FIDE rules when opponent accidentally promotes to your Queen

So if your opponent promotes a pawn to a Queen and accidentally places
  your Queen on the board instead of his own, can you claim a win
  because of an illegal move?

No, you can't. There is no illegal move until the player either presses the clock or makes another move (after the opponent has moved).

Here is what the FIDE Laws of Chess have to say:

  3.7.5.1   When a player, having the move, plays a pawn to the rank furthest from its starting position, he must exchange that pawn as
  part of the same move for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the
  same colour on the intended square of arrival.

  3.10.2    A move is illegal when it fails to meet the relevant requirements of Articles 3.1 – 3.9

  6.2.1 During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his own clock and start his opponent’s clock
  (that is to say, he shall press his clock). This “completes” the
  move. A move is also completed if:

  6.2.1.1   the move ends the game (see Articles 5.1.1, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 9.6.1 and 9.6.2), or

  6.2.1.2 the player has made his next move, when his previous move was not completed.

  7.5.1 An illegal move is completed once the player has pressed his clock. If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been
  completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be
  reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot
  be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable
  position prior to the irregularity. Articles 4.3 and 4.7 apply to the
  move replacing the illegal move. The game shall then continue from
  this reinstated position.

  7.5.5 After the action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4 for the first completed illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent; for the
  second completed illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall
  declare the game lost by this player. However, the game is drawn if
  the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s
  king by any possible series of legal moves.

So, first of all, yes, promoting to the wrong piece is an illegal move (3.7.5.1 and 3.10.2)

Secondly, just making an illegal move does not attract any penalty (other than having to make a legal move with the piece touched or captured). The move only attracts punishment when it is completed (7.5.1 and 7.5.5) by pressing the clock or making a subsequent move.

Thirdly, you cannot claim a win for the first completed illegal move, only for the second (7.5.5). This rule now also applies to rapid and blitz.

  And if you don't claim, but continue to play on without correcting the
  situation, is that Queen officially yours?

At standard time controls, no. According to 7.5.1 the position before the illegal move must be reinstated and a legal move made.

However, rapid and blitz are different.

  Appendix A. Rapid chess

  ...

  A.4.2 If the arbiter observes an action taken under Article 7.5.1,
  7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4, he shall act according to Article 7.5.5, provided the opponent has not made his next move. If the arbiter does
  not intervene, the opponent is entitled to claim, provided the
  opponent has not made his next move. If the opponent does not claim
  and the arbiter does not intervene, the illegal move shall stand and
  the game shall continue. Once the opponent has made his next move,
  an illegal move cannot be corrected unless this is agreed by the
  players without intervention of the arbiter.

  Appendix B. Blitz

  ...

  B.4 Otherwise, play shall be governed by the Rapid chess Laws as in
  Article A.2 and A.4.

In rapid and blitz the standard rules for punishment only apply if there are conditions which will only occur in very high level tournaments, if then. These are that the moves are recorded independently and there are enough arbiters (one per 3 games at rapid and one per game at blitz) to properly see what is going on. Otherwise article A.4 applies and you can keep your extra queen.


What is the most controversial opening or variation?

There's no quantifiable answer to this. In my subjective experience, the most controversial openings would be the Dutch Defense and the King's Indian Defense.

I have heard strong players (Sam Shankland, multiple times, including in some of his chess.com videos) heavily disparage the Dutch, but it is still defended occasionally at the top level, most prominently by Nakamura.

The KID is a more frequent guest in super-GM play, and Vladimir Kramnik has a low opinion of it.

At a meta-controversial level, the Berlin Defense causes some debate due to its drawish tendencies and popularity in top-level round robin events.


What is a good opening software program?

Try 365chess.com Chess Opening Explorer.

Gives number of games win/lose/draw statistics and shows what opening was played. You can also click into a game for the moves when the tree gets down to one game.


What is the CQL syntax for combinations where king is checked along a file, and the square near it is attacked by bishop or queen?

I'm still working out the full answer, but this is a start:

flipcolor {wtm check ng3 Pg2 Ph2 Kh1 r attack (q g1) not {square $x in h3-8 a on $x} result 0-1}

This gets down to 13 games from over 2 million and includes the Karpov - Taimanov game. I still haven't figured out a way to deal with the rook, but
this gets a game list small enough to look through. The not square bits could be taken out to expand the search to a couple hundred games, that was just looking for the h file to not be blocked by black pieces for the later rook move.

I used the above in the latest scid vs pc codebase, which has cql support by adding cql() to the beginning and running it in the cql search vs what is Chessbase Big Database 2017 updated to last month.


USCF has regular chess tournaments listed in different states each month and you can find tournaments such as Chicago Open, Philadelphia Open, etc, in-which, you can play at any levels (Under 2200, Under 2000, etc). You have to be a USCF member to play these tournaments which is an easy process and you can register and pay it online at the USCF website.

Also tournaments such as Chicago Open,World Open (which is starting today at Philly) are open to all USCF members and you can play at any level. At first, you will be having a provisional rating and if you play at any levels Under 2000 and under, and if you win that level you will not be able to win the full top prize due to your provisional rating. But if you play other higher levels - U2200, U2400 and Open - you will also get a FIDE rating because these levels are usually FIDE-rated. You should always check with the tournament organizers to see which levels are FIDE rated, how much they pay out for unrated players who win and then can play them.

Note: Not all USCF tournaments are FIDE rated. Only Big tournaments such as those mentioned above have FIDE-ratings. (Most of these Big tournaments are organized by CCA - http://chesstournamentservices.com/cca/ )

So playing in a FIDE-rated tournament in USA is as simple as finding the BIG tournament closer to your area and registering for it with a USCF membership. Usually these big tournaments have an entry fee of around USD 300.

These bigger tournaments have different ways to enter the tournament and play - 3 day. 4-day, 5-day etc. It all depends on your other-schedule and you can pick a type of play suitable for you. Some of these big tournaments all allow you to re-enter the same tourney if you lose the first few games and think that you can play well and want to play from the start again. You can always check with the tournament organizers about the rules.

From my experience of playing these big tournaments, playing 3-day tourneys is a hectic schedule where you would play 3 or 4 games in the 1st and 2nd days and then join with the regular round schedule for all day-games. Picking the 3-day tourney instead of 5-day or 7-day is basically based on your free time for that week and how well you can adapt to play all the games to win. It's more of a gamble paying 300 USD (unless playing unrated-level which has very less entry-fee but no prize money) and I don't play these tournaments anymore. I just moved from chess to poker.

If you think you are a good chess-player and want to get a FIDE-rating,  then playing these big tournaments at Under2200 and above would give you a FIDE-rating.


As literally everyone hated this pseudo-novelty, Grand Chess Tour reacted on some guy's tweet 'I see! I imagine the results are more decisive with the delay?'.
GCT answered that 'Yes and increment is confusing for spectators who aren't familiar with chess clocks', which is ridiculously wrong.
I had a much harder time explaining this strange delay rule to my non-chess-players colleagues than to explain them the simple increment one. I am not even sure I understand it properly myself, and I guess I am not the only one.

Another suggestion was that replacing increment with delay would limit the amount of time a game can last. But you could simply switch to 3min+2s if that is the real goal. I think the real goal behind that was to try to get the tournament to a format acceptable for TV broadcast, which is obviously what all tournament sponsors are dreaming of (money money).

But the most likely reason was to catch the players in situation they aren't familiar with and create time trouble, to make the games and results more spectacular and decisive. Again, that serves the goal of making the sport more exciting to the global audience to hope for TV broadcast.

See this article from chess24 where they discuss on this (point number 4)


Does black have an advantage if white plays 1. h4

Imagine a variation that there is white's Bg5 or Ng5 which should be met h6. I mean theoretical lines. And then play with black as you were white. I think that 1. h4 makes white worse than black usually is.

White has difficulties with castling short
g4 instantly weak


What are the motivations behind pawn moves on a and h files?

The question is extremely open, as these pawns may be moved for many reasons depending on the position you are facing. In a general sketch, you may consider five kind of a and h pawn moves:

To create some luft for the king, that is, avoid once and for all the back rank threats.

[FEN "r5k1/5ppp/8/8/8/8/5PPP/1R4K1 w - - 0 1"]

In this position, neither rook can leave the back rank, because if they do Rb8 for white or Ra1 for black are checkmate (this is called to have a weak back rank). For this reason, it is useful to move h4 for white or h5 for black, in order to be able to escape via h2 or h7 if the rook leaves the back rank.

To attack the enemy castled king, as opening the h file usually comes with dangerous threats of infiltration with the major pieces near the king.

[FEN ""]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. O-O-O Rc8 11. Bb3 Ne5 12. h4 {This is a main line in the Yugoslav Attack of the Dragon. The plan is to go full aggression on the kingside: blast open the `h` file, play `Bh6`, exchange bishops and continue `Qh6` with mate threats on `h7`. To parry all the threats that white will make, precision is essential, since many good looking moves are actually horrible blunders.}

To gain space, either by a further advance of an adjacent b or g pawn or by avoiding a piece to be pushed away by a pawn.

[FEN ""]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Bg7 5. c4 Nc6 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Nc3 O-O 8. Be2 d6 9. O-O Bd7 10. Qd2 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 Bc6 12. f3 a5 {This is a main line in the Maroczy Bind of the HyperAccelerated Dragon. With this move, black makes sure the `b4` advance that white wants to make is delayed at least for some moves. Moreover, as is seen in the following moves, this allows black's knight to get a comfortable home in `c5`, as for the moment he cannot be dislodged.} 13. b3 Nd7 14. Be3 Nc5 {And white will have to prepare his plan of gaining space on the queenside thoroughly.}

Another fact (credit to JiK for pointing it out) that encourages the move of an a or h pawn before moving the corresponding b or g pawn is that the former often do not leave behind as big holes (or any holes at all) as the latter. This is because the pawns on the edge on the board only protect one square on the 3rd/6th rank, and many times the bishop pawn wasn't moved and already covers it, or in the event of leaving a hole, the queen's knight's file usually is away from the main action, so it may not be very important (one should consider very carefully whether leaving a hole in front of one's king).

To defend against pins in order to drive away enemy pieces or to take away a concrete square from them.

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d3 Nf6 5. c3 d6 6. O-O O-O 7. Bb3 a6 8. Nbd2 Ba7 9. h3 {This is a main line in the Giuoco Pianissimo. With the last move, white avoids the unpleasant pin of the `c3` knight by `Bg4`. This also creates some breathing space for the king, but that is not the main idea behind the move. The reason it is played now and not a few moves before is mainly because you are prioritizing piece development.}

To preserve a bishop from getting exchange (credit to Dag Oskar Madsen for pointing it out). Usually bishops are slightly better than knights, and giving your opponent the bishop pair would require to play with extra care in the endgame.

