Unusual sequence of opening moves in the Open Ruy Lopez with 6.d4 Be7

I think the first step is to look at the analysis of the first 9 to 10 moves;
It is all pretty standard for the first few moves.

e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6
Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6
O-O Nxe4 6. d4 Be7
Re1 b5
Rxe4 {[#] And now Bb3 would win. C84: Closed Ruy Lopez: Unusual White 6th moves.} d5
Nxe5 Nxe5
Rxe5 {Threatens to win with Bb3. White is better.} bxa4

So looking at the logical developments;
   [FEN ""]
   1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. d4 Be7 7. Re1 b5 8. Rxe4 d5 9. Nxe5 Nxe5 10. Rxe5 bxa4 11. Qe2 c6 12. Bd2 Be6 13. f4 g6 14. Nc3 a3 15. b3 Bd6 16. f5 gxf5 *

11. Qe2 {Adds an extra defender to the e5 rook. Provides a potential battery into blacks territory on the open e-file.} c6 {adds a defender to the isolated d5 pawn.}
12. Bd2 {Unable to develop to g5to target the e7 bishop. Black can easily counter with f6 bother attacking and defending. Idea to develop to Bb4} Be6 {Adds and extra barrier to whites e5 rook and e2 queen. provides additional support for central pawns as well as being supported / supporting the f7 pawn.  This also unpins Be7 which has good
attack opportunities on f6 primarily.}
13. f4 {Adds an additional defender. Can be pushed to harrass Be6} g6
14. Nc3 {Try to capture some lazy material on a4} a3 {White can capture but doesn't want to open up the b file or stack pawns on the a file}
15. b3 Bd6 {Blacks bishop finally back in the game. Threatens capture of the e5 rook}
16. f5 {Stalling move. If black plays Bxe5 white can capture fxe6 which forces black to respond fxe6 followed by Qxd5. Material is largely even} gxf5 *
End Result:
Positions are equal , arguable that white has minor advantage. Considering white had a slightly better position at move 10, and is only down a pawn I believe. Is an interesting
Some Master Games from this position
First Notable game I can see in my Database.
Lasker vs Tarrasch (1916) - https://www.chess.com/games/view/15756559 : In fact theres two games with this exact position from the same year.
More Recent Games;
Caruana vs Carlsen (2018) - https://www.chess.com/games/view/15606031
Nakamura vs Caruana (2019) - https://www.chess.com/games/view/15656519


What is the source of the house-rule 18-moves?

I grew up in Spain and we used a 20 "move rule" instead of 18.

We played exactly as you said, if a player is left with a single king, the other has to mate in 20 moves or less to win the game. However, this "rule" only applied in friendly matches and was never enforced in tournaments. Our coach made us play like this for several reasons:

It promotes critical thinking at an early stage, where you have to look for faster ways to checkmate your opponent than just queening your two remaining pawns and checkmate using the "staircase" method.
It avoids humiliating the opponent, since now promoting all the remaining pawns to minor pieces and playing around with the king is no longer an option. We were around 6 years old, so once you knew you had won  you wanted to enjoy it longer. This kind of demeaning behavior was discouraged.
It avoids elongating the game more than necessary. We trained without clocks, which could make us spend unnecessary time in trivial positions.

This practice then naturally extended to our friendly games, but we were well aware that this was not an official rule and that on tournaments the 50 move rule applied.


In the Classical Variation of the Caro-Kann, what is the most positional, strategic, quiet, slow, closed, boring, dry and solid variation for Black?

You are the author of a series of questions of the type "What is the most boring way to play" and whereas I am fond of positional play as well, I must say that the way the question is formulated is completely wrong. I played the Caro-Kann for years and there is simply no way to avoid an heated battle in some variations, unless you are ready to make a lot of concessions and compromise your game by getting a very passive and unpromising position.
To excel at chess, you must master various types of positions. Avoiding these will stop your progress. You cannot beat regularly stronger players by using positional means only - they will master these positions as well as you do, but are also able to play dynamically.
Look at Petrosian's games, he was able to attack fiercely.


The short answer: because it is the most valuable piece after the king.

The long answer:
For a piece to be trapped two things must happen: you need to threaten to capture it, and you need to make this in a way it can't escape or be protected without loss of material or a positional drawback suck as mate.

