the years.

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=62822


[FEN "r4rk1/pppq2pp/2np1n2/2b1p1B1/8/2NP1N1b/PPP1BPP1/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 1"]

    1.Qd2 h6 2.Be3 Bxe3 3.fxe3 (3.Qxe3 Be6 4.Nd2 Rf7 5.Nde4 Ng4 6.Qg3 Raf8 7.Bf3 Nd4 8.Bxg4 Bxg4 9.Rac1 Be6 10.Ne2 Qa4 11.Nxd4 Qxd4 {-1.82. It took Stockfish 20 minutes to find `3...Be6`. It's preferred move until then was `3...Bg4`. Black is having a fine game.}) Be6 {So what we see here is that Black's attack is over. But the damage is done. He regroups with his extra pawn and better pawn structure.} 4.a3 Ne7 5.Ne4 {This is the best White has? To induce a doubled center pawn?} (5.e4 c5 6.Rf1 Rf7 7.Qe1 Raf8 8.Nd2 Ng6 9.Kh1 Nf4 10.Bf3 Nh7 11.Nd1 Ng5 12.Ne3 Qa4 13.b3 Qd4 14.Rd1 b5 15.Bg4 Bxg4 16.Nxg4 c4 17.dxc4 bxc4 18.bxc4 Qb2 {-1.78. White's position is passive and he gets picked apart.}) Nxe4 6.dxe4 Qc6 7.Bd3 Rf6 8.Rf1 Raf8 9.Qb4 R6f7 10.Nd2 b6 11.Rxf7 Rxf7 12.Bc4 Bxc4 13.Qxc4 Qxc4 14.Nxc4 Rf6 15.Nd2 Kf7 16.Rf1 Rxf1+ 17.Kxf1 Ng8 18.Kf2 Nf6 19.Ke2 Ke7 20.Kd3 Ke6 21.c3 a6 22.Kc4 b5+ 23.Kd3 { -1.58 }

    [FEN "r4rk1/pppq2pp/2np1n2/2b1p1B1/8/2NP1N1b/PPP1BPP1/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 1"]

    1.gxh3 Qxh3 2.Bf1 Bxf2+ 3.Kxf2 Ng4+ 4.Kg1 Qg3+ 5.Bg2 Nd4 6.Rf1 Nxf3+ 7.Rxf3 Rxf3 8.Qxf3 Qh2+ 9.Kf1 Rf8 10.Qxf8+ Kxf8 {White's King is flapping in the breeze; what White may be up in material he'll lose by being purely defensive with said pieces. White will be able to pick off pawns at will.} 11.Bd2 Qh4 12.Nd1 c6 13.Be1 Nh2+ 14.Ke2 Qh5+ 15.Kf2 Ng4+ 16.Kf1 d5 17.Bd2 Qh4 18.Be1 Nh2+ 19.Ke2 Qh5+ 20.Kf2 Ng4+ 21.Kf1 Kf7 22.a4 Qg5 23.Ke2 Nh2 24.Kf2 Qh4+ 25.Ke2 Qh5+ 26.Kf2 Qg5 27.Ne3 h5 28.a5 h4 29.a6 b6 30.Nf1 h3 31.Bxh3 Qf4+ 32.Kg1 Nf3+ 33.Kg2 Nd4 34.Bg3 Qf3+ 35.Kh2 Nxc2 36.Rc1 {-2.39 }

It's Kentucky Derby Day, and I live in Louisville, so celebrating is mandatory. More To Come.

As always, if you have any variations you want to see, let me know.


How to Win King vs Pawn in this Situation

You don't necessarily have to intrude with your king to the queening square.
You really need 3 things -

Get the king close to the pawn
Control the pawn's advancing square with both pieces
Capture the pawn

So, in this case,
Ke5 followed by Rf4 will achieve steps 1 and 2. Then you can capture the pawn and win.

So, for e.g.
1... Ke5
2. f6 Rf4
3. Kg6 Rxf6+


Are chess engines detrimental for lower-rated players?

I don't think they are detrimental if they are used properly.

There is nothing you're going to learn from Stockfish that's going to make an immediate difference. By studying the analysis you'll start to learn, however.
Stockfish plays at GM strength. It's going to suggest moves you'll never find until you're a 2200+ player.  Unfortunately I am unaware of a chess engine that plays like a sensible USCF 1650, which is what you need.
Stockfish will show you where you could have made better moves. Something that is important to note is that winning moves are there, if you are clever enough to find them.  Until the game is hopeless, Stockfish can beat a USCF 1250 regardless of which side of the board it is playing.  The moves are there.

Now, while I am a fan of engines, if you want to improve, get an instructor. You don't need a GM - an "A" or "B" player will do. Also, after playing with "A" and "B" players, ask them to help you analyze the game. This gives you reasons, not just answers. And further it will help you learn how to analyze.  This is what you'll miss if you rely upon the engine too much - it will give you the answers without helping you understand the answers.


Why do FIDE tournaments have rest days on weekends?

I would say the problem is that the Grand Prix is a Fide organised tournament. If you see how often those tournaments are played in almost completely empty halls, it is obvious that Fide doesn't much care about spectator value.

Some other tournaments conveniently have an uneven number of players, which leads to an extra rest day for each player, "unnoticeable" to the spectator.

Generally non-Fide tournaments try to maximise the income from visitors, which means the weekends have to be played (From the top level tournaments I visited, I would estimate that weekend days draw double to triple the number of visitors compared to workdays.).


Is there an online chess game or app that allows for custom setup of pieces and printing this setup?

If you are using Windows, the easiest way may just to set up the position you want on lichess.org, and use the Windows "Snipping Tool" to grab, and print, whatever part of the screen that you want.

This is not a tactic, but that is what I just did here:


Not in a regular chess.

There are some "homemade" rules at least in some parts of the world that allow you to open with two moves (so only at the start of the game), but those are not used on any serious level.

So no, you can't move two pawns in the same move.


Where can I find good information on the ideas/themes behind certain opening lines?

I highly recommend the book Fundamental Chess Openings by Paul van der Sterren. It is a comprehensive survey of the chess openings with an emphasis on themes.

Understanding the Chess Openings by Sam Collins is a similar book and is also pretty good but FCO is more comprehensive.

The original book along these lines was The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings by Reuben Fine but it is very dated now (it was originally written in in 1943).


I wonder if there is an accessible data set that lists all players
from East and West Germany in the 80's