[FEN ""]
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Bf4 Bg7 4. e3 O-O 5. Be2 d6 6. h3 {This is a main line in the London system. With the last move, white gives the `Bf4` a retreat in the event of `Nh5` while keeping it on the `h2-b8` diagonal, helping to tighten the grip on the dark squares. The reason `Nh5` earlier (when white pushes `e3`) does not work so well is because it allows a chronicle weakening of black's kingside, and the reason `Nh5` does work if `h3` is not played is half-positional half-tactical.}

This last position is quite complex, if interested you may want to look at this link for some variations.

Conclusion:

It's important to bear in mind that every move should be useful, as you must contribute to the global synergy of your pieces in order to achieve a better position. Usually at master or computer level, when they do not find the optimal move (although the computer usually does) or placement for their pieces, they always tend to achieve some kind of positional advantage, and those listed above are mainly of this kind.

EDIT: Examples have been added and a fifth case has been added.


Why is the Sicilian Defense considered hard to play?

Good heavens.  Play it!

The Sicilian is not a defense for the lazy or defensive player - the Black side will need to be booked up, tactically sharp, and more than anything will need to understand why it works, and how to make it work.

Regarding that GMs can't play it, that's nonsense.  It's a deadly tool in their arsenal.

This opening's hypermodern ideas eschew some well-established 'rules' including immediate control of the center.  It encourages an asymmetric game that reduces the chance for a draw.  In many variations, black sacrifices the exchange on c3 in order to gain time and break white's center.

In the Sicilian, black frequently loses quickly or wins long.

Here's an example from 2013 of Anand with the black side taking apart 2716-rated Arkadij Naiditsch.  According to 365chess.com, this is an ECO B52, the "Canal-Sokolsky attack". As you can see from this game, the Sicilian may not be the best choice for the timid.

[fen ""]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Bd7 4. Bxd7+ Qxd7 5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3 g6 7. d4 cxd4 8. Nxd4 Bg7 9. O-O Nc6 10. Nde2 Qe6 11. Nd5 Qxe4 12. Nc7+ Kd7 13. Nxa8 Qxc4 14. Nc3 Rxa8 15. Bg5 e6 16. Re1 Nd5 17. Nxd5 Qxd5 18. Qxd5 exd5 19. Rad1 h6 20. Bc1 d4 21. Rd3 Rc8 22. Rb3 b6 23. Kf1 Ne5 24. Ra3 a5 25. b4 Rc2 26. bxa5 bxa5 27. Rxa5 Nd3 28. Ra7+ Kc6 29. Rxf7 Nxe1 30. Kxe1 Rxc1+ 31. Kd2 Rg1 32. Rxg7 Rxg2 33. Ke1 Rxh2 34. Rxg6 Rh1+ 35. Kd2 h5 36. Rh6 h4 37. a4 h3 38. a5 h2 39. a6 Kc7 40. Rh7+ Kb8 41. Ke2 d3+ 42. Kd2 Ka8 43. Rh5 Ka7 44. Rh6 d5 45. Rh8 Kxa6 46. Rh6+ Kb5 47. Rh8 Kc4 48. Rc8+ Kd4 49. Rh8 Ke4 0-1

Just for fun, here's Tigran Petrosian, the Patron Saint of Positional Players, dismantling Boris Spassky.  This is a B42 Sicilian, Kan variation.  (I like to mention such games because it's easy to get into the habit of thinking of some players as purely positional, or some as purely tactical players.  All GMs are competent in all aspects of the game.)

It's the 1st game of the 1969 world championship.  Again, we see a long game here.  Petrosian would lose the black side of a Sicilian Dragon to Spassky later in the same match, and it would be over in under 30 moves.

[fen ""]
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Bd3 Nc6 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.O-O d5 8.Nd2 Nf6 9.Qe2 Be7 10.b3 O-O 11.Bb2 a5 12.f4 g6 13.Rad1 Nd7 14.c4 a4 15.f5 exf5 16.exf5 Bf6 17.Bxf6 Nxf6 18.Qf2 axb3 19.axb3 Ra2 20.fxg6 fxg6 21.h3 Qe7 22.Qd4 c5 23.Qf4 Bb7 24.Rde1 Qg7 25.Qe3 d4 26.Qe6+ Qf7 27.Qe2 Re8 28.Qf2 Rxe1 29.Qxe1 Qe8 30.Qxe8+ Nxe8 31.Be4 Rxd2 32.Bxb7 Nd6 33.Bd5+ Kg7 34.b4 cxb4 35.c5 Nf5 36.c6 Rc2 37.g4 Nd6 38.Rf4 d3 39.Rd4 d2 40.Bb3 Rxc6 41.Rxd2 Ne4 42.Rd7+ Kf6 43.Rxh7 Rc1+ 44.Kg2 Nc5 45.Bf7 b3 46.g5+ Kxg5 47.h4+ Kf6 48.h5 Rc2+ 49.Kf3 b2 50.Ba2 gxh5 51.Rxh5 Rc1 52.Rh6+ Ke5 53.Rb6 Na4 54.Re6+ Kd4 55.Re4+ Kc5 56.Rxa4 Ra1 0-1


What chess software allows to search for sacrifices and combinations?

The http://ChessTempo.com tactis trainer is based on tactical problems extracted from a large database scanned with an engine and the problems have been tagged with tactical motifs by users. Perhaps it is sufficient for your purpose if you learn to create custom problem sets based on these tags. There is a discussion forum there where you can ask your question in detail.


what is regular opening(are you going to study 1.E4 C5 2. Na3 because Magnus Carlsen played it)? and any app that supports opening book (chessbase, arena, chessmaster, etc) will play whatever you set in the book. also if you are 1600 - you should study chess, learn strategy, position evaluation and there will be enough opening information for you how to start game if you just read trough good book of 400-600 chess miniatures - they very well show and emphasize what are bad moves in opening that lead to quick loss and also you will learn what are good moves and approach in the opening. At your level opening is not the problem definitely! (My highest ELO was 2650 and I never studied openings explicitly - I always got them as side effect from the other studies)


Full board with full point mutual zugzwang

Here's a position with all pieces where either side to play loses.
Seeing why it's a loss takes some analysis.  With Black moving first, White's best plan is to open up the Bishop on f1 pinning the pawn, then Qxa4 checkmate.  This happens in most but not all lines.  Shredder evaluates the main line as +22, because either Nxc5 or cxb8=Q with leave White up a queen.
[Title "Zugzwang with full board"]
[FEN "nbb5/nqrp4/krpP3p/1pP3pP/pP3pP1/P3pPRK/4PRQN/5BBN b - - 1 0"]
[startflipped ""]

1... fxg3 (1... exf2 2. Bxf2 fxg3 3. e4 gxh2 4. f4 gxf4 5. Bh4 f3 6. Qc2 f2 7. Qxa4#) 2. Nxg3 exf2 3. f4 gxf4 4. Ne4 f3 (4... fxg1=Q 5. Qxg1 f3 6. g5 hxg5 7. exf3 g4+ 8. Kg3 gxf3 9. Bd3 f2 10. Qd1 f1=N+ 11. Kf4 Ng3 12. Qxa4#) 5. Qxf2 fxe2 6. cxb6 exf1=Q+ 7. Nxf1 c5 8. bxc7


Chess GUI with Time Handicap for Engine vs Engine matches

Arena can do this!

Suppose a game has a time control with x minutes for y move(s). In your case you need x=2 for Komodo and x=60 for Stockfish. You achieve this by doing the following:

Go to menu Engines > Manage and in the tab Details find each engine in the left panel Installed Engines. In the right panel Selected Engine go to the tab Special and change the value for Strength(%). In your case, when starting a game with 60 minutes for 1 move, the adjusted strengths would be:

Stockfish 100%; resulting in 1*60 minutes for 1 move
Komodo ~3%; resulting in 0.03*60 minutes for 1 move


Is the following endgame position a draw or white has advantage?

This endgame is a clear draw.

Black simply has to maintain his king on f8 and keep the bishop alive and White cannot make progress.

The only way White can win this position is if he can either capture Black's bishop and promote the f-pawn or simply promote his f-pawn. Capturing the g-pawn is not enough to win. If Black plays correctly, the Black bishop will never be captured, and as long as he maintains the king on f8, there is no way for White to drive out the king from f8 (no way to give check) and promote the f-pawn. So it is a draw.

I have attached here below the result from the endgame tablebases which have already evaluated this position. As you can see, all moves from White lead to a draw at best play. You can yourself enter this position and play with the tablebase on this website.


Why is Rashid Nezhmetdinov not as popular/known as Mikhail Tal?

Probably because he never made it to world champion, And Mikhail Tal did. Another great player that is not as popular as he deserves to be was Akiba Rubinstein


Knights necessary to mate king on large finite board

Not rigerous, however:

In lateral movement two knights move as fast as one king.
We know from end-game theory that two knights are not able to force the king into positions.

.. thus I'd say it's very unlikely that unlimited knights+king would be able to mate a king that has a free direction to run in (unlimited board). If it's possible to corner it however (limited board and unlimited moves), unlimited knights are certainly enough, as they could simply divide up the board and slowly decrease the available space.


Breadth-first search vs Depth first search in knowledge-based chess engines

Strength in chess engines depends on speed and speed depends on how strongly you can prune the tree. That is, how many nodes you can discard without degrading the accuracy of your search result.

In principle you might be able to visit the same nodes using either BFS or DFS, so a priori it is not clear which would be better prunable i.e. faster.

In chess, however, DFS is better prunable because one strong countermove is enough to invalidate a move. Therefore, the value of a move depends more strongly on a small set of next countermoves and the value of these countermoves on a small set of next moves etc. So, Min-Max-Search naturally lends itself to better pruning with DFS.


If you are trying to remove the pawn to cause the most damage to the starting position, I'd go with the f pawn.  Since f2/f7 is already a tender spot, as it is only covered by the King in the early parts of the game, it's a bit more likely to cause overall positional damage.

You could make the argument that removing the d or e pawn could be worse, as they are important for central control.  However, removing them does add a certain value, in that the pieces can develop more quickly from the starting position.

If you are trying to cause the least damage to your own position, definitely either the a or h pawn.  They have the least influence on the board, and there is something to be said for having that open file for the rook.

As to which one to remove...if you followed the above advice and removed the f pawn of your opponent, I'd remove my own a pawn, so that they don't feel comfortable castling on either side of the board.


How to avoid the French in the Alekhine, Scandinavian Variation?

The 4...Nc5 line clearly differs from the mainline you've given, since the knight on c5 will not be traded on g5 with black's pawn structure getting somewhat compromised. However it seems like the immediate knight retreat has some drawbacks since white can just play d4 immediately and kick the knight around a bit; note that after 4...Nc5 5.d4! Nd7 white can suddenly play the pawn sacrifice 6.e6! with a nice position.

Looking in my opening database I see that the most common move for black after 4...Nc5 5.d4! is 5...Ne6. In this position it seems like white has a pleasant choice of several good alternatives. For instance, 6.Be3 develops a piece and makes it a bit more difficult for black to play ...c5, while 6.f4!? seeks to gain even more space and to further kick the black knight around.