For a piece to be protected effectively, the piece attacking it must be more valuable than the piece being attacked, so any piece can attack the queen and if there is a trade the attacker will gain a material advantage. So other pieces can be protected in more ways than the queen.
For a piece to be able to escape, it must be able to move, and it needs a safe square. The queen is the most mobile piece, but moving in straight lines, it can be easily blocked by another piece, and any piece can do this, since a trade would mean material loss for the defending side. So the queen can be blocked in more ways than most pieces. For a square to be safe for the queen, it needs to be free from attacks (except from the opposing queen), again, since any trades that happen after the queen moves to that square will result in material loss. Other pieces can move to squares attacked by stronger pieces, if the defender has another piece protecting that square. So the queen has less safe squares available than most pieces.

That sums it up, but there are MANY exceptions when you take into account the actual position, since a square can be safe if moving to that square uncovers a discovered attack with a mate threat, or many other situations.


Can anyone tell me name of this opening where knight is sacrificed?

As Akavall said correctly, it is the Damiano Defense, and is named after Pedro Damiano (1480–1544).

Since he answered the basic question about the name, I would not normally, but there is an additional part to the question, so I am going to add that 2...f6? is virtually a forced loss, no matter how you play it, and here is the analysis. So, no you cannot take the knight, and save the rook, or worse happens.

 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6 3. Nxe5 fxe5 $2 (3... Qe7 4. Nf3 Qxe4+ 5. Be2 d5 6. O-O {And black is already dead on the e-file. The immediate threat is Bb5+ and Re1 winning the queen. The ugly Ne7 is the best move here.} Ne7) 4. Qh5+ Ke7 (4... g6 5. Qxe5+ Qe7 6. Qxh8 Qxe4+ 7. Kd1 $18) 5. Qxe5+ Kf7 6. Bc4+ d5 (6... Kg6 7. Qf5+ Kh6 8. h4 $1 Qe7 9. d3+ g5 10. hxg5+ Kg7 11. Bd2 d5 12. Bc3+ Nf6 13. gxf6+ {And mates in four.}) 7. Bxd5+ Kg6 8. h4 h6 (8... h5 9. Bxb7 Bd6 10. Qa5 Nc6 11. Bxc6 Rb8) 9. Bxb7 Bd6 (9... Bxb7 10. Qf5#) 10. Qb5 Nf6 11. Bxa8 $18


Python Engines to Beat to Take the Crown

You may claim yourself the World Computer Champion in Python if you beat all of them:

  http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67025


How to play against somebody using the book

The rules set by chess.com and lichess are basically the same (see this and this):

Use of computer programs or chess engines is not allowed for any kind of games. Use of (paper/e-book) opening books and games databases is allowed for correspondence/DailyChess games only.

So you cannot prevent your opponent from using an opening book. If you are uncomfortable with your opponent using help for the opening, there are a few things you can do:

ask them not to use opening books
try to play unrated games where players might be more eager to experiment (i.e. play without opening books)
don't play correspondence games, but longer standard time controls
go for sidelines that are not in the book (though that will not be good for improving your chess)

However IMO, correspondence chess is a special form of chess and the whole point there is that players get plenty of time in order to analyze the game on a board, in order to consult books, or even to use engines in some of the correspondence chess tournaments. Trying to restrict this seems kind of artificial to me. I mean, if you considered correspondence chess as just a regular game with extended time control (i.e. no external help whatsoever allowed), there is not much you gain from say having an hour per move or having a week for a move.


How to handle resignations from unlost positions when learning?

1) Unwarranted resignations happen on occasion even in tournament play, sometimes even in a won position.  If your student does this in an instructional game, it's a teachable moment.  In the present game, you might learn too: saying
"haha, now I get a free rook" during the game is distracting the opponent,
which is against the rules whether or not you in fact do win a free rook;
if you hadn't said that then your student might well have found 30 Ke2 and defended the resulting endgame, rather than resigning out of an abundance of
trust in the teacher.

2) Looks like an inferior endgame for White: material is equal, but Black has a distant passed pawn already supported by the Ra8, and also the Knight, though centralized, may have trouble against the Bishop and the a-pawn.  31...Kf7 seems like a better try than 31...Rc8, but I can't judge whether it's actually winning.