The Olimpbase site has a downloadable zip file of FIDE rating data from 1967 to 2001. It is accessible in the sense that you can download it but the data you want would have to be extracted from the dataset which isn't in an easily readable form. It is also quite "dirty".
Now I have already done this so for me it is just a matter of executing the right sql command. Here are the results for East German players. Note that FIDE Ids came in just as the GDR ceased to exist so some of the players don't have proper FINs. Nevertheless my DB requires a unique FIN for each player so the shorter FINs were either the 5-digit, one-year FINs which FIDE created initially before they thought maybe they should cater for more than 100,000 players or they were auto-constructed by my load program.
FullName    FIDEID  DoBYear Sex MaxRating
Apel, Stefan 4612116 1969    M   2265
Aring, Gerd  4665791 1963    M   2230
Babrikowski, Peter, Dr.  4611942 1956    M   2320
Bade, Heidrun    4612710 1945    F   2040
Barth, Rainer    4611918 1958    M   2280
Bauer, Reinhard, Dr. 4611772 1954    M   2310
Baum, Bernd, Dr. 4611853 1945    M   2265
Baumbach, Friedrich, Dr. 4611721 1935    M   2460
Becker, Michael  4611667 1957    M   2330
Belke, Frank, Dr.    4612337 1963    M   2230
Beltz, Martina   4612485 1962    F   2160
Besser, Hans 4601033 1935    M   2460
Birke, Andreas   4612140 1966    M   2255
Boehlig, Heinz, Dr.  4614283 1943    M   2450
Boehnisch, Manfred   4611543 1941    M   2390
Boensch, Uwe 4611268 1958    M   2575
Boettcher, Ilse  17753   NULL    F   2045
Bonsch, Uwe  17771   NULL    M   2505
Borriss, Martin, Dr. 4611950 1970    M   2300
Brameyer, Hermann    4612019 1939    M   2270
Braun, Gottfried, Dr.    4611489 1933    M   2400
Braun, Regine    4612744 1954    F   1910
Broeder, Iris    4612426 1962    F   2225
Broemel, Richard 4612256 1958    M   2240
Bromel, Richard  78522   NULL    M   2240
Brueggemann, Joachim 4611861 1951    M   2365
Bueder, Thomas   4612183 1967    M   2260
Burchardt, Brigitte  4612213 1954    F   2295
Camin, Gesine    17844   NULL    F   2020
Casper, Thomas   4611403 1959    M   2435
Csulits, Anton   4611705 1942    M   2345
Daemering, Katrin    4612604 1966    F   2100
Dietze, Wolfgang, Dr.    4611802 1950    M   2340
Enders, Peter    4611314 1963    M   2490
Espig, Gesine    4612523 1959    F   2135
Espig, Lutz  4611276 1949    M   2490
Espig, Thomas    4612027 1954    M   2380
Feibert, Petra   4606191 1958    F   2255
Feustel  18116   NULL    M   2305
Frommelt, Hans-Juergen   4612159 1954    M   2255
Fuchs, Reinhart  4611357 1934    M   2460
Gaffron, Petra   18169   NULL    F   1820
Gauglitz, Gernot 4611365 1962    M   2480
Gautzsch, Christina  4612620 NULL    F   1980
Geibler, G.  18204   NULL    F   2055
Geissler, Grit   4612655 1967    F   2050
Goehler, Antje   4612469 1967    F   2220
Goldberg, Alexander, Dr. 4611560 1965    M   2340
Golz, Werner 18253   1933    M   2410
Grigorov 18292   NULL    M   2205
Grottke, Hans-Joachim, Dr.   4612167 1942    M   2280
Gruenberg, Hans-Ulrich   4611306 1956    M   2510
Hackel, Mario    4611780 1970    M   2360
Harnisch, Diana  4612531 NULL    F   2025
Hartlapp, Jutta  4612612 NULL    F   1985
Heinatz, Dr. Gundula 4612434 1969    F   2195
Heinatz, Thomas  4611748 1965    M   2355
Heinen   18363   NULL    M   2265
Heinig, Wolfram, Dr. 4611926 1954    M   2365
Heinsohn, Guenther   4641140 1945    M   2235
Heinsohn, Wilfried   4612400 1947    M   2215
Heintze, Marion  4612191 1954    F   2235
Hennings, Artur  4611594 1940    M   2475
Hesse, Peter 4611519 1944    M   2440
Hobusch, Cornelia    4612574 1960    F   2000
Hoeckendorf, Hartmut 4612302 1954    M   2255
Hoelzlein, Christina 18391   1951    F   2140
Hoffmann, Helga  4608933 1932    F   2015
Hoffmann, R. 18392   NULL    F   2205
Hofmann, B.  18393   NULL    F   2230
Jahn, Constanze  4612450 1963    F   2210
Jahnel, Guenther 4636147 1958    M   2315
Jakat, Thomas    4612329 1959    M   2270
Janssen, Lieselotte  4612515 1937    F   2040
Jaster, Robert, Prof. Dr.    4612418 1964    M   2225
Jeske, Eckhard   4641485 1952    M   2235
Jeske, Kirsten   4612728 1963    F   2025
Just, Gabriele, Dr.  4612558 1936    F   2155
Kaminski, Uwe    4611381 1962    M   2405
Keller, Manfred  4607368 1945    M   2325
Keller-Hermann, Edith    4611870 1921    F   2190
Kestler, Hans-Guenther   4601076 1939    M   2450
Kimpinsky, Frank 4611934 1960    M   2300
Kleeschaetzky, Rainer    4611985 1963    M   2290
Kliefoth, Christel   4612752 1957    F   1880
Kluss, C.    18592   NULL    F   1880
Knaak, Rainer    4611250 1953    M   2565
Kobe, U. 18597   NULL    M   2270
Kobe, Ulrich 4612035 1941    M   2270
Kopfer, Michael  89915   NULL    M   2235
Kosowski, Todor  4612310 1970    M   2235
Kroggel, Rita    18658   NULL    F   1840
Krug, Peter  18662   NULL    M   2220
Kube, Hannelore  4612760 1953    F   2005
Kunze, Kerstin   4612493 1971    F   2215
Kyas, Juergen    4618157 1955    M   2230
Lamm, Steffen    4612175 1963    M   2280
Lang, Jens, Dr.  4611756 1960    M   2315
Lehmann, Christina   4612442 1951    F   2075
Lenk, Wolfgang   4612388 1938    M   2250
Liebert, Heinz   4611438 1936    M   2485
Litkiewicz, Kurt 4612264 1934    M   2240
Lorenz, Gerd 4612272 1944    M   2275
Luther, Thomas   4611420 1969    M   2425
Malich, Burkhard, Dr.    4611330 1936    M   2535
Manger, Carola   12092   1959    F   2110
Meissner, Hans-Juergen   4611969 1953    M   2290
Melzer, Monika   4612680 NULL    F   1940
Mevissen, Ulrich 4612736 1938    F   2025
Moehring, Guenther   4611462 1936    M   2450
Mueller, K.  18988   NULL    F   1870
Mueller, Klaus   4611578 1942    M   2470
Mueller, Werner  4612370 1954    M   2215
Mueller, Werner  18992   NULL    M   2205
Neukirch, Detlef 4611624 1940    M   2375
Nobis, Martina   4612779 1959    F   2005
Nowarra, Waltraud    4612361 1940    F   2120
Nuenchert, Eveline   4612540 1943    F   2145
Oetzel, Roland   4612043 NULL    M   2270
Okrajek, Alexander   4612221 1956    M   2230
Pachow, Joerg    4612230 1961    M   2255
Packroff, Hermann    4611896 1941    M   2290
Paehtz, Thomas   4611349 1956    M   2515
Petigk, Falk 4611373 1930    M   2420
Pfeil, Hartmut   4611810 1951    M   2300
Pfretzschner, Roland 4612086 1958    M   2265
Poldauf, Dirk    4611470 1965    M   2390
Pollak, Georg    4611551 1946    M   2350
Postler, Reinhard    4611608 1944    M   2375
Pranner, Marion  4612582 NULL    F   1990
Prussas, Claudia 19262   NULL    F   1835
Raitza, Olaf 4611675 1934    M   2325
Ramseier, Jana S.    1302329 1969    F   2080
Riecks, A.   19343   NULL    F   1805
Roesch, Arnd, Prof.  4611632 1965    M   2335
Roesler, Matthias, Dr.   4611977 1966    M   2270
Rosenthal, Dirk  4611586 1970    M   2280
Rossmann, Helmut 4612094 1956    M   2360
Rozental, D. 19388   NULL    M   2305
Ruebensam, Helmut    4612051 1955    M   2270
Schilar, Michael 19465   NULL    M   2225
Schmidt, Gerhard 4605233 1940    M   2275
Schneider, Frank 4612299 1945    M   2240
Schoene, Ralf    4611535 1961    M   2310
Schoeneberg, Manfred 4611845 1946    M   2470
Schurade, Matthias   4611497 1959    M   2385
Seidemann, Ulricke   4612639 1955    F   2080
Seils, Gudula    4612671 1961    F   2045
Seils, Joerg 4612078 1963    M   2255
Skibbe, Diana    4612698 1961    F   2040
Sommaro, Katja   4612590 1966    F   2135
Starck, Bodo 4611829 1934    M   2325
Starck, Ines 4612477 1963    F   2135
Stern, Rene  4611799 1972    M   2335
Stettler, Michael    4611454 1961    M   2375
Syre, Christian  4611993 1954    M   2285
Teske, Henrik    4611500 1968    M   2425
Thal, Olaf   4611683 1935    M   2355
Thormann, Wolfgang   4611713 1949    M   2360
Tischbierek, Raj 4611322 1962    M   2500
Uhlmann, Wolfgang    4611284 1935    M   2590
Vogt, Lothar 4611292 1952    M   2520
Volke, Karsten   4611411 1965    M   2395
Wagner-Michel, Annett    4612205 1955    F   2230
Walter, Guenter  4612108 1942    M   2370
Weyrich, Morten  4611659 1959    M   2290
Wieland, Ilse    4612507 1957    F   2045
Wolf, Sylvia 4612701 1962    F   2025
Wolff, Sonja 19903   NULL    F   1815
Womacka, Mathias 4611390 1966    M   2395
Zahn, Juergen    4612345 1946    M   2225
Zinn, Lothar 19958   1938    M   2435
Running the same query for Germany gives almost 1100 rows which is too much to post here IMHO. If you can find a way you are happy with sending me an email address I can send you some bigger query results.