Basically, after 4...Nc5?! 5.d4! it seems like white gets a phenomenal position with a space advantage typical of the french defense, but without any drawbacks since black's knight loses so much time on its journey around the board.


The thing about the Modern Benoni is that White is usually trying to run you over on the e- and f- files. Black adopted a very small stance in the center (d6), and White's pawn play is the price to pay.
The difference between these two plans for white:
Bb5+, f4, Nf3, with a view toward e4-e5
and the one you describe here Bd3, Ne2-g3 with a view toward f4-f5
is that the f4-f5 plan is more likely to give Black the counterplay he desires with a knight on e5. You know that's why you play the Modern Benoni in the first place, yeah?
Go about your queenside business, and take their best shots on the f-file. If they crash through because you overlooked a tactic, you lose. If you hold them off and then jump all over the a1-h8 diagonal with your pieces, your Benoni is a success.
In other words, you're fretting over the plan for White that you should prefer to face as Black.


Here are some sites that I have found to be of great value:

chessopenings.com - NM Dereque Kelley explains openings very well.

The Chess Website - Excellent videos.

ChessVideos.tv - An abundant resource of top notch videos.

Exeter Chess Club coaching section - Excellent articles

ChessCafe columns (especially Dan Heisman's Novice Nook columns and Mark Dvoretsky's Instructor columns) - I can't recommend Dan Heisman enough,  his videos on ICC (not free) are excellent. Note: since the demise of the ChessCafe site these links point to the archive.org saved version.

50 Chess Games for Beginners - I stumbled upon this. Looks helpful, especially since the games are annotated.

Chess Visualization Training - Improve your visualization.


Here is an example of what you are looking for :
http://chess960jungle.blogspot.fr/2014/02/chess960-database-complete-games-2001.html


Is game analysis based on "squares" instead of "pieces" of any value?

I think that this is a good question, but also that the most enlightening way to answer might be to point out what I think is a slight misconception behind it. You say that most analysis you have seen focuses on the development of pieces, rather than the development of unoccupied spaces. But when one focuses on the development of pieces, what does this mean? In particular, what is the overall goal behind the development of one's pieces in the first place?

There are of course many facets to this, but one (very) rough way to put it is to say that a proper development of the pieces is just one that helps the player to gain as much control as possible of the board, or the "unoccupied spaces" as you phrase it in your question. So, long answer short, I think that your proposed two ways of analyzing game play are really just one. But I also think that your question points to a potentially very useful, guiding way of thinking about piece development.

One classic source that could plausibly be seen as particularly emphasizing this line of thought is the work of Aron Nimzowitsch (e.g. My System, Blockade and Chess Praxis), where he stresses in a pretty unified way the importance of restraining an opponent's play by developing one's pieces so as to control the center, overprotect important squares, blockade opposing pawns by plopping pieces down on appropriate unoccupied squares, etc.

Of course, one shouldn't take ideas like overprotection of key squares too far, as illustrated by Hans Kmoch's classic parody game composition Nimzowitsch vs. Systemsson (follow the link for Kmoch's crucial Nimzo-style annotations to the game):

[fen ""]
[Event "Composition"]
[Site "Copenhagen"]
[Date "1927.??.??"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Aron Nimzowitsch"]
[Black "Systemsson"]
[ECO "C00"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "48"]

1.e4 {AN INGENIOUS EXAMPLE OF MY SYSTEM by Aaron Nimzowitsch -
Anderssen started the sacrificial style, Morphy and Gruenfeld
the pure attacking style, Steinitz the positional style,
Tarrasch the scientific style, Lasker the style of styles,
Capablanca the mechanical style, Alekhine a style as brilliant
as sunlight. But it is a generally known fact that originality
and modernism were introduced by me as my own personal
inventions and enthusiastically imitated (without being fully
understood) by the whole world of chess. For the ridiculously
small sum of ten marks, the reader can confirm all this in my
monumental work, My System, published by B. Kagan. Before my
time, chess was so naive and undistinguished! One or two
brutal opening moves, each one involving a vulgar, obvious
threat, a common, banal sacrifice, a painfully elementary,
bestially raw checkmate - such, more or less, was the course
of chess games before my heyday set in. Then I appeared on the
scene and the chess world paid heed. The hegemony of matter
was shattered at a stroke and the era of the spiritual
began. Under my creative guidance, the chessmen, hitherto
nothing but highwaymen, pirates and butcher boys, became
sensitive artists and subtle instruments of immeasurable
profundity. But why waste words!--accompany me, dear reader to
the dizzy heights of the following game.} e6 2.h4 $1 {My very
oldest and latest thought in this opening. To the chess addict
nurtured on spineless convention, this move comes like a slap
in the face--but calm down, dear reader; after all, you cannot
be expected to understand such moves. (Forgive me - it is not
your fault, until now no one has opened your eyes and ears.)
Wait just a little while, and there will pass before you a
miracle of overprotection of more than earthly beauty. (I
assume that I rightly surmise that you are quite familiar with
my great theory of overprotection.)} 2...d5 { Black of course
has no suspicion of What is coming and continues serenely in
classical style. } 3.e5 $1 {A move of elemental delicacy. (We
detest, as a matter of principle, such words as "power" and
"strength"; in the first place, such banal expressions make us
uncomfortable; and, in the second place, we like even less the
brutalizing tendency which such words imply.) Wherein lies the
beauty of 3.e5? Why is this move so strong? The answer is as
simple as it is astonishing. The move is strong because it is
weak! Weak, that is, only in the traditional sense! In
reality, that is to say, it is not the move but the Pawn on e5
that is weak--a tremendous difference! In former times, it is
true, it was customary to reject any move which created a
weakness. Today, thanks to me, this view is obsolete. For,
look, my dear reader, the fact that the Pawn on e5 is weak
obliges White to protect the Pawn more and more until at last
the state of overprotection arises as it were of itself. But,
as we have seen (cf. My System), overprotection is practically
equivalent to victory. Hence it follows automatically that the
"weak" move, 3.e5, is a certain road to triumph. The rest is
more or less a matter of technique. } 3...c5 { All according
to a famous precedent.} 4.d4 {Here it is quite clear that it
is more profitable for White first to provoke c5 and then play
d4, rather than the other way round, which is the customary
course. For, if White first plays d4, there follows c5 and
White's d-pawn is under attack. But my clever transposition of
moves changes the situation completely. For now Black's c-pawn
is suddenly attacked by White's d-pawn!} 4...cxd4 {What else
can Black do?} 5.h5 $1 {All very clever, original and
decisive! Of course the ordinary run of people who envy my
every spark of genius but cannot follow my line of reasoning
for even three paces, outdo themselves in sneering at me with
the poison-dripping epithet, "bizarre." The text move creates
confusion in the whole Black army and prepares for the
annihilating invasion by the Queen 18 moves later.} 5...Qb6
{Naturally not 5...Nc6 6 Bb5! etc. Why should Black play the
French Defence only to allow the Ruy Lopez Bishop move after
all?!} 6.h6 $1 {An avaricious dullard would never hit on this
deeply conceived Pawn sacrifice.} 6...Nxh6 {After 6...gxh6,
White has an even more comfortable game.} 7.Qh5 $1 {The reason
for this becomes clear after next move.} 7...g6 {Black
threatens to begin a successful siege of the weakling at e5
with Bg7. But White forestalls this.} 8.Qh2 $1 {To every
fair-minded observer, this move must come as a revelation! All
the previous manoeuvres now become clear! White has completed
his development brilliantly and proceeds to overprotect
e5. Against this, Black is helpless.} 8...Nf5 9.Bd3 {Note the
splendid cooperation of White's forces: while the e-pawn and
the King Bishop completely blockade Black's position, the
development of the overprotective forces takes place behind
the broad backs of these sturdy blockaders.} 9...Nc6 10.Nf3
{As a rule this is a routine move. But here it is strikingly
original and as such occupies a place in the treasury of my
intellectual property.} 10...h5 {Old stuff!} 11.b3 {A deep
trap, as will soon become apparent!} 11...Bg7 {How Black must
have rejoiced when he anticipated his formidable opponent in
the occupation of the long diagonal. But...} 12.Bf4 $1 {...how
bitterly disappointed he must have been to realize that 11.b3
had only been a trap and Bb2 had not been intended at all. The
position of Black's Bishop at g7 is now quite
pointless. 11...Be7 would have been relatively better.}
12...Bd7 13.Nbd2 Rc8 {Black no longer has any good moves!}
14.Ke2 $1 {Again, an extraordinarily deep move. White sees
through Black's plans, and in addition he prepares a
particularly powerful continuation of his strategy of
overprotection.} 14...Nb4 {Just what White was waiting for.}
15.Ne1 $1 {This was the point of his previous move! Black is
now forced to exchange off the attacking Bishop at d3. But,
with that, even White's King Knight enters the fray with
fearful effect at d3, while the square f3 becomes available to
the Queen Knight. Surely a grandiose piece of strategy. The
fact is that I'm a marvellous player, even if the whole chess
world bursts with envy.} 15...Nxd3 16.Nxd3 $1 {Naturally not
16 cxd3? which would have been quite inconsistent. The Pawn on
c2 is unimportant, and Black only wastes precious time by
capturing it.} 16...Rxc2 17.Rae1 $1 {White continues his
overprotection without much ado.} 17...a5 {This counterattack
has no punch. Black would naturally like to get a passed Pawn
plus a Rook on the seventh, but it is too late for that.}
18.Kd1 $1 {Now the menaced Rook must scurry back, for capture
on a2 would be much too dangerous.} 18...Rc6 $1 {At last,
Black gets the right idea: overprotecting his Pawn at e6. But
it is already too late.} 19.Re2 Ke7 {Introduced into
tournament play by myself. See note to White's 14th move. The
King overprotects e6.} 20.Rhe1 Re8 $1 21.Nf3 $1 {Completing
the overprotection of e5 and thus deciding the fate of the
game. Black has no defence. Note the aesthetic effect created
by White's position.} 21...Bf8 {Now Black threatens to
complete the overprotection of e6 by playing Ng7. But White
has prepared a brilliant combination.} 22.g4 $1 {Much stronger
than the obvious Bg5+ etc.} 22...hxg4 23.Qh7 $1 {Now one
clearly realizes the masterly understanding of position which
went into White's eighth move (Qh2!).} 23...gxf3 {Had Black
continued overprotecting by 23...Ng7 there would have followed
24.Bg5+ f6 25.Bxf6+ Kf7 26.Ng5 mate. Black's basic error was
that he started overprotecting much too late.} 24.Bg5# {One of
my best games! I am proud of it if only because Herr
Systemsson is one of the strongest Scandinavian players. The
game made an overwhelming impression on the players and
spectators as well as on my opponent. The game has become
famous in Denmark as "the immortal overprotection game."} 1-0

Despite Kmoch's humorous exaggeration of Nimzowitsch's ideas about overprotection, a very recent top-level game brought Kmoch's parody to mind; namely, it was Caruana's destruction of Topalov during his unbelievable winning streak at the ongoing Sinquefield Cup 2014. In particular, if we compare the position after "Nimzowitsch's" move 21 above with that after Caruana's move 22 below, we see that Caruana has a similar array of forces buttressing the e5 pawn that clamps down on Topalov's position (though not the extreme-to-the-point-of-silliness buildup of every single piece directly supporting it).