I believe this qualifies as a useful Turton doubling from OTB play:
[Event "Eforie Nord Romgaz op"]
[Date "2007.08.09"]
[White "Berescu, Alin"]
[Black "Filip, Lucian"]
[WhiteElo "2511"]
[BlackElo "2400"]
[FEN "6k1/p2b1rpp/qn2Rp1b/2BP1P1Q/1P1R3P/8/P5P1/7K w - - 0 38"]

1. Re1 Qxa2 2. Rde4 Qa4 3. Re7
Rf8 4. R7e4 Rf7 5. Rg4 Qc2 6. Qxh6 Qxf5 7. Qf4 Qxf4 8. Rxf4 Nxd5 9. Rd4
Nc7 10. Red1 Be8 11. Rd8 1-0

Black was threatening 1... Qf1+, so there was no time for 1. Rde4. On the next move however, 2. Rde4 was obviously strong, threatening 3. Re8+ with checkmate to follow. After Black defended against that, 3. Re7 was good enough, although there were other good options at this point, as shown by the game continuation after the repetition.
Trying to save the bishop with 5... Bd2 would have run into another interesting way to double the rooks: 6. Qxf7! followed by Re1-e7xg7 and checkmate in two more moves.


Elo rating of the best player from the 19th century, if he played today?

Ken Regan's research (e.g., Understanding Distributions of Chess Performances - PDF link) suggests that the best players of the 19th century were playing at a level in the 2400-2500 range (see the table on page 9 of that paper).


Why is 5.c4 playable vs. Sicilian Kan, but hardly seen vs. Sicilian Taimanov?

As the knight is already developed on c6, black can immediately create counterplay in the center: 4....Nc6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4.

Clearly, 7.Bd3 (the mainline after 4....a6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4) is not possible now, as black wins a piece by 7....Nxd4.
Instead, white has to defend the pawn on e4 in another way. Both after 7.f3 and 7.Qd3, black has the strong reply 7....d5, after which white has to be careful to maintain equality.

The best move is probably 7.Nxc6, which has been played by several grandmasters. However, this is already a slight concession by white and black should be fine after both 7....bxc6 (e.g. Kramnik-Kasparov, Karjakin-Grischuk) or 7....dxc6 (e.g. Dubov-Radjabov).

Note that the position often arises via the English opening: 1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.e4.

      [StartPly "7"]

      [FEN ""]
      1.e4 (1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.e4) c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 (4...a6 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4 7.Bd3) 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4 7.Nxc6 (7.Bd3 Nxd4)(7.f3 d5)(7.Qd3 d5) bxc6 (7...dxc6)


Can you solve this chess problem of king and pawn against all opposing pieces?

First,

 White takes the single mobile Black piece: 1. Kxe1

Then

 Black can only move their queen back and forth between a1 and a2.

Meanwhile

 the white pawn promotes to a knight, captures the c-pawns and then the b3 rook.

[FEN "8/8/8/2p5/1pp5/brpp4/qpprpK1P/1nkbn3 w - - 0 1"]

1. Kxe1 Qa1 2. h4 Qa2 3. h5 Qa1 4. h6 Qa2 5. h7 Qa1 6. h8=N Qa2 7. Ng6 Qa1 8. Ne5 Qa2 9. Nxc4 Qa1 10. Na5 c4 11. Nxc4 Qa2 12. Na5 Qa1 13. Nxb3#

However,

 Black can also play 10... Qa2 and the knight is unable to lose a tempo. The king is unable as well (because he needs to keep the e2 pawn under control); white's only piece capable of losing a tempo is the ... pawn, by not doing a double step on move 2!

So let's try
[FEN "8/8/8/2p5/1pp5/brpp4/qpprpK1P/1nkbn3 w - - 0 1"]

1. Kxe1 Qa1 2. h3 Qa2 3. h4 Qa1 4. h5 Qa2 5. h6 Qa1 6. h7 Qa2 7. h8=N Qa1 8. Ng6 Qa2 9. Ne5 Qa1 10. Nd7 Qa2 11. Nxc5 Qa1 12. Na4 Qa2 13. Nb6 Qa1 14. Nxc4 Qa2 15. Na5 Qa1 16. Nxb3#


confused about a move played by a grandmaster

We can note a few things about the position before Bc5 was played on move 12. First of all, white's dark squared bishop is both his good bishop (due to the fixed pawn on e4) and an active contributor in the position (dissuading black from playing c5 and taking more space in the center/queenside). Moreover, black's dark squared bishop is his bad bishop and is currently blocked in by the pawn on e5. There is not any foreseeable attack on the black king because the knight and light squared bishop are hemmed in by the e4 pawn (and the c6 pawn), there are no open diagonals or files on the kingside, and black has more defenders around his king than white has attackers.