The diagram shows the 10 most visited game states/positions that AlphaZero calculated. It's actually looking at thousands of positions, but they're only showing the 10 positions that it comes back to the most. For your questions:

1) AlphaZero's search algorithm is called Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS). The fundamentals of how it works when thinking at some game state:

Pick a move. The way this move is picked is based off an algorithm favoring:

How good a move has performed in past random simulations of it.
How infrequently it has been picked (a move played out less ==> more desirable).

Follow this move to a new game state (i.e., the position that arises when you play the move).
Repeat step 1, for some time limit or depth limit.

The move that has the best average score in all its playouts is the one that AlphaZero picks. There's more involved than this, but the above is the general idea of MCTS. So something like 10^2 simulations for the root node means that AlphaZero performed the above algorithm 10^2 times for that position.

The part where they mentioned "800 simulations" refers to when AlphaZero was learning (before its games with Stockfish). The way AlphaZero learns heuristics on its own (which allow it to accurately evaluate positions) is by playing itself over and over. So, I assume they mean that during this phase of playing itself, each time it thought on what to play in a position, it only performed 800 simulations from a position. The point of this was probably to have time to get more practice games in. Against Stockfish, playing extremely quickly is unnecessary, and AlphaZero may as well use the time it's been given to playout way more such simulations.

2) Explained above.

3) Yes, thousands of other moves are also considered, they just aren't shown in the diagram. Also, even if the 10 states shown were the only ones reached, you couldn't just average their scores out. The reason is that some game states are reached more often than others, and thus have a higher weight in the average calculation.

To illustrate this, assume you only had two possible moves you could play in the beginning of a game: 1.e4 and 1.h4. Looking back at the MCTS algorithm I outlined, playouts/simulations on 1.e4 would happen more often since 1.e4 performs better. However, 1.h4 would also be picked once in a while due to how infrequently you look at it. So maybe you do 9 playouts on 1.e4 and get a score of 60%, while do 1 playout on 1.h4 and get a 0% score. Your odds of winning from the starting position are not (60% + 0%) / 2 = 30%, but rather (60% * 9 + 0% * 1) / 10 = 54%.

4) Yes, only an illustrative sample is shown since they only wanted to show the 10 most visited game states. I'm sure AlphaZero continued the MCTS algorithm far past 34.Rce1.


How does one play against 2. d4 cxd4 3. Nf3 in Sicilian?

It seems you only give Black extra options compared to the usual 2.Nf3 and 3.d4

Black can reach whichever Open Sicilian he was aiming for. He has made no concession since ...cxd4 was part of the plan anyway.
As pointed by BlindKungFuMaster, 3...Nf6 will lead either to an Alapin, or to a harmless sub line of the Nimzo-Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5, and now 4.Nc3 is considered much better than 4.d4). The small plus side for you is if you want to play an Alapin yet avoid lines without ...cxd4, e.g. if your opponent likes to play 1.e4 c5 2.c3 e6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.d4 d5: this interesting option is not available anymore for Black.
3...e5!? is actually perfectly playable. After 4.c3 Black doesn't have to take the pawn but can continue with 4...Nc6. This is actually one of Sveshnikov's recommendations for Black vs the Morra in his recently published repertoire against the anti-sicilians.


We are trying to organize chess event but the restaurants and coffee shops we asked complain that the sound made by pressing the chess clocks might disturb people.

I believe that your problem is the attitude of the owners rather than any equipment. I would speak with the owner or staff and explain that the sound made isn't loud at all, certainly when compared to the sounds of people talking.

From industrialnoisecontrol.com, 60 decibels is the volume for:

  Conversation in restaurant, office, background music, Air conditioning unit at 100 feet.

Whereas the clocks may be at something like 20 decibels:

  Whisper, rustling leaves


Where can I download a 6 man endgame tablebase

If you really want to download 80+GB of data there is a torrent link here - http://oics.olympuschess.com/tracker/index.php. Also includes linkls for Nalimov, Scorpio and Gaviota.

Alternatively (and more work) Ronald de Man (syzygy developer) has published software for generating these tablebases (up to 6 man) on Github - https://github.com/syzygy1/tb.


What was the last open tournament Anand participated in before this Gibraltar 2016 event?

The 1993 Biel Interzonal according to The Hindu.


How are online tactic exercises ratings calculated?

A typical way to do it is to treat puzzles the same as players and rate them based on whether they "win/lose" and the rating of the "opponent"

ChessTempo has a nice explanation here copied below:

  The rating system is inspired by an idea implemented at the Chess
  Tactics Server. CTS treats both problem solvers and the problems as
  opponents with their own ratings and adjusts their rating after
  problem completion (or failure) based on the Glicko ratings system.

  For blitz style games, time taken to solve problems is considered and
  an extra bonus is given for problems solved quickly. The solver gets a
  larger rating increase for problems solved quicker than one standard
  deviation from the average time taken for that problem. For problems
  solved faster than average but less than one standard deviation from
  the average, the normal Glicko based adjustment is made. If the
  problem is solved in slower than average time then the Glicko rating
  adjustment is reduced in proportion to how much slower than average
  the problem was solved. Very slow solutions may result in losing
  rating points, however you will never lose more points than you would
  if you simply got the problem wrong.

  When calculating the average time taken on a problem, only correct
  solutions are included, time taken from incorrect attempts are not
  used to calculate the average time a problem takes to solve.

  It is important to note that after a recent change to time handling in
  blitz mode, time taken after the first move is punished more severely
  than time taken before making your first move. The intention of this
  feature is to discourage 'incremental' guessing to try and solve a
  problem, rewarding users who sum up the situation before making their
  move sequence. Users who prefer to use an incremental approach may
  still do so, however their rating will be lower than users at the same
  level who think out the solutions first.

  Normal Glicko adjustments are made for standard ratings with no
  penalty for time taken. Problems marked incorrect cause the rating of
  that problem to increase and the solver's rating to decrease as
  dictated by normal Glicko rating calculations. Normal Glicko
  adjustments are also made for blitz problems that are marked wrong
  (i.e. the time taken in blitz is ignored when making rating
  adjustments for incorrect problems).


Another problem-Find color of the pieces

I'm going to start from scratch even though the OP posted a partial answer in the question, so I will be covering some familiar ground.

I began to break the problem down by assigning black to the upper king, then making every piece which attacked him black. Since the g4 knight attacks a king, no other piece can be giving check to either king.