[fen ""]
[Event "Sinquefield Cup"]
[Site "Saint Louis USA"]
[Date "2014.09.02"]
[EventDate "2014.08.27"]
[Round "6"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Fabiano Caruana"]
[Black "Veselin Topalov"]
[ECO "B46"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "61"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Nxc6 bxc6
7.Bd3 d5 8.O-O Nf6 9.Re1 Be7 10.e5 Nd7 11.Qg4 Kf8 12.Na4 Qa5
13.Re2 h5 14.Qf4 g5 15.Bd2 Qc7 16.Qg3 h4 17.Qg4 Rg8 18.Rae1 c5
19.c4 dxc4 20.Bxc4 Bb7 21.h3 Rd8 22.Bc3 Nb8 23.Re3! Nc6? 24.Bxe6!
fxe6 25.Rf3+ Ke8 (25...Kg7 26.Qh5 Rdf8 27.Rf6! Rxf6 (27...Bxf6 28.exf6+ Rxf6 29.Rxe6 Nd4 30.Qxg5+) 28.exf6+ Bxf6 29.Qxg5+ Kf8 30.Qxf6+ Qf7 31.Qh6+ Ke8 32.Nxc5) 26.Qxe6 Rg7 27.Qh6 Nd4 28.e6 Nxf3+ 29.gxf3
Bf8 30.Qh5+ Ke7 31.Bxg7 1-0

After Caruana's 22nd move, Topalov has no good way to create counterplay via a pawn break, because if the e5 pawn were to capture on f6, the power of his supporting pieces would be unleashed (as can be seen in the 25...Kg7 lines given above; 25...Kg7 was Topalov's original intent before he found the 27.Rf6! reply in his analysis). Because of that fact, Topalov's only productive try is to reroute his knight to d4; but he overlooked that 23.Re3! makes 23...Nc6? tactically unworkable.


Free, simple chess program for beginners

Download Babaschess, sign up for the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) and start playing unrated games against real people. :)


Regarding your questions:

2+1 hours is a big difference to 30-0, which is basically rapid chess. With 30-0 you'd rarely think at a move more than a minute or so. At your level this should be enough to avoid obvious blunders, but the longer time control allows you to invest say 10-30 minutes or so at a complicated position in order to really delve into the position and to calculate longer forced lines or develop long term plans. Might be worth playing some games at the longer time control prior to the tournament.

I'd ask questions 2 or 3 to the organizer unless it is specifically stated in the tournament regulations.

USCF membership seems to be required. It says, New memberships/renewals available at site. so that should not be a problem.

Too many unknowns to say how you will perform.


Answering slow Sicilian set up (including Bc4) as Black

I don't think that 3.Bc4 is so bad that Black should get an advantage. I believe that Adams played it several times with decent results, and it's not the worst way to avoid deep theory. But Black has easy equality.
You can play ..a6 (to which he will usually play a4) and ..e6. What then is that Bishop doing? Having played against it once or twice I agree that it's boring but there is not much you can do about it.


As others have said, UCI is the API you want.  The full specifications of the protocol is here (the zip file extracts to a text file): http://download.shredderchess.com/div/uci.zip

It's actually very straight forward and simple, a UCI engine must respond to and reply in plain text through stdin, stdout and stderr.  In fact, you should be able to launch the executable binary of any UCI engine on your platform and issue the UCI commands manually.

UCI facilitates instructions from a GUI or other engine to tell the specific engine to do whatever it is that you want it to do, including analyse a specific PGN file (the loading of it is through the GUI or similar front-end, the raw moves are then fed to the engine in extended algebraic form, such as e4 becoming e2e4).  The second and third points of your requirements are standard with UCI, but it is up to each engine developer to support them (given how lean those requirements are, that should be most of them).

Here's an example of UCI in action on the command line:

bash-3.2$ ./stockfish-5-64
Stockfish 5 64 by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski
uci
id name Stockfish 5 64
id author Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba and Joona Kiiski

option name Write Debug Log type check default false
option name Write Search Log type check default false
option name Search Log Filename type string default SearchLog.txt
option name Book File type string default book.bin
option name Best Book Move type check default false
option name Contempt Factor type spin default 0 min -50 max 50
option name Mobility (Midgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200
option name Mobility (Endgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200
option name Pawn Structure (Midgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200
option name Pawn Structure (Endgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200
option name Passed Pawns (Midgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200
option name Passed Pawns (Endgame) type spin default 100 min 0 max 200
option name Space type spin default 100 min 0 max 200
option name Aggressiveness type spin default 100 min 0 max 200
option name Cowardice type spin default 100 min 0 max 200
option name Min Split Depth type spin default 0 min 0 max 12
option name Threads type spin default 1 min 1 max 128
option name Hash type spin default 32 min 1 max 16384
option name Clear Hash type button
option name Ponder type check default true
option name OwnBook type check default false
option name MultiPV type spin default 1 min 1 max 500
option name Skill Level type spin default 20 min 0 max 20
option name Emergency Move Horizon type spin default 40 min 0 max 50
option name Emergency Base Time type spin default 60 min 0 max 30000
option name Emergency Move Time type spin default 30 min 0 max 5000
option name Minimum Thinking Time type spin default 20 min 0 max 5000
option name Slow Mover type spin default 80 min 10 max 1000
option name UCI_Chess960 type check default false
uciok
isready
readyok
quit
bash-3.2$

The commands I issued were uci, isready and quit.

To utilise the UCI commands you essentially have two main choices; you can use an existing interface (e.g. ChessX, Arena and a host of others) or you can write your own code to issue instructions to an engine or group of engines.  I believe there may already be Python wrappers for accessing UCI engines, but I'd need to double-check.  There's definitely python-chess (import chess) and pychess (import pychess), I just can't recall the extent of their functions.  I can't recall where pychess is lurking (probably github or google code), but python-chess can be installed with pip.


Did Maria Teresa Mora Iturralde beat Capablanca 2.5-0.5?

I have looked at sources in Spanish (mainly Cuban) and most of them purport the same story (similar to that presented in the question) copied and pasted. However, a couple of sources present a somewhat different story.
An article in the journal Tribuna de La Habana says (my translation):

With humility and pride she always kept in her memory the two victories and one draw she obtained against her virtuous teacher, José Raúl Capablanca. They say that, when asked about it, with shiny eyes she accepted to acknowledge those meritorious results, although she then explained to the inquirers that they had been possible during simultaneous games.

Another article, in the cultural magazine La Jiribilla, mentions the story of the comment "Such a pity, I won!" But according to it, this didn't occur after wining Capablanca, but during a team tournament in 1960. I translated the relevant part of the article. The story was told by GM Silvino García:

"I remember the First National Championship between State Organisms —Silvino said,— a team tournament that was played in 1960, when I was making my first steps.
"María Teresa defended the first board of the Ministry of Education, where she worked, and had in front of her one of the strongest chess players in the country at the moment.
"She played a brilliant game, till she obtained the victory.
"Her opponent blushed, a bit because of tension, a bit for having lost against a woman. In accordance to the tradition, he congratulated her and then María Teresa, with that simplicity of hers, said to him in a low voice: Oh, such a pity, how I won you!"

EDIT
One of the games was won by María Teresa during an exhibition given by Capablanca against 28 players at the Institute of secondary Education of La Habana on May 3rd 1941.
[FEN ""]
[Event "Simultánea Havana, Cuba"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1941.05.03"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Capablanca, Jose Raul"]
[Black "Mora, María Teresa"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C25"]
[PlyCount "88"]
[WhiteElo ""]
[BlackElo ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 exf4 4. Nf3 d6 5. d4 g5 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. O-O Bg7 8. d5
Ne5 9. Bxd7+ Nxd7 10. Nd4 Ne7 11. g3 Ng6 12. Nf5 Be5 13. Qh5 Nc5 14. Bd2 Qf6 15.
Rae1 O-O-O 16. Nh6 Kb8 17. h4 gxh4 18. gxf4 Bd4+ 19. Kh2 Rde8 20. f5 Qe5+ 21.
Kh1 Qg3 22. Rf3 Nf4 23. Qg4 Qxg4 24. Nxg4 Nh5 25. Kg2 Ng3 26. Rf4 Rhg8 27. Kh3
Bxc3 28. Bxc3 Rxe4 29. Rexe4 Ngxe4 30. Kxh4 Nxc3 31. bxc3 Kc8 32. Kh5 Kd8 33. c4
Nd7 34. Nh6 Rg7 35. Rf3 Ke7 36. a4 Nf6+ 37. Kh4 Rg2 38. a5 Rh2+ 39. Kg5 Rh5+ 40.
Kf4 Rxh6 41. Re3+ Kf8 42. Kg5 Kg7 43. Re7 Rh5+ 44. Kf4 Rh4+ 0-1


Is it a good habit for an amateur to always try to play the best move (according to his best calculation and knowledge)?

This is a complicated question since chess is very complicated, and both board, and time, factors may be part of a decision.

Overall, yes, you should always play the best move probably 99% of the time. If there is a second alternative, but it is not much worse, and you think that your opponent might get caught up somehow, you can consider it. If it is genuinely just bad, then no, avoid it.

Recently, in a game, I was playing someone well below me, and I played a move that sacrificed two pawns, but I played it knowing it was incredibly dangerous, and that he did not have enough time to figure it out. Well, my reasoning was sound until the tournament director walked by, and realized that the increment was set wrong, and was going to add time. My opponent, graciously, offered a draw, which was accepted.

There is one more case that I can think of, and that is if you know the style of your opponent. Let's say he is known not to defend well, and you have the choice between a positional move, and an attacking, but maybe not sound, move. If you are a good attacker, then it might be worth it given his known weaknesses.

Those first openings that you listed are not really inferior, but rather, might not give as much opportunity for an opening advantage, especially the King's Gambit. That is mitigated at lower levels, where opening theory is not memorized as deeply. The QGA is a bit more dangerous as it, generally, does cede a definite slight plus to white.

So situational chess is a thing, but do not go overboard playing horrible moves that can bite you. Also, everything is out the window if you are significantly worse: In that case, do whatever you can to complicate the position, and make it tricky for your opponent.

As far as improving one's strength, and game-situation aside, yes, you should always try to find the best move.


Establish Rating System for My Community

It is better to look at every game. Only looking at tournament performances causes you to lose some important information.

Should a 4 round tournament count the same as a 9 round tournament? Under your system, they count the same. That doesn't seem right.