Therefore to answer your first question, Bh6 doesn't make sense in this position. Yes it weakens black's kingside dark squares, but white has no way to ever take advantage of that. You are also willingly trading a good and active bishop with a bad, blocked bishop.

As to why Bc5 was played... that one's a little bit harder. It's basically a high quality passing move assuming black plays perfectly. Bc5 forces Re8, a move that black does not want to play (moving a rook from a closed file to another closed file), so black will have to spend another move later if he wants to activate the rook. But on the other side, the bishop on c5 can be attacked by Nd7, which is arguably not a demotion of the knight. So the bishop will have to return to e3 eventually, effectively trading tempi with black. Maybe white figured that "forcing" black to play Nd7 wouldn't ultimately be useful for black.

Personally, I would be playing 12. a4 and just getting on with it, as I agree it's unclear what white truly gains from this maneuver (especially because we later see that Nf6-d7-f8-e6 is a useful maneuver for black to make).


In general, yes, all of the games played in an official event count and can make you lose or win rating points.

For example, rapid tiebreaks in the World Cup count for the rapid FIDE rating, while the Armageddon tiebreaks count as blitz. In the Norway Chess, the classification process via blitz games also counts for the FIDE blitz rating.


OSX implementation of WinBoard / XBoard?

You can technically still use XBoard, but you will need to install X11 from MacPorts, since IIRC Apple no longer ships it.
Julien Marcel has a collection of well-compiled OS X chess engines (which do not require emulation).
As for not having a ChessBase client, HIARCS Chess Explorer does fine.
(FWIW, there is a port of XBoard to Cocoa - currently named OSXBoard - but it seems to have stalled.)


What happens when someone quits in the middle of a swiss tournament?

The General handling rules for Swiss Tournaments published on the FIDE website merely say:

  Players who withdraw from the tournament will no longer be paired.

The rules don't say that he/she can't be included in the final ranking (unless the additional rules for the tournament say the contrary, I suppose).

The points that his/her opponents won should remain valid. (How to deal with ties between opponents in the final ranking - that is unclear to me.)

It is not clear why leaving a tournament should affect a player's future games, unless there are regulations that apply to a cycle of tournaments. For example, for the Regulations for the 2016-2017 FIDE World Chess Grand-Prix Series contain the following rules:

  4.5 If a player withdraws from an event after completing 50% or more of the games, the rest of his games are lost by default. Unless a withdrawal is justified by serious injury or illness, he will forfeit his right to the prize for the tournament and be excluded from the rest of the World Chess Championship cycle.

  18.3 Should a player withdraw from a tournament or the Grand Prix Series without proper justification to the WCOC, then an automatic penalty of €5,000 will be imposed by FIDE on the player and the player may be excluded from the next World Championship cycle.

For official FIDE competitions (not all tournaments fit this category), the following rules from the FIDE Tournament Rules (version from 2011) also apply:

  5 (c) If a player withdraws, is excluded from a competition after the drawing of lots but before the beginning of the first round, or there are additional entries, the announced pairings shall remain unaltered. Additional pairings or changes may be made at the discretion of the CA in consultation with the players directly involved, but only if these minimise amendments to pairings that have already been announced.

  9 (b) When a player withdraws or is expelled from a round-robin tournament, the effect shall be as follows:
  1. If a player has completed less than 50 % of his games, his score shall remain in the tournament table (for rating and historical purposes), but the points scored by him or against him shall not be counted in the final standings. The unplayed games of the player are indicated by (-) in the tournament table, and those of his opponents by (+). If neither player is present this will be indicated by two (-).
  2. If a player has completed at least 50 % of his games, his score shall remain in the tournament table and shall be counted in the final standings. The unplayed games of the player are shown as indicated as above.
  (c) If a player withdraws from a Swiss-system tournament, the points scored by him and by his opponents shall remain in the cross-table for ranking purposes. Only games that are actually played shall be rated.


Can a grandmaster still win against engines if they have a really long consideration time?