[title "White to move"]
[fen "8/8/2nbqPn1/2QqkqQ1/2PpPpn1/2QPKPP1/2NPPPP1/8 w - - 0 0"]

Immediately I see a problem. The d4 and f4 pawns both give check no matter which color they are, so I inverted the colors:

[title "Black to move"]
[fen "8/8/2NBQPN1/2qQKQq1/2ppppN1/2qpkpp1/2npppp1/8 w - - 0 0"]

This time I painted all chessmen white who would otherwise be checking the white king. Now there are two questions: is the g4 knight white or black, and which other pieces are white?

Let's analyze the promotion situation. There are 12 pawns and 6 queens. The game began with 16 pawns and 2 queens, so this establishes that a) 4 pawns became queens, b) no other pawns were captured or promoted, and c) the original queens are still present.

Let's look at captures. There are 25 pieces, and the game began with 32, so there were 7 captures total. What were the captures? Well, there are no rooks. Also Black has no bishops and White only has one. So in total, 2 black rooks and 2 black bishops were captured, and 2 white rooks and one white bishop was captured. This establishes that there was a maximum of 4 "lane-changes" for white pawns and 3 "lane-changes" for black.

Also, in tallying up the promotions, you have hopefully been able to deduce the color of the g4 knight. Since there are two other white knights targeting the white king, and no pawns were promoted to knights, the g4 knight must be black.

The other three pieces whose colors we can ascertain are the c2 knight and the d2 and f2 pawns, which must be black:

[title "White to move"]
[fen "8/8/2NBQPN1/3QKQ2/6n1/4k3/2np1p2/8 w - - 0 0"]

Now back to the pawn capture analysis. Let's see the pawn skeleton:

[title "Pawn skeleton"]
[fen "8/8/5P2/8/2pppp2/3p1pp1/3pppp1/8 w - - 0 0"]

We know the color of only three, though we also know that at least 6 are black (since at least 2 white pawns promoted to queen), and that they got into their current position using 3 captures or fewer. First, look at the a column. Either that black pawn promoted, or it captured twice, leaving one capture left for the other pawns. Since one capture isn't enough to explain the state of the other pawns, Black's a pawn must have promoted. In that case, either White's a pawn must have changed lanes at least once to let Black's pawn by, or Black's a pawn changed lanes. Now, look at b. Either that pawn promoted, or it captured once. If it captured once, then either a black c-pawn promoted or again captured once (since there is at most one c-pawn left). And again, in order for Black's b pawn to promote, either it or White's b pawn must have captured so they could get past each other. So at least two captures are necessary for columns a and b. We have five captures left.

Let's try to eliminate the possibility that Black has 7 pawns and White has 5. Black promoted the a-pawn, so we're working with b through h. Again, since this analysis mandates that b didn't promote, it captured. After this, there are two c pawns, and in the diagram, there's only one c pawn, so one of those pawns must have captured, too. Remember Black only gets three captures, so he has one left. There are no h pawns in the diagram, so the h pawn must have captured. Out of the diagram, then, if Black has 7 pawns, then he has the c pawn, two d pawns, one e pawn, one f pawn, and two g pawns.

[title "Pawn skeleton"]
[fen "8/3pppp1/2pp2p1/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/8 w - - 0 0"]

Now, White. If White has 5 pawns, then he promoted 3. Since Black cannot have captured with his a pawn, White must have. Now White has two b pawns. In the diagram, there are no b pawns, and Black has the only c pawn, and the 3 d pawns are accounted for, and the two e pawns are accounted for. So either both white b pawns promoted, or else they would have to capture at least 4 times each to find a spot that would make sense of the puzzle position. Even one such b pawn journey would use up more than the rest of White's 4 captures, so this is impossible. White's a and b pawns must have promoted, using up one capture.

[title "Pawn skeleton"]
[fen "8/3pppp1/2pp2p1/8/8/8/2PPPPPP/8 w - - 0 0"]

I am already beginning to seriously doubt this situation. In order not to use captures, either White's h pawn promoted, or the c pawn promoted (after Black's c pawn captured and before the b pawn captured). Either way, White still needs to end up with one d pawn, one e pawn, and three f pawns. Let's try promoting the c pawn. It would use up the rest of the captures (3) to get the g and h pawns to f. Now the pattern can be fulfilled, but there are no captures left for White's f pawn to get around Black's f pawn, which must be on f2.

[title "Pawn skeleton formation"]
[fen "8/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/8 w - - 0 0"]

1. axb3 a5 2. d3 c5 3. b4 c4 4. b5 c3 5. b6 cxd2 6. c4 d5 7. c5 d4 8. c6 a4 9. c7 a3 10. c8=Q a2 11. b4 a1=Q 12. b5 bxc6 13. b7 c5 14. b8=Q c4 15. b6 e5 16. Qa8 f5 17. b7 e4 18. b8=Q f4 19. g3 f3 20. gxf4 g5 21. h3 h5 22. h4 g4 23. hxg5 g3 24. gxf6 hxg4 25. Qd8 g2 26. Qdc8 g3

But promoting the h pawn means we must cross with the c pawn all the way to the f file, using the remaining 3 captures, and leaving none for the f pawn to get around Black's f pawn, or for the g pawn to move over to f. And promoting any other pawns means moving both the c and h pawns, as well as getting around black pawns with the promoting pawn, as well as moving the g pawn over, as well as letting black's f pawn through. In short, White can't make it with 5 pawns in a setup with Black's only viable 7-pawn structure.

Therefore, since Black can't have 8 pawns, and Black can't have 7 pawns, and Black can't have fewer than 6 pawns (since White has at most 6), each side must have 6 pawns.

Now that I've established the number of pawns of each color, I can better analyze the distribution in the final skeleton:

[title "Pawn skeleton"]
[fen "8/8/5p2/8/2pppp2/3p1pp1/3pppp1/8 w - - 0 0"]

There are no a pawns, no b pawns, one c pawn, three d pawns, two e pawns, four f pawns, two g pawns, and no h pawns. Let's simplify this by counting the minimum lane-changes necessary if pawns are all the same color. We can eliminate the a and b pawns, assuming they promote (because otherwise another pawn promotes, and the a or b pawn uses unnecessary captures to move to that other pawn's file). The h pawns must move to f, making four captures, and a c pawn moves to d, for a total of five. Now from experience we also know that the a and b promotions don't come without a price. At least two additional captures are necessary to get them past each other, making 7. You may argue that another pawn could promote, but that would only increase the number of captures, since then the a or b pawn that didn't promote would need to make additional captures to get into the 5x5 square.

So far so good. We're getting in by the skin of our teeth. We have this:

[title "Pawn skeleton"]
[fen "8/2pppppp/8/8/8/8/2PPPPPP/8 w - - 0 0"]

We've used two captures to get the a and b pawns past each other to promote. They could possibly have been both black or both white, so I will leave that ambiguous. Basically we have 5 remaining captures, up to 4 for White and up to 3 for Black. Firstly we know the h pawns have moved to f (or h to g and g to f, but that comes to the same thing), and that a c pawn moves to d. We know the d2 pawn is black, the f2 pawn is black, and the f6 pawn is white. Sounds like the black c pawn moves to d2, so the c4 pawn would be white. So Black's c pawn comes to c3, White's d moves to d3, Black's c captures d2, White's c moves to c4, Black's d moves to d4. That footwork involves only one capture (black).

[title "Pawn skeleton"]
[fen "QQ6/2pppppp/8/8/8/8/2PPPPPP/qqB5 w - - 0 0"]

1. Qc8 c5 2. d3 c4 3. Bd2 c3 4. Qcb8 cxd2 5. c4 d5 6. Qc8 d4

The e2 pawn is presumably white, since otherwise, White's e pawn makes a capture to get out of the way, and we don't have room in our budget for such extravagance. So the e4 pawn should be black. For f, we know that Black has wormed into f2, and White got to f6. This can be attained by Black moving f to f4, White moving f to f3, Black moving g to g3, Black capturing gxf2 (two), White moving h to h4 then capturing twice (over to g5 then to f6), and Black moving h to h4 then making the final capture to g3 (three). It is also possible for White to move g to g3 and then Black capture h3xg2. But maybe this ambiguity can be ironed out later. In any case, the puzzle position has been attained.