I had a tournament recently where I won against 3 low-rated players and drew against a player rated over 2000. My performance rating was 2041. But there's a difference between a 2041 performance done this way, and a 2041 performance achieved by scoring 2/4 against players rated over 2000.

It's worse when a player wins (or loses) every game in a tournament. Are you going to make a player's rating go down after they win every game, if their opponents were too weak and thus the performance rating for that tournament was low? That doesn't seem fair.

Also, what happens during the next rating period? How do you account for the fact that the player already has a rating? Are you averaging in the old rating? But if a player with a well established rating plays in one tournament in a period, simply averaging the old rating and the one new tournament seems to put too much weight on the one new tournament.


The 2003 game Kasparov-Deep Junior ) was a draw by repetition. Deep Junior played a bishop sacrifice on h2 and then forced the draw by repetition.
[Title "Garry Kasparov-Deep Junior, FIDE Man-Machine WC, New York New York USA, 1/26/2003"]
[FEN ""]
[startply "19"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d5 6. cxd5 exd5 7. Nge2 Re8 8. O-O Bd6 9. a3 c6 10. Qc2 Bxh2+ 11. Kxh2 Ng4+ 12. Kg3 Qg5 13. f4 Qh5 14. Bd2 Qh2+ 15. Kf3 Qh4 16. Bxh7+ Kh8 17. Ng3 Nh2+ 18. Kf2 Ng4+ 19. Kf3 Nh2+


Is a rook ending where the winning side has a passed g and d pawns drawn?

By definition if there's a "winning side" and a "losing side" then
the question is already answered :-)

But seriously, if you just want K+R+P(d)+P(g) vs. K+R, that's within
database range, so you can explore for yourself
here.
In general such positions are easy wins (note that the defending
King can "always" be cut off from one pawn or the other by a
Rook move to e or f), though naturally there are some initial positions
where one pawn is lost tactically to leave a draw, and there can even
be "accidents" such as this:

6r1/8/7k/8/3P1KP1/8/8/4R3 w - - 0 0

1. Kf5?? Rf8+ 0-1


What should my plans be in a Carlsbad pawn structure?

In general, a good plan in these situations is to then advance in the centre (either with ...f6-...e5 or just ...e5). When the position opens up, White will have a clear weakness on c3, which could be even more vulnerable than your d5-pawn. In addition, if you exchange off the d4-pawn with ...e5, White's control over the c5-square becomes weakened. However, your grip over c4 remains strong.


Do symmetric positions have a higher draw ratio?

Very good question, +1 from me.

  Is it true that asymmetric leads to win or lose and symmetric leads to draw?

It is not true that symmetric positions lead to a draw, and asymmetric ones to winning.

EXPLANATION:

Many people consider the Exchange variation of the Slav defense as drawn, but you will find that top grandmasters disagree.

In a symmetric position White has a small initiative or pressure, because he moves first.

The reason this gives drawn games is because even if White manages to make some advantage, it is usually small and it pins Black to defense "but that is all". Without a second weakness White can not win, and with proper defense he usually can not create it.

However, try to play symmetric position as Black against a stronger opponent and you will see just how hard it is to draw. The advantage of having permanent ( although small ) initiative or pressure counts a lot, and I am telling you this from my experience.

Although I do not play against humans that often, I regularly play against Shredder in my spare time.

I always set the difficulty to hard and I always get "ground down" in the Exchanged Slav or in other semi-symmetrical positions-like 1.e4 e5.

I usually have an easier time drawing in asymmetrical positions, since the imbalance of strengths/weaknesses gives strong counter-play for both sides.

In the Queen's Gambit Declined-Exchange variation I usually draw way easier, although I do not know much of its theory.

The difference between symmetrical and asymmetrical positions is this:

In symmetric ones you have a small but permanent advantage as White. That means that you can win, draw or lose, while Black usually can only draw or lose. Here White needs to make an effort to outplay his opponent or else it will end as a draw. Hence in these positions a truly better player wins ( Black's position is harder to play, though).

In asymmetric positions both sides have strong counter-play so in these positions chances tend to be more equal. These positions are better for Black because you will have counter-play from the start while in the symmetric positions you will have to work very hard just to generate it-how many times did we all have "a won game" only to lose it because our opponent was "lucky to have that one saving tactical shot"?

Because asymmetric positions give greater chances for both sides to win you see them being more popular then symmetric ones. Also, they require less studying.

What I have noticed in the games of Karpov, Petrosian, Capablanca and many others is that they use simple positions that are objectively equal to outplay their opponents.

Symmetric positions can serve great for this-your opponent thinks that it is a draw, but believe me when I say this, that extra tempo in the hands of the stronger and more creative player does count and can solve the game! I use this method too, and this method was used on me, so I speak from my experience.

Other players like Alekhin, Kasparov, Tal and so on, did not care for giving their opponents strong counter-play because they relied on their fantastic calculation strength.

Objectively speaking, if both play well, the game must end in a draw. It is a matter of choice how someone will fight for the win.

I prefer symmetric positions as White, since I am good at endgame and positional play, so to have a small but lasting advantage is enough for me. I will use my creativity to complicate the game and generate winning chances. These positions require a lot of creative work and high technique for both sides to be able to play them well.

As Black, I always play asymmetric lines because of the reasons given above ( believe me, it is not so easy to draw against Shredder relying on "sheer" strength even if the position is drawn! ). These positions require a strong calculating skill from a player and crafty use of tempo.

Hopefully this answer sheds some light and gives you some insight about strength / weaknesses of both types of positions.

EDIT IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENT FROM MEMBER SalvadorDali:

  Also sentence like asymmetric positions require less time to study sounds really strange.

The beauty of the asymmetric position is the strength of the counter-play you get and how little energy and time it requires to find a plan.

Let us compare two similar openings from Black's point of view-QGD and Slav-but let us focus on Exchange variations.

[fen "r1bqrnk1/pp2bppp/2p2n2/3p2B1/3P4/2NBPN2/PPQ2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1"]

In QGD it is easier to find a plan as Black-knight jump on e4, a6 or a5 pawn push vs minority attack or c4 outpost, "Petrosian knight", king-side piece attack and so on-you can think of a plan "right off the bat". Same goes for White-Nge2 plan, minority attack and so on. All this happens due to asymmetry. The counter-play is strong for both-if Black succeeds White loses, and same happens if White succeeds in carrying his plan out. Furthermore, you have limited amount of ideas to study.

[fen "2r3k1/1prbbppp/pqn1pn2/3p4/3P4/P1NBPN2/1PRBQPPP/2R3K1 w - - 0 1"]

Now think about the Exchange Slav from Black's and White's point of view-can you offer a plan the same way? No you can not. This means that White will have to invest a lot of work to think of a plan that will give him more than a draw and that is not so easy to do in a nearly equal position. All you have here is an advantage of the first move which is enough for a small but lasting initiative but not for a win. However, in equal positions it is the strength and creativity of the both players that counts the most. One of the tries for White is to double rooks on the c-file and then enter voluntarily into IQP position.

[fen "2r3k1/1prbbp1p/pqn1p1p1/8/3PQ3/P2B1N2/1PRB1PPP/2R3K1 w - - 0 1"]

This will make an endgame weakness but due to his slight initiative, and now space advantage, he will retain some chances to win. Again, he will need to be creative to be able to win so he nigh decide to "equalize the position" by opening the center thus transforming the position into open one, where he will have slight mobility advantage.
Still, that is just an initiative-Black can still defend- so White will have to transpose into a better endgame but that requires a lot more knowledge-especially since the position is equal-so the art of properly exchanging pieces will be crucial here. Let us say that White somehow manages to enter knight vs white bishop endgame-since the center is open and pawns are not fixed it will be hard for him to win.

[fen "6k1/1p1b1p1p/p5p1/8/8/5N2/PP3PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1"]

He will again have to invest so much work in order to create winning chances, and will have to show inhuman technique so he can convert that advantage.

As for Black, he must adapt to White's action, and if White is creative player, that means you need a lot of knowledge as well to parry his threats. And what about generating counter-play that gives you equal winning chances in the above diagram? Good luck with that! In symmetric positions it is only White who can win.

What if I am 2550 ELO player with Black who plays against 2300 ELO White? If White knows his stuff he can draw easily-that is why GMs play the e6 move order instead of c6-QGD Exchange offers much easier play for a win. Think about the example for White I have described above, and tell me how would you generate winning chances? You will need an enormous amount of effort just to think of a plan, and high technique to carry it out. Not to mention the endgame technique required to outplay your opponent and convert the advantage. Same question for Black-how would you generate winning chances?

In symmetric positions-not only openings but middle and early endgames-you need a lot more work to generate tangible attack/counter-attack because everything is equal. You do not have a clear plan "right off the bat" and when you find one it is not as dangerous as it would be in the asymmetric position.

That still does not mean that I should settle with a draw. But to win in such positions you need to have every aspect of your game at a high level because you never know where will you get the chance to outplay the opponent-in the middle game or endgame or maybe opening-and even when you get that chance you still get an advantage you must "grind down" and that also requires high level of technique.

In asymmetric positions you have it so much easier-you do not need every aspect of your game to be at the high level ( this is especially true for the endgame! ) to be able to outplay your opponent. You only need high tactical skill and good knowledge of the typical plans ( minority attack, knight jump to e4 and so on... ) and you are good to go.

This brings me to the second part of your comment:

  Can you please clarify your experience a little bit deeper, I can understand such phrase from a GM, but sorry for my skepticism - but playing against computer program does tell nothing about your knowledge.

Although not so clear, I assume you think of this sentence:

Many people consider the Exchange variation of the Slav defense as drawn, but you will find that top grandmasters disagree.

Again, look at the example diagram for Exchange Semi-Slav and you shall see that only White can win. White has advantage of first move here and that really counts as he can unbalance the position first. He can change the position into Isolated Queen's Pawn or he can completely open the center.

Black can only sit and wait. Although he is not weaker, he is passive and although computers have no problem drawing this position it is extremely hard for a human to just "soak up" punch after punch just to draw-come on Rocky Balboa at least won at the end! :)

That is why GMs tried to introduce an early Qb6 with Black in order to unbalance the position and get some counter-play or at least to get real winning chances after their positional suffering ends-the idea is to snatch a pawn on b2 and "suffer" until the endgame comes. Some abandoned the c6 move order completely and enter Semi-Slav this way:

[fen ""]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6!? 3.Nc3 c6

The point of this move order is to enter the QGD exchange variation instead of Slav exchange if White exchanges on d5.

I do not recall exactly the line in the Slav-I belong to those who abandoned the c6 move order and play e6 but here is the idea with Qb6:

[fen "rnb1kb1r/pp3ppp/1q2pn2/3p4/3P1B2/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2QKB1R w KQkq - 0 1"]

If you have additional questions leave a comment.

Best regards.


Professor Mark Watkins announced he had found the solution to Losing Chess in October 2016. Regardless of what Black plays, White can force a win beginning with 1. e3.