[title "Pawn skeleton formation"]
[fen "8/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/8 w - - 0 0"]

1. a4 c5 2. b4 c4 3. bxc5 b5 4. d3 b4 5. axb5 a5 6. b6 a4 7. b7 a3 8. b8=Q a2 9. c6 a1=Q 10. c7 b3 11. c8=Q b2 12. Qa8 b1=Q 13. Qab8 c3 14. Qa8 cxd2 15. c4 d5 16. Qab8 e5 17. Qa8 e4 18. Qab8 d4 19. Qa8 f5 20. Qab8 g5 21. f3 f4 22. Qa8 g4 23. Qab8 g3 24. Qa8 gxf2 25. h4 h5 26. hxg5 h4 27. gxf6 h3 28. g3 hxg2

Playing around with these pawns inspired me to the final breakthrough. The remaining white bishop is the dark-squared one, which means that Black captured the light-squared bishop, and since the capture didn't occur on the bishop's home square, then the bishop must have gotten out somehow. The e pawn can't move, so the g pawn must have.

We now know all the colors.

[title "White to move"]
[fen "8/8/2NBQPN1/2qQKQq1/2Ppppn1/2qPkPP1/2npPpp1/8 w - - 0 0"]


Chess movies in Hollywood & Bollywood with GMs in them

Check out Grossmeyster. Mikhail Tal exchanges a few words with the main character. Keres, Kotov, Taymanov, Averbakh have cameo appearances. Victor Korchnoj plays the main character's coach.
I don't know if the English version exists.


You cannot go wrong with the Yusupov and Aagaard series of books. Both are tremendous. Yusupov's books cover everything, and not in any order, so one day, you will get some tactics, endgames, and maybe even some opening stuff. They are very varied.

Yusupov was a top-10 player, multiple-time candidate, and considered one of the greatest trainers living today.

You might also like Quality Chess' "The Woodpecker Method", which is an immersion course in tactics.

You can find them here.

New in Chess also has a lot of books aimed at the intermediate market:

Improve Your Chess Pattern Recognition
Train Your Chess Pattern Recognition
Strategic Chess Excercises
Complete Manual of Positional Chess volumes 1 and 2.

Some of these are not tactics, but they are still problems that are designed to have you analyze.


Most effective way to achieve a 2000+ rating in one year, starting as a 1600?

Gaining 400 points in a single year is not a reasonable goal for an adult playing at 1600. To do this, you will need to be +25 against your peers, where a peer is someone with the rating you have at the time the game is played.

That being said, if you're going to try it, the first step is to get an instructor. Your instructor will be able to identify the weakest parts of your game and help you shore those up.  Since you want to end up at 2000, I'd recommend an instructor rated no less than 2200.

The maximum return will likely be on tactics.  You'll need to be decent at two openings as white and two as black.  Know the philosophy behind the openings - don't just memorize the moves.


Studying Chess for the Ambitious Intermediate

First of all, there is no method that will just make you half an Elo point stronger each and every day. Chess improvement usually happens in leaps and bounds with long phases of seeming stagnation in between.

The reason you feel overwhelmed is that you focus on the result instead of the process. And you realise that between the desired result and your current state there is still so much work to do. And where to start?

The answer is that it doesn't really matter where you start. If you immerse yourself in chess for several hours a day, you will get better. It is not so much what exactly you do that is important, it is the attitude of mental activity and joyful exploration. Otherwise you will just lose motivation or never really get started.

Personally I played through lots and lots of books, basically what ever chess book I could get my hands on. But I know other people who got over 2000 Elo just by playing many tournaments (like rapid tournaments basically every weekend).

I also always solved a lot of puzzles. Played against myself (trying to find nice combinations), played against a board computer, probably didn't play enough tournaments.

My personal advice would be: Play as many tournament games as possible. Playing chess is a practical skill. In between tournaments do tactics and stuff that is fun for you. Go and get just one book at a time. If you need something really structured, do the Yusupov books.


Which tie break system would be used in Tata Steel 2015?

Not sure if this question is still relevant … :)

I have looked up this information on chess24.com's broadcast page for that event. They are usually in direct contact to the organizers and their Information tab is relatively reliable.

According to that page the tiebreak rules were as follows:

Points scored
Direct encounter
Sonneborn-Berger
Most games played with Black
Rating

Keep in mind this is from a secondary source. If you want to be sure, ask the organizers.


If you like the Morra gambit, then there is no reason not to play it. It indeed leads to open positions where white has a lead in development. Moreover, black players are typically more familiar with the main lines than the Morra, while white's initiative can be quite dangerous.

Profound analyses can be found in Mayhem in the Morra!, written by IM Marc Esserman in 2012. The forewords in the sample pages are interesting and fun to read.

The theoretical status of the Morra is that black is fine: white has enough compensation for the pawn, but nothing more.
White has better chances for an advantage in the main lines after 2.Nf3 and 3.d4. Therefore, the Morra gambit is not seen very often at the top level.


No, Elo ratings have no theoretical limit. If Alice scored 76% against Carlsen (rating 2853) consistently, she would stabilize at a rating of 3053*, and if Bob scored 76% against Alice, he would stabilize at a rating of 3253**, etc. There is no theoretical end to this sequence. However, consensus seems to be that in practice a perfect player would have a rating somewhere in the 3000s.

*Assuming Carlsen performed well enough against other people that his rating stayed at 2853

**Assuming Alice performed well enough against other people that her rating stayed at 3053


Try the TCEC adjudication rules, adapted for your situation. You can use more aggressive (or less aggressive) adjudication rules if you need them, e.g. by changing the threshold eval needed for adjudication.
Win adjudication:

Game ends in a win if there is a mate, engine resigns, time runs out, there is a crash, illegal move, by 6-men TB adjudication, or by the TCEC winrule: both playing engines have an eval of at least 10.00 pawns (or -10.00 in case of a black win) for 5 consecutive moves, or 10 plies - this 10/10 rule is in effect as soon as the game starts. In the website this rule is shown as "TCEC win rule" with a number indicating how many plies there are left until it kicks in.

Draw adjudication:

A game can end in a draw by three-fold repetition, 50-move rule, stalemate, 6-men TB adjudication, and the "TCEC draw rule" (ending the game at move 35 or later if the evals from both playing engines are in [-0.15, +0.15] for 10 plies without a pawn advance or any capture).


I would start by asking why your engine is making horrible tempo loss moves with the queen?  8...Qe6? in game one and 3...Qd4? in game two.  You need to consider "developing with tempo" somehow.


Capture the c-pawn, so the opponent has an IQP but improved development, or let them push the c-pawn and form a queenside majority?

A few general guidelines:

Take if your opponent has to waste a move to recapture. Normally this happens once your opponent has moved the f8/f1 bishop. In the position you posted, Black can take back with the knight and continue developing.
Don't take if you've got a powerful position and are planning some aggressive attack. An attack often requires a good structural foundation in the centre, so taking on c5/c4 would compromise that.
Take if there are a few pieces exchanged off, since your opponent's extra activity from the IQP will be less dangerous without many pieces. Take especially if the queens are off, or if your opponent is missing their dark-squared bishop (assuming your opponent is playing Black).
Take if your opponent is behind in their queenside development. Undeveloped pieces ==> less activity ==> less danger from an IQP.
Don't take if your king's position is compromised. The last thing you want with a vulnerable king is to have your opponent get more activity for attacking.

These rules don't always work, but it's useful to take them all into account before making a decision.


Do major chess publishers use custom software for typesetting chess books?

This is less a question about chess, than a publishing question.  The answer is:

No.  The publishing industry largely uses publishing software (open source, and proprietary) to publish books, including chess books.  You've named one - InDesign.