Planning to play the Old Indian (Be7 for black) against the London System has no bite since white can control e5 more easily. The Be7 does not aim at e5, of course, but as important, it inhibits Re8, and its control of e5 also. So minus two pieces helping play e5, and you are not likely to get that freeing move in. You would also have to play (after d6) e6 since e5 loses a pawn to any reasonable white development, Be7, and only then, figure out how to enforce e5 gaining some space in the center. In reality, you would probably have to play for c5 instead.

As a defense against the London System, the King's Indian (g6 and Bg7) is much more logical since the Bg7 can help fight for control of e5, and the Re8 immediately helps too with a potential e5. In those lines, white usually plays Bf4, but then h3, and Bh2 to anticipate black's eventual e5.


Right click on the window where moves are displayed -> show/display -> click on comments.
Now the engine output should be disabled.


Attacking a piece is often not very useful: the piece does not feel any pressure but just moves away. A pawn won't escape so easily, so attacking a pawn forces the opponent's pieces to defend it and thus limits their freedom. There are a few possible gains of an attack on a pawn: the opponent cannot get enough pieces to defend the pawn so you immediately win the pawn, or his pieces are so badly placed defending the pawn that you can gain advantage on another part of the board, or the pawn has to move and leave weak squares on both sides of it because it cannot ever again protect the squares that it attacked a move ago.


Did Anand have a forced win at any point in Game 9 of the 2013 Anand-Carlsen world champhionship match?

The game was ambiguous until move 28, there is no clear way to win but as you mentioned white has the attacking form.

Let see the game from move 18.e5

2bqnrk1/5ppp/r7/pp1p2P1/2pPP3/P1P2PN1/R5BP/2Q2RK1 w - - 1 18

White is attacking on king's side as Kasparov mentioned he could play 18.Rb2 to avoid black to make a passed pawn and keep pressure in both king and queen sides. But white decided to complicate the game.

Another move which leads many people criticize Anand was move 20.axb4

2bq1rk1/2n2ppp/r7/p2pP1P1/1ppP1P2/P1P3N1/R5BP/2Q2RK1 w - - 0 20

1.f5 b3 2.Raf2

Some GMs and also engines prefer to push the pawn to f5 and continue attacking just in king's side. White's 20.axb4 made a passed pawn for black on square b3 (two moves to promote) and black got counter play.

Before move 28 white had attacking chances and a draw at least. But white made a blunder 28.Nf1??, if 28.Bf1 was played, then the game can continue in this way:

2bqnrk1/5p1p/5PpQ/3pP1P1/2pP1R2/2P3N1/6BP/1q4K1 w - - 1 28

1. Bf1 Qd1 2. Rh4 Qh5 3. Nxh5 gxh5 4. Rxh5 Bf5

The game is almost a draw with some minor advantages for black. It's ambiguous.

But white played 28.Nf1?? and black put his queen on e1 to capture the white's rook on h4 -- a big material advantage for black.


I see two things you can consider:

trying to learn how to control your stress.
playing many faster games to get used to play and think more quickly (if you often play games with 15 minutes per side, try to play games with 10 minutes per side).

Therefore you most probably won't often be in this situation anymore.


Is it possible to play multiple games with Stockfish simultaneously?

In Chessbase you can have Stockfish analyzing/playing in multiple boards. It's definitely possible to do this, but it slows Stockfish down since it's being overworked. So it'll take longer to search ahead in each game.


How has the frequency of FIDE rating lists changed over the years?

The period before 2001 is documented on the Olimpbase site. The period from 2001 on is documented on the FIDE rating site.

To find the details for pre-2001 go to the Olimpbase site and about a third of the way down on the right hand side under "PLAYERS & TEAMS" click on "Elo lists 1971-2001".

To find the details for 2001 and after go to the FIDE rating download site and halfway down click on the dropdown box "Download old files from Archive - Please select your period and press GO".

Both these sites give the possibility to download the lists in zip file format.

Pre-2001

Unofficial lists were published in -
June 1967, April 1968, 1969 (no month given), 1970 (no month given) and January 1971

Official lists were published in July of the following years:
1971, 1972, 1973.

This switched as a one-off to May in 1974 before settling down to full lists published in January in 1975 through to 1980 with the addition of three supplementary lists in July of 1978, 1979 and 1980. These supplementary lists included less than 10% of players.

In 1981 FIDE switched to publishing lists twice a year, in January and July, and this continued from 1981 through to 1999.

This period was also significant for the introduction of a number of new features:

FIDE IDs in 1990, although the first attempt in January 1990 only had
5 digit IDs. This was clearly going to be inadequate and the length
was extended in July 1990.
With the break up of the USSR new federation codes were introduced
for ex Soviet, Yugoslav and Czechoslovak republics.
"Active / Inactive" flags were introduced in July 1992.
The rating floor for men was lowered to 2005 in January 1993.
Ratings stopped being rounded to the nearest 0 or 5 in January 1999.

In 2000 three rating lists were published in January, July and October.

In 2001 the frequency changed to 4 times a year. Lists were published in January, April, July and October from January 2001 up to July 2009.

From September 2009 through to July 2012 lists were published every two months in January, March, May, July, September and November.

In January 2013 they changed to being published monthly through to the current day.

Although it should be noted that the actual download files themselves are updated on an almost daily basis. For instance, I am posting this on 9th September 2019 and that is also the date on the download file. Two days ago the date was 7th September. The information in the two files is almost the same. The differences are minor corrections and additions. The data in the September files is still significantly different from the August files in that the August files reflect data reported in July while the September files reflect data reported in August.


Let's see what FIDE says, Team Captain’s Role in Team Tournaments:

  (a) The role of a team captain is basically an administrative one
  during play. Depending on the regulations of the specific competition,
  the captain shall be required to deliver at a specific time a written
  list naming the players in his team participating in each round, to
  communicate to his players their pairing, to sign the protocol
  indicating the results in the match at the end of the play, etc.

  (b) Whenever the team captain speaks to one of his players, he should
  do so only through or in the presence of an arbiter, using a language
  the arbiter can understand.

  (c) A captain is entitled to advise the players of his team to make or
  accept an offer of a draw or to resign a game, unless the regulations
  of the event stipulate otherwise. He must confine himself only to
  brief information, based solely on the circumstances pertaining to the
  match. He may say to a player, “offer a draw”, “accept the draw”, or
  “resign the game”. For example, if asked by a player whether he should
  accept an offer of a draw, the captain should answer “yes”, “no”, or
  delegate the decision to the player himself. He shall give no
  information to a player concerning the position on the chess board
  and/or the clock times, nor consult any other person and/or computer
  as to the state of the game. The captain shall refrain from any
  intervention during play.

  (d) Players are subject to the same prohibitions. Even though in a
  team competition there is a certain team loyalty, which goes beyond a
  player’s individual game, a game of chess is basically a contest
  between two players. Therefore a player must have the final say over
  the conduct of his own game. Although the advice of the captain should
  weigh heavily with the player, the player is not absolutely compelled
  to accept that advice. Likewise, the captain cannot act on behalf of a
  player and his game without the knowledge and consent of the player.

  (e) A team captain should encourage his team always to follow both the
  letter and the spirit of Article 12 of the FIDE Laws of Chess
  concerning the conduct of the players. Team championships, in
  particular, should be conducted in the spirit of the highest
  sportsmanship.

A player which has highest rating and better knowledge about rules is the best candidate to be a captain.


If a chess board is disturbed, can the game continue?

From the FIDE Laws of Chess, article 7.6:

  If, during a game, it is found that any piece has been displaced from its correct square the position before the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity. The game shall then continue from this reinstated position.

Put into practice:

If the moves are logged, then it's trivial to determine the "last identifiable position" and the game can be resumed as if nothing happened.
If they are not logged (or the two scoresheets differ), the arbiter can attempt to find the "last identifiable position" by asking both players. If they both remember the exact same position, then the game can continue from that position.
If that fails too (because the players don't remember or disagree), there is at least one "last identifiable position" that can always be determined,  the starting position. So yeah, the game is essentially reset in that case.

Article 7.1 applies basically the same rule to the readjustment of the clock, if there is one (with some more wiggle room for the arbiter):

  If an irregularity occurs and the pieces have to be restored to a previous position, the arbiter shall use his best judgement to determine the times to be shown on the chessclock. This includes the right not to change the clock times. He shall also, if necessary, adjust the clock’s move-counter.


Are there still wins by an actual checkmate?

Generally speaking, it's true, high level games don't play out all the way to checkmate. But there are some exceptions, and the most typical scenario that I have seen for this is a game that features, say, a nice, well-conducted attack, perhaps with a pretty mating pattern or particularly nice combination, and the losing player allows mate to show up on the board as a gesture, a congratulatory "hat tip" to a quality piece of work. For example, I believe that was the case in the game Adams - Short (London Chess Classic 2011).

Other than that, there are also the occasional instances where mate occurs during a time scramble. Or even more rarely, a top player might just overlook a mate in one and end up getting checkmated: it can happen to the best of us. Edited to add: Just the other day at the Olympiad in Istanbul, GM Dragan Solak of Turkey had a similar slip-up against Nakamura, overlooking the fact that a pin on his f7 pawn made possible a sort of epaulette mate:


How to make a time-efficient thinking system?

There is some truth in what you say, time management obviously plays a role. I often feel that I can compete with IMs if I have twice the time. (Incidentally in my last game against an IM this theory was put to the test, he spent half of his time smoking and I managed to win the game).

But, if the difference in playing strength between you and your opponent is too big, no amount of thinking time will help you overcome it. Chess is first and foremost a game of understanding and intuition. If you haven't acquired this understanding before the game, no amount of thinking will lead you to conclusions that might just be obvious for a GM.

In that sense playing a game of chess is similar to writing a poem. Say, you and Shakespeare have a sonnet competition going on. He will have ten minutes, you will get ten hours. No amount of thinking will give you his vocabulary and feel for the english language.

There are super GMs who have an atrocious time management (Grischuk comes to mind). So it isn't a factor that totally cripples your chess strength. But, to finally come up with some actual advice:

Be confident.
Avoid perfectionism.

Everything else is experience and common sense. There is no mechanical "algorithm" that is applicable for a human being.
Recommended reading: The seven deadly chess sins, by Jonathan Rowson.


Unless I'm misinterpreting the question, this should be possible:

As soon as the game ends (e.g. "You defeated Magnus!" appears at the bottom, if you win for instance), don't click the arrow at the bottom (this is what I assume is the different screen that comes up) but instead click the list icon in the top right corner. Click "Export game as PGN-File" and the completed game should be copied to the clipboard.


Have endgame tablebases ever been compiled for smaller variants of chess?

Please see http://membres-lig.imag.fr/prost/MiniChessResolution/
Perhaps you should ask contact these people since they have solved Gardner and Mallet Chess and are trying to solve Los Alamos Chess which Prost believed to be a draw.


When should you charge pawns in front of a castled king?