Software such as Adobe's InDesign or Open Source software such as SILE or LaTex can lay out a book given the correct font.  Fonts can be used with Typesetting software to represent positions and pieces.
For example a common book font is Chess Mérida:

This font also includes black backgrounds and pieces on backgrounds so you can make images such as:

The font converts that from the text:
!""""""""#
$tMvWlVmT%
$OoOoOoOo%
$ + + + +%
$+ + + + %
$ + + + +%
$+ + + + %
$pPpPpPpP%
$RnBqKbNr%
/(((((((()

(Download the font here and cut that text into a Word Document and change the text to the Chess font and see for yourself)
You can find many chess fonts to use with your publishing software here.


What are some of the chess sites that allow Round Robin or Swiss Tournament to be organized?

This is an online option:

https://chess.swips.eu/

But beware that the free version has the following limitations: up to 20 players in only one category, up to 5 rounds with only one tiebreak method.


Why is exposing my queen for capture better in this position (According to computer analysis)?

Your description of the computer's suggestions doesn't quite match the position, but if you mean the computer suggests Nxe5, that is correct, as Bxd1 leads to a variation of Legal's Mate.

Nxe5  Bxd1
Bxf7+ Ke7
Nd5#

If, instead,

Nxe5 dxe5
Qxg4

and white has won a pawn, and has a big lead in development.


Do chess programmes keep a history of the full board for each move?

You are doing a chess GUI, not a chess engine right?
Chess GUI doesn't need to be super efficient, because you have no more than a chess game to look for. Even a game over 200 moves about the world record is absolutely nothing for a computer.
I would just simply keep your positions with an array of strings like FEN format (or any other format), and then simply linear scan the whole game for repetitions.
If you want to get fancy, try https://marcelk.net/2013-04-06/paper/upcoming-rep-v2.pdf.


Josh Waitzkin chessmaster mastery quiz - spatial advantage, trading bishops

Josh says f5 ... Is Josh wrong about f5?

Yes, although black's position is terrible in any case.
If we look at the initial position and try and assess a number of things are immediately obvious:

White has a lot more space
All the pieces and all the pawns are still on the board

We can also say:

White has completed development
Black still has several pieces on the back rank and unless black can open the h file the rook on h8 is doomed to a miserable life in the near future

So, white has a very big advantage, probably close to winning.
The first two points (space advantage plus all 32 pieces still on the board) mean that it is much easier for white to move the pieces around and very difficult for black. Black's pieces get in the way of each other and there just isn't enough space in the black position for black's pieces. For black, knights are also better than bishops at the moment.
So, what can black do? Well piece exchanges would be very nice. They would create more space in black's position and make it less cramped.
Exchanging bishops would be particularly nice because, as luck would have it, the g7 bishop is occupying a square which would be great for the knight stuck on e8 and the d7 bishop is on a square which would be better for the b8 knight.
With all that in mind the pluses of h6 stand out. Bf8, the only move to not immediately lose material, firmly and further entombs the rook on h8, keeps all the pieces on the board, puts yet another piece on the back rank and moves the bishop off what is the best available diagonal for it to a dead-end square with no prospects. It becomes not much more than a "tall pawn".
What about f5? That allows Be5+, either immediately, or after a zwischenzug like gxh5 or Bc8 (clearing d7 for the knight). Let's look at what would likely happen after an immediate Be5+ and evaluate the resulting position:
[fen "rn1qn1kr/p2bppbp/1p1p2p1/2pP2PP/4PP2/2P1BN1B/PPNQ3K/4RR2 w - - 0 1"]

1.f5 Be5+ 2.Bf4 Bxf4 3. Qxf4 Ng7 4. h6 Nh5 5. Qh4 Bb5 6. Rf2 Nd7

What you have is chalk-and-cheese. Suddenly black's pieces can breathe. Black is still much worse. The rook on h8 still has no prospects but two more pieces are off the back rank and a bishop which was going to be useless has been exchanged off.

Bxh3 costs Black 2 pawns

Nonsense! I think you are making the mistake of confusing the beginner's "point count" system of 1 point for a pawn, 3 points for a bishop with the real world. There is no way the black bishop on f8 is worth anything like 3 points. Similarly the white pawn on h6 is worth a lot more than 1 point.

Is Bxh3 really the best or at least strictly better than Bf8?

Again let's try looking at a line where black follows Bxh3 with the Nxg7 immediately (the line where black plays Bxf1 is also possible although that puts black one rook exchange closer to a lost endgame) to see what is really involved:
[fen "rn1qn1kr/p2bppbp/1p1p2p1/2pP2PP/4PP2/2P1BN1B/PPNQ3K/4RR2 w - - 0 1"]

1. h6 Bxh3 (1...Bf8) 2. hxg7 Nxg7 3. Kxh3

After 1...Bf8 white has a really obvious plan to take advantage of the weak long diagonal and the monster pawn on h6 - c4, b2, line up the bishop and queen on the diagonal, mate. Alternatively, just leave black effectively a rook down (the piece on h8 is useless) and just break through in the center and mate black that way.
Going back to "beginner's point count" that rook is worth a lot closer to 1 point than 5. Once you get past beginner level you have to value your pieces according to what they can do now and in the near future.
After the sequence ending 3. Kxh3 those threats have disappeared. Black has an outpost for the knight on h5. Black might entertain hopes of playing h6 to open the h file and give the rook on h8 a purpose. Granted the position is still lost but at least there are prospects of counterplay and putting up a fight.


Why wasn't Caruana able to maintain the level he played in Sinquefield Cup - 2014 ?

TL;DR: Caruana says that his performance depends on 'luck', which can be boiled down to Caruana's effort in the game compared to his opponent's effort. And by effort at this level, he mostly means fighting spirit and opening preparation, but also external factors affecting the players' psychology.
This interview records Caruana's changing fortunes in his own words:

Interviewer: You’ve managed to be the 3rd highest rated playe[r] in chess history at your young age. To what do you owe this success?
Caruana: I think I was having an extremely good period. I won 40 points in one tournament. It could have gone another way - I could have just had a few good tournaments, but all my success was basically concentrated on one tournament and that’s why I (laughs a little) won seven games in a row and my rating went up to 2840… I still wonder why I had that result and some results after it were very good, like the European Club Cup and after the Grand Prix. For some time I was playing extremely strong chess, probably stronger than I deserved (laughs). Maybe I had some luck as well! Because I had the strong period, and for a couple months after that I was struggling. In Wijk aan Zee, Zurich the next year I had like a six-month period where I was struggling to show good results, but for that especially one tournament (Sinquefield Cup 2014) I was unstoppable.

Source: chess24.com, emphasis is mine.
So Caruana says that he put a lot of effort into one tournament, the Sinquefield Cup 2014, but after that it is hard to maintain such a dominant position in chess. From the same interview, Caruana says this about fluctuating performance:

Let’s say you’re playing an opponent who is 2750. There’s a chance that one day he will play like, let’s say, not 2750 but 2300, 2400 or 2500 – he’ll just have a very bad day. Just a recent example - Nakamura against Ding Liren in the last round of the Sinquefield Cup was just an example of a very strong player having a very bad day, but I think it all balances up. You might have cases where your opponent is playing very poorly, but also cases where your opponent plays just unstoppably and doesn’t give you a chance, or you fall into preparation and lose because your opponent just had a new opening idea. Or the reverse! You win because of your new opening idea. I think in general it balances up, but there are ways to increase your luck just by fighting and never giving up. The more resistance you put up the more chances there are that your opponent will screw up.


Are there any tournaments that treat less-represented groups preferentially?

Fide World Cup

Are qualified for the World Cup:

The Women's World Champion
The last two World Junior Champions
Players from Continental Championships


As Black, against 1. d4, what opening would you recommend me which is solid, positional, slow, strategic, quiet, closed, and similar to the Caro-Kann?