Generally you should play on side where you have advantage in total firepower (P=1, N=3,...). In case of pawn storm in front of your king, the advantage should be bigger than you usually need. You can start easily minority attack with one extra horsie on the queenside, but you should probably not weaken your king seriously when you are just one knight stronger there.

Edit: To make the rule about firepower complete, I would say your king is somewhere around -8 for these calculations while your opponent's around -3. Takes time to get close to him while your king is already weak.

In this position I would play for b4. Good rule is that bishop g2 is very bad kingside attacker!


If I understand well you had a king and a queen, and your opponent a king and a bishop.

It is not a stalemate nor a draw, unless you reach a position like this one, for example:

[fen "8/8/8/8/8/6K1/8/5Qbk b - - 0 1"]

A stalemate occurs whenever the player having the turn has no legal moves and he's not under check.

A draw happens when there's no sequence of legal moves (even if they are absurd ones) than can lead to a checkmate, when the same position is repeated at least three times, or when at least 50 moves have been done without a pawn move or a capture.


Strategy in "double-isolated" Queen-pawn positions?

It will depend on the placement of perhaps mainly the light pieces and the queens. Attacking the enemy d-pawn is definitely an option. Over-protecting your own d-pawn is also an option. Placing a knight on the (for white) e5-forepost is an option.

In general, it is a good idea to have a knight that is ready to grab the enemy d-pawn when given a chance. The reason is because the enemy will try to build pressure on your d-pawn by placing the queen (as black) on b6 or f6. Then, as white, you are ready for e.g. Nc3xd5 hitting the queen.

You can consider placing a bishop (as white) on the h1-a8 diagonal to pressure the enemy d-pawn. Note that when you play Nf3-e5, you lose a defender of your d4-pawn and black can build up on d4.

With the heavy pieces, you should probably invade on the c-file (since the enemy has castled kingside and the c-file is further away from the enemy king than the e-file). You can try to use the c5-forepost to weaken the enemy queenside and invade with a rook on c7 or c6 (also push b2-b4-b5). Then, later, you can place a knight on c6 (given that black has done b7-b6 and made c6 weak).


Could you explain me this part of GM Larry Kaufman's article on "The Evaluation of Material Imbalances"?

Your interpretation of "for each pawn above/short of five" is correct. Unfortunately, "the opposite adjustment" is vague and could mean either of the two things you suggest.

I would guess that it means the first one, so that the value of a knight decreases by 1/16 every time a pawn is captured and the value of a rook increases by 1/8. If that is true, a simpler way of expressing the values would be that a knight is worth 2 15/16 plus pawns/16 and rook is worth 5 5/8 minus pawns/8.  (Which, as you say, isn't very useful in practice.)


I'm sorry if I don't understand your question correctly, but if you don't want to enter moves manually every time to reach a certain position you can simply create a database for all the openings\tabiyas you're interested in and add it to your bookmarks. So, whenever you need some position you open that database via the bookmark you created (it's much faster than going through open dialog box and looking for the file on your hard drive) and copy that position from there.

Btw, you can also download eco.pgn file containing all the known openings here: https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/

Then, if you want to see the names of openings and variations that the file contains in your Game List you need to do the following: open eco.pgn as a text file in a plain text editor of your choice and replace "Opening" with "White" and "Variation" with "Black". While doing so, don't forget to enable "match case" option. That's it.


What does "Precision: White = nn%, Black = nn%" mean in a game broadcast by chessbase.com?

It surely is a measure of the quality of play, the deviation of the game from a "perfect game", as understood by the engine used in the analysis. A perfect move will lose zero units of measure.

I couldn't find a chessbase source, but here it is a similar question on lichess, in which the unit of measure is called a centipawn:

https://lichess.org/qa/103/what-is-average-centipawn-loss

Centipawn loss could also be expressed as percentage, but as your question is about precision, they should be the opposite amount. In your example for white, a precision of 93% equals 7 centipawn loss (7% of inaccuracy).


The action taken depends on the time control.
For standard play (each player has 60 minutes or more for all the moves) the game is cancelled and a new game started.
For rapid and blitz (i.e. each player has less than 60 minutes for all the moves) the game is cancelled and a new game started only if fewer than 10 moves have been made. If 10 or more moves have been made then the game continues with the proviso that the side(s) with misplaced king may not castle.
Note that this will remain the case when the news FIDE Laws come in to effect in July 2017.
Some references from the current (2014 - 2017) FIDE Laws of Chess:

Glossary of terms in the Laws of Chess: standard play: G3. A game where each player’s thinking time is at least 60 minutes.
Article 7.2.a. If during a game it is found that the initial position of the pieces was incorrect, the game shall be cancelled and a new game shall be played.
Appendix A Rapidplay
A.1 A ‘Rapidplay’ game is one where either all the moves must be
completed in a fixed time of more than 10 minutes but less than 60
minutes for each player; or the time allotted plus 60 times any
increment is of more than 10 minutes, but less than 60 minutes for
each player.
A.4 Otherwise [one arbiter supervising more than 3 games or arbiter not recording moves] the following apply:
a. From the initial position, once ten moves have been completed by
each player,
(1) no change can be made to the clock setting, unless the schedule of
the event would be adversely affected.
(2) no claim can be made regarding incorrect set‐up or orientation of
the chessboard. In case of incorrect king placement, castling is not
allowed. In case of incorrect rook placement, castling with this rook
is not allowed.

Appendix B. Blitz
B.1 A ‘blitz’ game’ is one where all the moves must be completed in a fixed time of 10 minutes or less for each player; or the allotted time plus 60 times any increment is 10 minutes or less.
B.4 Otherwise [one arbiter supervising more than 1 game or arbiter not recording moves], play shall be governed by the Rapidplay Laws as in Article A.4.


What is the idea behind 10.h3 in the Scotch Four Knights

Bg4 could be annoying to meet in this position for a few reasons:

It would force white to move the queen to an awkward square, play f3 opening the g1-a7 diagonal or play the passive Ne2.
White would prefer not to trade light squared bishops (with Be2) here as Bc8 is black's worse piece.
Ne2, Qd2 and f3 all allow Bh5 with the idea of Bg6 essentially forcing a trade of black's bad bishop


Why is coffee provided during big chess events when it contains a banned substance?

According to FIDE's Anti-Doping Policy:

  The 2018 WADA Prohibited List and Monitoring Program can be found at:
  http://list.wada-ama.org/
  The most relevant banned substances for chess are:

  • Amphetamines – e.g. Adderall, Ritalin
  • Ephedrine and Methylephedrine – Prohibited by WADA when its
  concentration in urine is greater than 10 micrograms per milliliter
  • Pseudoephedrine is prohibited when its concentration in urine is greater than
  150 micrograms per milliliter
  • Modafinil

  Substances not present on the Prohibited List but represented in the Monitoring
  Program:

  • Caffeine – Included in WADA Monitoring Program and relevant for incompetition testing only. Any urine test reading of less than 12 micrograms per milliliter poses no problem.
  • Codeine – A common ingredient in, for example, preparations used to treat coughs and stomach upsets. Any dosage is highly unlikely to be significant when taken in normal therapeutic quantities.

Note that caffeine is not currently banned. It was banned during the period 1984 - 2004 but was lifted. I'm guessing that sponsorship via advertising from Coca Cola may have been an important factor.


Why white retreats the knight at the beginning of the game?

The opening is called King's Gambit and is usually reached with a slightly different move order after 1.e4 e5 2.f4....

It used to be popular a long time ago (100+ years) for its potential of wild games, but is probably slightly incorrect and not a good choice if your opponent knows what to do.

Arguing with general opening principals is not really meaningful here, because the opening is very concrete/tactical.

After your suggested Ng5 for instance you'd have to be prepared for f6 after which the knight is attacked and will be lost due to lack of retreating squares. White would get 2 pawns for the knight, but that won't be enough.

Retreating the knight, while not ideal, is a better option.


I think the phenomenon that you're describing is due to variability in play at lower levels.  Elo is defined based upon the statistical likelihood that one player will beat the other.

Here is the exact formula to get the expected score for a player (rating = Ra) vs an opponent (rating = Rb):

This means that an 800 player is theoretically as likely to beat a 1000 player as a 2200 player is to beat a 2400 player.

Obviously this is not the case because at the lower levels, there is a much higher variance in the results.  This difference is captured quite well in the Glicko Rating System.  Basically, a player has a rating as well as a ratings deviation (RD) which represents how well established a player's rating is.  So in your case when you were rated 800, most likely you were closer to 1100 or 1200 strength but your rating had not yet caught up to your strength.  It is one of the fundamental flaws in all rating systems that the rating always lags the strength.  If the USCF used the Glicko system, then these early wins would have resulted in a far greater rating jump than actually happened, and your opponent would also have lost fewer points.

So to summarize, while the rating systems are not perfect and your strength will frequently be above your rating, an 800 beating a 1000 and a 2600 beating a 2800 are both equally likely from a purely mathematical standpoint.


Does it make sense for White to play as "Black" when he's lost the initiative?

This is actually quite common behaviour in the Nimzo-Indian defense. Black trades the bishop pair for either an advantageous pawn structure (e.g. in the Hübner variation) or a lead in development (like this game).

In the latter case, a successful strategy for White might be to neutralize Black's lead in development (which corresponds to your "play Black"), exchange some pieces and take advantage of his bishop pair in the late middlegame or the endgame. However, this style of play might not suit everybody.


Why almost nobody plays ...6...b5 in the Lipnitsky Najdorf?

This is a good question, and I'd like to provide you an in-depth analysis but I don't have time right now, so here's a short answer, more to be added later:

Short answer: An immediate b5, before preparing it with e6, allows maneuvers such as Bd5 to be played, and you noticed correctly that here Bxf7+ is not really a threat.

Black should preferably avoid allowing Bd5, when his bishop's still on c8, for the sole reason that the consequent lines seem relatively (bit exaggerating here) forced for black, and the resulting positions are usually about equal but with white being up a few tempi. (and black very much delayed with his castling). I showcase one such line:

[FEN ""]
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 b5 7.Bd5 Ra7 8.Nc6 Nxc6 9.Bxc6+ Bd7 10.Qd4 Rc7 11.Bxd7+ Qxd7 12.a4 Rc4 13.Qd3

I'll try to compile more concrete variations on this, but it should give you an idea as to why one tends to avoid all such undesirable lines.

Moral: with e6 first, one avoids all possible shenanigans that can result from either Bxf7+ in some lines, or Bd5 type of forcing lines.

Addition after comments, in reply to why 7...Nxd5 is not really objectively playable for black:

user2569 has already given you the gist of it, so I'm not going to repeat the same ideas again. Instead I simply decided to play this line as black, vs Stockfish 6, and tryout few seemingly ok-looking variations against it in 5-minute games (so bear with me, these won't comprise the best of the best moves, but they are illustrative). In neither of the lines I could end up with anything close to playable... take the time to go through them yourself, specially since this line seems to be of importance to your repertoire, and make sure to train yourself similarly against the engine, in order to acquaint yourself with the underlying difficulties of black's position after 7...Nxd5.