It needs to be as much similar to the Caro-Kann as possible (since I already play the Caro-Kann against 1. e4).

Impossible. The problem with this approach is that you have already stopped e4 with ...d5 so White simply can not transpose even if he wished to do so. Your best bet is the Slav defense, as it is very similar to Caro-Kann ( same pawn structure for Black, with the Bf5 bishop ), but even then there are ways for White to deviate into sharp and very different lines.

  On average it must tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet as possible (I want nothing sharp and tactical).

The best candidate fitting into this description is Queen's Gambit Declined.

Only Black can sharpen the game by transposing into Semi-Slav with Botvinnik system or with some sharp lines in the Slav with ...b5, but if you wish you can always steer the game into solid, positional lines. Then White will have no way to sharpen the game ( neither do you ), and you both will have to battle with dull, positional maneuvers and plans.

Be warned, it is very hard to play these positions as Black and tactical skill here is practically irrelevant! Most of the time you will have a hard time defending, and you will have to learn how to properly engineer a freeing break. That is not an easy task, just so you know ( I am speaking this from experience )!

In order to play this opening well with either color you also must know how to play typical positions very very well ( not to mention you need strong endgame knowledge! ), but this might suit your style ( based on your description in second criteria ).

SUMMARY:

Chess would be too simple if you could play one opening against every opponent's reply. This especially applies for Black! I once too wanted to play the Caro-Kann against everything, but after very thorough study I was forced to realize that it isn't possible.

As for positional opening against 1.d4, your best bet are the dull lines of the Queen's gambit declined. In every other opening White always have a chance to sharpen the game ( always! ), but if you choose this path be ready for a long defense which will usually give you no more than a draw. Still, you will get the solidity and quietness you seek...

If you need further help or clarifications leave a comment.

Best regards.


Why was 3...c5 for black was a bad move?

IMO, 3...c5 by itself, is not really a problem, after the strongest continuation  4.d4 stockfish gives 0.5, and after 4th move in the game stockfish gives equality. And I think your reasoning is fine, it is generally good to trade a c-pawn for d-pawn.

But it looks like it is a part of bigger problem: You made too many pawn moves 5...h6 And 6...f5, and later 8..d6, while not developing your pieces and getting your king to safety. Also by making these pawn moves you created weaknesses, for example your opponent was able to exploit weakness on g6.

Make sure that you focus on developing your pieces and getting your king to safety, and avoid making unnecessary pawn moves.


The Deep Analysis option does this, however, it takes forever, and you have to do each game/problem one at a time. Sorry to say, that it probably is not worth it, but it does add in most, if not all, the subvariations. Sorry, I do not have better news, but I do not think there is an easy way for you.

This is just for reference on how to use ChessBase Tactical Analysis on a large number of games, but here is that.

First, open the database. I am not sure how well this will work with 3000 games, so you may have to break them up by 100's, but you can test that yourself.

Now, once the database is open, click on the first game you want, and hold the Shift key down while selecting the last game you want. That should highlight many games.

Right click on them, and select "Tactical Analysis". Once the box comes up, set the following: Time for 1 second, Coarse, Store Evaluations, and deselect "Erase old annotations" and training. "Replace" should be selected. Replace saves the new analysis.


Does Boris Gelfand share his surname with a chess piece?

Well, just when I was writing the question up, I finally found the answer -- no -- so I am answering my own question. Way down at the bottom of this web page, it gives the Yiddish name for the bishop (once transcribed from the Hebrew alphabet) as "der Loyfer," which is like the German name "der Läufer." So, assuming this is a reliable source (and it's the only one I could find), the Yiddish bishop is a runner, not an elephant. It's just not Gelfand's day I guess.


Kasparov quote on the simple math behind attacking

Finder's credit goes to Akavall.  Kasparov's explanation of how he calculated an attack against Karpov appears to be the origin of the quote I've seen referenced.
youtube.com/watch?v=SMe-hvCwTRo


Strategic implications in this puzzle by S. Polgar/P. Truong

A rook is worth five pawns, a bishop three. But White has the bishop pair. Moreover, the rook on c8 doesn't do much, while the dark squared bishop has a nice diagonal. So, I'm not convinced that it's really 5 vs 3.

Congratulations! You are taking your first steps to moving away from using the Reinfeld piece values as a method of evaluation.

The reason why winning the exchange is good here is because:

Material appreciates as the endgame approaches. For example, if you have 8 pawns vs. 7, you are up a pawn. If you reduce that to 1 pawn to 0, you are still up a pawn but now you are very likely to win (or certain to draw)
Building from point 1, white can take control of the crucial d-file and likely trade down more material, going into an even better endgame
Owning the bishop pair is usually worth 1/2 a pawn, but in this position the rooks are the most important pieces because the pawn structure means that the black minor pieces don't have great squares (a somewhat blocked bishop and a knight with no forward outpost)

Please note that winning material isn't always advantageous. This example in Mastering Chess Strategy by GM Hellsten shows white sacrifice the exchange to gain a good outpost for his knight and play against a bad bishop:

[FEN "r4r2/1pp1q1bk/3p2b1/p2Ppp2/1nP5/1PN1BP2/P2N2PP/2RQ1RK1 w - - 0 1"]
[White "Hellsten"]
[Black "Cramling"]

  1. Qe2            f4
  2. Bf2            Bd3
  3. Qd1            Bxf1
  4. Qxf1           Bf6
  5. Kh1            Bh4
  6. Bg1            Rf7
  7. Nde4           Rg8
  8. a3             Na6
  9. Rc2            Rg6
 10. Rb2            Qd8
 11. b4             axb4
 12. axb4           Be7
 13. c5             Nb8
 14. Qc4            Kh8
 15. b5             Nd7
 16. c6             Nb8
 17. cxb7           Rg8
 18. Ra2            Bh4
 19. Ra8            Rfg7
 20. Qf1            Qd7
 21. Ba7             1-0

Addendum: Regarding how material appreciates as the ending nears, consider the case of K+8P vs. K+7P:

[FEN "4k3/pppp1ppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w - - 0 1"]

Compared to K+P vs. K, which is the same material difference of 1 pawn but a higher material ratio for the attacker, the first example is a likely draw, whereas the second example is a theoretical win.

[FEN "4k3/8/8/8/8/8/4P3/4K3 w - - 0 1"]


I don't know which person you are referring to, or if the exact word "coach" was used, but GMs like Carlsen don't really have coaches in the sense you are probably thinking of; they have seconds, who have the following functions:

Opening research. This might mean performing general research, or looking for particular weapons that are likely to be useful against the upcoming opponent, in this case Anand. Doing quality opening research takes a lot of time, and the player is better off paying strong GMs to do some of it for him them spending all the time on it himself. Also, they can spend time during the match doing further research based on the games already played, which the player doesn't have time to do.
Adjournment analysis. This is not really relevant anymore, but in the old days many games would be adjourned overnight, and the players' seconds would analyze the adjourned position all night and present him with their analysis the next day before the game resumed.
Training games. If a player has an opening idea, he can try it out against other players and see what sort of situations result from it before using it in a live game. This is often more relevant than playing games against a computer.
Moral support. Don't underestimate how much nicer it is to have a team of compatriots that can cheer you on when you do well or pick you up when you do badly. They probably also do other things together like exercise.


How many moves can be expressed with algebraic chess notation?

I immediately notice that you've missed the castling moves (O-O and O-O-O).

I would list the pawn-promoting moves according to their PGN syntax (=Q/R/N/B suffix), as that's the most commonly used in computer chess.

Algebraic notation can be ambiguous for sliding and leaping pieces (everything except pawn and king, actually) which may require specifying the origin rank, file, or both.  The latter is only needed for queens, bishops and knights, as rooks are always disambiguated by one or the other.