[Title "8...g6"]
[fen "rnbqkb1r/4pppp/p2p4/1p1P4/3N4/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 8"]

8...g6 9.O-O Bg7 10.Bg5 O-O 11.Re1 Re8 12.a4 b4 13.Ne4 Bb7 14.c4 h6 15.Bf4 Nd7 16.Qd2 Kh7 17.Re3 Qb6 18.Nb3 Nf6 19.Nxf6+ Bxf6 20.Rf3 h5 21.Bg5 Kg7 22.Bxf6+ exf6 23.a5 Qc7

Another attempt, trying to make use of a quick b4 to gain some activity (instead of the slow g6 play):

[Title "8...Nd7"]
[fen "rnbqkb1r/4pppp/p2p4/1p1P4/3N4/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 8"]

8...Nd7 9.a4 b4 10.Nc6 Qc7 11.Nxb4 Qc4 12.Nc6 Ne5 13.Nxe5 dxe5 14.Qh5 Qc7 15.O-O g6 16.Qf3 Bb7 17.Ra3 Bg7 18.Rb3 Rb8 19.Be3 O-O 20.Rd1

A slight variation of the previous line (without Nd7):

[Title "8...b4"]
[fen "rnbqkb1r/4pppp/p2p4/1p1P4/3N4/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 8"]

8...b4 9.Ne4 Bb7 10.c4 bxc3 11.Nxc3 g6 12.O-O Bg7 13.Be3 Nd7 14.Rc1 O-O 15.Nc6 Qe8 16.Qb3 Bxc6 17.dxc6 Nc5 18.Qc4 Rc8 19.b4 Ne6 20.Nd5 Kh8 21.Rfd1

Another just for the sake of illustration, I tried a quick e6 out of plain ignorance:

[Title "8...e6"]
[fen "rnbqkb1r/4pppp/p2p4/1p1P4/3N4/2N5/PPP2PPP/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 0 8"]

8...e6 9.dxe6 Bxe6 10.O-O Be7 11.Nxe6 fxe6 12.Qg4 O-O 13.Qxe6+ Kh8 14.Nd5 Nc6 15.a4

No words are required for this last line...

I strongly encourage you to pick up these lines and train yourself in them, just like I victimized myself playing out these lines as black vs. Stockfish. Let me know if I can further assist you in your analysis.


How to handle the standard Bb4 (or Bg4 / Bg5 / Bb5) pin?

I realize that it's hard to give general guidelines here, since every chess position has unique considerations. Still, any rules of thumb would be appreciated. I would rather be right 80% of the time than fly blind and "flip a coin" on these decisions every game.

If he ignores your pin by castling / moving queen / interposing the bishop, you have 2 options : exchange or keep the bishop.

I would prefer to keep the bishop, but then you need to put pressure on pieces / squares that are connected with the pinned knight. Pressuring the center ( e4 / d4 ) is always good. This way your bishop remains useful even after White breaks the pin.

If you decide to exchange, remember that in endgame, bishop is superior to knight ( my answer to this question is instructive regarding bishop vs knight debate ).

Still, many openings ( like Nimzo-Indian ) are viable even after the exchange of bishop for a knight. Equality is reached by creating swift action by opening the game for the knights. Why? Because knights are better positioned in the early game then bishops since they are centralized in one move. while bishops need lots of maneuvering to get ideal squares.

Furthermore, by exchanging the bishop for a knight, you remove your piece that made 1 move for his piece that made 1 move, but in order to recapture he needs to play with the same piece twice while you get the chance to introduce new piece. This gives you development advantage, so it is logical to open the game.

In short, if you exchange be ready to start swift action. If this is not possible, you must get some compensation ( like better pawn structure, development advantage... ) or else White will favorably position the bishops and open the game with devastating effect.

As for "putting the question" to the bishop, again you can exchange or keep the bishop. If you exchange, then proceed as I have described above. Otherwise you can maintain the pin or reposition the bishop, but the principle is the same as above: if you can pressurize points / pieces connected with his pinned units, maintain the pin ( but always asses the consequences of g4 push! ) otherwise just reposition the bishop to a better square. He did lose a tempo and has weakened himself with h3 so you have time to play twice in the opening with the bishop.

I understand that all this might be abstract, so here are some illustrative diagrams that should help you even further:

[Title "Bishop exchange that speeds up implementation of a plan"]
[fen ""]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.Qc2 O-O 7.e3 c6 8.Bd3 Nbd7 9.Nf3 Re8 10.O-O Nf8 11.h3 Ng6 12.Bxf6 Bxf6 13.b4! a6 14.a4

This example illustrates what to do when opponent breaks the pin -> just stay calm and play in such a way that bishop move becomes useful. Again, as I have said before, the pin usually puts pressure on the center ( here on d5 pawn ), and simply pressuring that point will justify the bishop's position even after the pin is broken. Notice how White got extra move with the exchange to start fast minority attack: without Bxf6 Black's dark square bishop would prevent this move so White would have t play a3 first in order to get b4.

[Title "Putting the question to the bishop"]
[fen ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 ( 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.O-O f6 ( 5...Bg4?! 6.h3! Bh5? 7.g4! Bg6 8.Nxe5 Bxe4 9.Re1 ) 6.d4! exd4 7.Qxd4 ) 4...Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3

Again a good example that shows that you don't have to exchange the bishop just because the pin becomes ineffective. This example requires explanation.

First of all, notice that it is possible to exchange the bishop, and notice how White makes swift action in view of rapid development and opening of the game. Furthermore, notice that White got compensation in view of better pawn structure ( he can create a passed pawn on the kingside, Black can't ) so this will diminish the power of bishops in the endgame. This is the application of the same principle as above.

The sideline with ...Bg4 illustrates well my warning that you must always evaluate consequences of g4 push in such positions. Black had no time to maintain the pin and should have exchanged the bishop.

Now, in the main line White was able to maintain the "pin" because ...b5 push was favorable for him ( b5 pawn is a weakness and White bishop will retreat to a good diagonal ). If you study theory of this line you will see that ...b5 move is forced because the pressure on e5 pawn is strong. Again, this confirms my principle of just putting squares / pieces that are connected with the pinned knight under pressure.

Here is an example that puts everything pretty much together:

[Title "Black applies almost all the above principles to reach a draw"]
[fen ""]

1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.d4 e5 4.Be3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Be2 O-O-O! 7.Nc3 Bb4 8.O-O Bxc3! 9.bxc3 Nf6!? 10.c4 Qe4 11.Bd3 Bxf3! 12.gxf3 Qh4 13.d5 Nd4!? 14.c3 Ne6! 15.dxe6 e4! 16.fxe4 Rxd3 17.Qxd3 Qg4+ 18.Kh1 Qf3+ 1/2-1/2

This example is one of the main lines in the Scandinavian defense, and is taken from the book C.Bauer-Play the Scandinavian ( 2010 ).

First crucial moment is 6.Be2. This is the moment that troubles you, right? Well, look what strongest GMs do here: they put pressure on the squares / pieces that are connected with the pinned knight ( ...O-O-O! ). This example clearly illustrates the connection between the pinned knight and the center, and why it is more important to pressure the center then to rely on a pin that will be short-lived anyway.

Now comes the second momment that illustrates second type of position that troubles you: bishop pins the knight against the king ( 7...Bb4 ). What happened here? White castled, and here we must analyze the position thoroughly so we can understand why 8...Bxc3! was played.

Black could try to move the queen and preserve the bishop, but in this opening everything revolves around development advantage. White has already finished development, has strong influence on the center and will probably force Black to relinquish the bishop pair ( these guys are deadly in open positions like the one in the game ). Black on the other hand needs one more move to finish development, and he needs to maintain the pressure on White center. Moving the queen would loosen the pressure and give White time to start regrouping for an attack. That is why Black decides to exchange the bishop -> he gets extra move so knight on g8 can enter into play, he weakens White's control over center and claims e4 square for himself and gets healthier pawn structure that diminishes power of the bishops in the endgame.

I just wanted to say that you need not fear when opponent ignores your pin by castling / moving the queen or if he breaks it by interposing the bishop -> just keep playing and put pressure on the squares / pieces connected with the pinned knight, or simply exchange and start a swift action.

The last illustrative moment starts with 11....Bxf3! and here we again see the concept of exchanging the bishop to get time for a swift action and to ruin opponent's pawn structure.

Another concept is illustrated, and I have mentioned it earlier, and that is the opening of the game in order to exploit the knight's speed over bishops. Notice how strong and well posted are Black knights, while bishops were not posted on their best squares. Notice how Black got slight initiative after 13...Nd4!?, although it was only good for a draw.

I think that these examples cover all 3 cases that troubled you, in both positions you mentioned so if you have further questions leave a comment.

Hope this helped, best regards!


Does it ever make sense to stall for time?

In the bughouse variant a situation can definitely arise in which it makes sense to stall for time. If I'm facing checkmate next move on my board no matter what I do, then if my partner's opponent has less time on the clock than I do, I should just sit tight and hope that my partner can win on his board before my time runs out. (And if my partner's opponent has more time than I do in that situation, then he should just sit tight as well and force me to either accept mate or flag first.) But I realize you are actually asking about chess proper here, not bughouse.

I can't think of any scenario in which it makes objective sense, in terms of the game play, to stall for time, assuming you are talking about a situation in which: I already know what my next move is going to be (and have no intention of reviewing my decision any further), but I let my clock tick down instead of making my move immediately. But a player might have a psychological reason to stall at times.

In this interview (with accompanying videos in Russian) of grandmaster and noted commentator Sergey Shipov, conducted just recently during the ongoing world championship match, the topic arises as to the amount of time top players like Gelfand, Kramnik and Kasparov spend when making moves in positions that they've already analyzed during their home preparations. (See section "6. Kasparov puts on a show.") Shipov opines:

  For example, when, in Kazan, Gelfand thought for almost 40 minutes about one continuation in that game against Grischuk it later became clear that he’d looked at it all before. [17. Rd1 in game 6 of the candidates' final] ... he was considering some nuances, subtleties. He’d looked at the plan itself, but perhaps he was clarifying some of the concrete details. That depends greatly on the chess player. Kramnik won’t, for example, think for 20 minutes, never mind 40 minutes, about something he’s already looked at. He’ll play quickly. Kasparov, on the other hand, might do that. With Kasparov a position could be absolutely familiar to him but he’d think for 20 minutes, look at it, make various gestures, and it seemed to everyone that Kasparov was creating and coming up with something at the board. In actual fact, however, it was a one-man performance based around the creative process. (My emphasis)

Shipov doesn't indicate exactly what he thinks Kasparov's underlying motivation for this was supposed to be, but he is clearly suggesting that Kasparov wanted either his opponents or his spectators not to be sure when he was in his preparation and when he was extemporizing. So that's one possible answer.