It might be useful to treat the suffix codes indicating whether the move results in check or checkmate as orthogonal to the move itself, since pretty much any move can theoretically have those results.  This would effectively divide the number of unique moves you need to handle by three.  Conversely, the different promotions of a pawn definitely should be considered as unique moves.


How to play more chess without your brain tiring

Following the general rules for staying physically fit are probably a good idea.  Also getting enough sleep before a match. These things always helped me.  Fischer was noted for staying physically fit.  Also he drank apple juice during play.  Getting up and moving around also would seem desirable, since that keeps your blood pumping as well as providing a temporary distraction from your game, which should refresh your thinking.  There are human limits to endurance though no matter what you do.  I've noticed that as I age (I'm 80), I tend to fatigue sooner than I used too.  There's probably no cure for that.


King's Gambit, Wagenbach Defense 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 h5

From my analysis, the line you give appears to be the best way White can play. After 9.Qd2, Stockfish 10 at depth 28 gives roughly +1. So I think it qualifies as a refutation of 3...h5.

I couldn't find any games where 6.Ng5 was played, but I did find a game that reached the same position on move 6 via transposition. The game was from 1788 (!) in the "London Casual Games" between two players named Cotter and Von Bruehl:

[White "Cotter"]
[Black "Von Bruehl"]
[Event "London Casual Games"]
[Date "1788"]

[fen ""]

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ng5 h5 6.d4 {Transposing to the diagram you gave} f6 7.Bxf4 fxg5 8.hxg5 (8.Bxg5 {Is stronger, following your line}) d5 9.e5 Bf5 10.Bd3 Ne7 11.O-O Bg7 12.Bg3 Rf8 13.Bh4 Qd7 14.Nc3 a6 15.Qe2 Nbc6 16.Bf2 O-O-O 17.Na4 Bxd3 18.Qxd3 Nxe5 19.Qb3 b5 20.dxe5 bxa4 21.Qc3 d4 22.Qd3 Qb5 23.Qa3 Ng6 24.b3 Bxe5 25.bxa4 Qc6 26.Rab1 0-1.


How did I still lose with 1 piece advantage?

Two things leap out at me:

Moderate error: After 8...Bh5, you're a piece up but you're not done developing and your knight on e4 is unprotected. Reasonable moves (I'm sure there are others) include 9.d3, supporting your knight and allowing your bishop to develop; 9.Re1, centralizing your rook and supporting your knight; and 9.Ng3, kicking Black's bishop and moving your knight to a safe square. Instead you played 9.g4, weakening your king's position and forcing the Black bishop to a place where it attacks your knight.
Huge error: You're still doing OK as of 13...hxg6, but your h3-pawn is under attack. (Note that this wouldn't have been an issue if you hadn't played 9.g4.) The simplest defense is 14.Qf3 but 14.Kg2 is possible too. Instead you let Black's rook capture on h3 and now your king is under severe attack.

You could have defended against the ensuing attack better, but I'm not going to bother with that because the way to win games like these is to not even let it get to that point.


Can Black defend in this difficult position?

I'd like to point out that I tend to post Stockfish's entire tree of moves, but anything past the first 4 or 5 full moves is likely fiction.

To answer the OP's question, the answer is "with perfect play, Black looks lost. However, Black is not so lost he can't offer resistance."  Giving up on the game makes no sense to me since imperfect play got Black into this situation to begin with. With staunch resistance, perhaps White will err as Black did previously.

EDIT -
1... Nxd5 2. Rxd5 c6 3.Re5 and black is lost` variation shows White's advantage dropping to .5

The ever-practical Stockfish sees the following after several minutes. It decides that the d5 pawn is the problem and removes it. In the main line, White ends up with a 1 point advantage. The good news is that Black is well positioned to defend.

In the 1...Nxd5 variation, Stockfish says White is slightly better than the main-line.  I'm going to have to look at this one a bit more. It's... odd.

In the variation at move 3, Stockfish rates the final position as -.5, but I don't see how Black's extra piece is going to save him from the pawn onslaught.

[Title "Black to move (Stockfish)"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "r3kb1r/ppp1pppp/n4n2/1N1P5/8/4B3/PPP1NPPP/2KR3R b kq - 0 1"]

1... e6 (1...Nxd5 2.Rxd5 c6 3.Rd2 (3.Re5 cxb5 4.Rxb5 b6 5.Rd5 Nb4 6.Rd2 e6 7.Nc3 Rd8 8.Rhd1 Rxd2) cxb5 4.Rhd1 b4 5.Bxa7 e6 6.Bb6 h5 7.Rd7 h4) 2.dxe6 fxe6 3.Rhe1 ( 3.Nxa7 c6 4.Nd4 Bc5 5.Ndxc6 Bxe3+ 6.fxe3 bxc6 7.Nxc6 Rf8 8.Rhf1 Ng4 9.Rxf8+ Kxf8 10.b4 Nxe3 11.Rd3 Nd5 12.Rf3+ Ke8 13.a3 Kd7 14.Ne5+ Kd6 15.Nc4+ Ke7 16.Kb2 Nf6 17.Rg3 g6 18.Rd3 Nc7 19.Ne5 Ncd5 20.c4 Nf4 21.Nc6+ Kf7 )Kf7 4.Ng1 c6 5.Nd4 e5 6.Nb3 b6 7.Nf3 Re8 8.Kb1 Nb4 9.Nbd2 e4 10.Nd4 Rd8 11.a3 c5 12.Nb5 Nc6 13.h3 Be7 14.Nc3 h6 15.Ndxe4


This is a tricky question, and I'm sure there's no definitive solution.

Lichess uses this definition (https://lichess.org/qa/102/how-are-the-mid-game-and-end-game-dividers-determined)

Opening is obvious, starts on move 1.

Mid-game is less obvious, and is still in testing. The long-and-short of the current heuristics are that the mid-game occurs when either:
- The position is adequately complex and enough pieces are developed.
- 2 sets of minor or major pieces have been taken off the board. (This is mainly useful for when the position is quite open)

End-game is slightly more straight forward, when there are less than 7 minor and major pieces on the board the end-game has begun (so, perhaps 2 rooks and a bishop Vs 2 bishops and a knight). This is not technically where everyone would draw the line, but it's a good indicator that either 1. The end-game has begun 2. The end-game will begin soon.

Stockfish uses interpolation between the middlegame and endgame. This is done by counting non-pawn materials (https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/03a9b3bd8d79e1677f1c74cf7d8f8036795675c6/src/material.cpp)

// Map total non-pawn material into [PHASE_ENDGAME, PHASE_MIDGAME]
e->gamePhase = Phase(((npm - EndgameLimit) * PHASE_MIDGAME) / (MidgameLimit - EndgameLimit));

You will need to make a decision on what material counts you want to use.

Suggestions:

If your engine supports opening book, you might want to use that
You might use the move counts (it's in the FEN string) for opening vs middlgame
Endgame is generally defined as number of X pieces and N pawns on the board (you decide what X and N should be). N<=3 is almost always an endgame.
Lichess's definitions have worked quite well practically.


Not Developing a Piece in the First Five Moves

Obviously black has violated principles such as:

don't move a piece twice
develop pieces

However opening principles are just general guidelines and in very concrete positions like the one at hand they are of little use. There are many established openings where opening principles are broken, so nothing wrong with that.

In the final position it is white's move, however the knight on f3 is attacked and has to move. After the knight has moved, black will most certainly kick away the other knight by playing c6 and then create a strong pawn center with d5 or f5.

White has currently a lead in development but black has more space and will have an easier development for its minor pieces than white. If there is nothing immediately threatening from white, I don't see why black should have a bad position.

Note that my engine still prefers white's position by about +0.5.


There are blogs and news sites that regularly publish analysis of recent games. Chess24 also provides a lot of videos with analysis of games, competing in that regard with various youtube channels.

You can also find annotated games on Chessgames.com, most easily in the form of game collections via google "site:chessgames.com annotated".