Are there asymmetric time controls where a GM can still beat Stockfish? Certainly, as long as you give Stockfish little enough time. I think the time you give to Stockfish is almost more important than the time that the GM gets. At 20ms I would favor the GM even at tournament time controls.
A few years back I played a handicap game against Komodo where I played some blitz time control (maybe 5+0 or so, I don't quite remember) and Komodo had 1 second, which should work out to roughly 20 ms per move and I think back then I could actually win that game. Since then engines have progressed so modern Stockfish is probably 300 rating points stronger than the Komodo from back then, but on the other hand I am more than 300 rating points below a GM so I would think the GM should have chances even if they blitz, nevermind at tournament time controls or longer. As it turns out engines aren't really made for 20 ms per move games so they don't perform very well there. Now if you give the engine a second per move things may be very different.
As a fun experiment you can just try yourself, give yourself sufficiently much time against Stockfish and give it a go, see how it goes.


How can I generate legal random chess setups?

I stumbled upon Chess Hero.  It looks very nice, but it is not online.  Per the website:

You supply a set of PGN files
The program picks random positions from the PGN files and challenges you to guess the best move computed by a chess engine
On every attempt you are given a penalty (the difference in score between your move and the engine best)

The software can be found here.


Whose games should I collect for Benoni?

I would start with Vugar Gashimov and Veselin Topalov.


How do I use the analysis output of a UCI engine?

It is showing you the results of the analysis for each depth it gets to, sometimes more than once per depth (I think those are upper/lower bound scores, actually). So at depth 20 it thought the best move was -1.13 pawns, and at depth 27 it now knows it's really -1.33 pawns (according to its evaluation).

I like to use the multi-pv setting (click the up spinner next to V++ to increase the number of root moves to analyze), which gives you a good overall perspective of your different options (you can compare c3 and Nc3, for example).


Is this the only opening that allows one side to end up with three knights?

As @JossieCalderon pointed out, any opening could end up with three knights for one side. This would always require a knight promotion of some sort. Usually, knight promotions occur to

Give check to the opponent immediately to move the king to another square or to save a tempo.
Avoid a knight fork from the opponent, or give one of your own
Avoid stalemate
Give checkmate

I think, however, that you are also asking if there is another opening where knight promotion occurs in the opening phase of the game. The answer is  most likely "no".


I haven’t come across this question before. I don’t have the time to execute it, but hope these remarks and suggested approach are helpful.
First let’s clarify:
(1) without loss of generality, white is mating black
(2) position must be legal - in particularly white king must be on the board even if it doesn’t otherwise contribute to the mate.
(3) legitimately promoted non-standard material is fine.
(4) position must be minimal in that no subset of pieces can be removed to allow a position which still satisfies 1,2&3 above.
An algorithm could involve putting bK and the checking unit(s). Then consider all the flights, and the different ways they might be blocked. If a black unit might also interfere with check, then that interference needs to be covered. Then can find all the positions for wK if it’s not already placed. This gives a long list of positions which can be checked briefly for legality.
Mostly the positions will be left/right symmetric but there are a very few involving castling.
There are also some quite subtle positions where the position is only mate if we cannot prove that en passant is legal defence. Even some involving dead position rule.


Chess challenge #8: British knockout championship

The tags seem to give a big hint . . .

   1 Rg7+! Kxg7 (Kh8 can't be better, since White can at least repeat with 2 Rh7+ Kg8 3 Rg7+)
 2 Qd7+ Rf1-f7 (Rf8-f7 3 Qxg4+ and perpetual check since White has access also to c8; K-moves get mated: Kf6? 3 Qe6+ and 4 Qg6, or Kh6/g8/h8? 3 Qh7+)
 3 Qxg4+ Kh8 4 Qxh4+ Kg8 and White can either take the perpetual starting 5 Qg4+ (checks from h3/g4/e6/c8) or go for more with 5 Rf1!?


You should try it. Over the board chess is a very different experience, the social aspect is a lot of fun and the level of concentration required very different from online. Also there is no better way to improve your chess than discussing a game with your opponent afterwards.

It appears you're talking about "Skakklubben 1968" in Århus, Denmark. It appears to have about 100 members! They probably have quite a few people showing up for their club evenings, which is fun and it means they're likely to have a lot of different skill levels playing.

Danish ratings (not FIDE, but I suppose similar) can be found on www.skak.dk; in particular, for this club at this page. That's a very strong club indeed, with ten 2200+ players! But the bottom are around 1000-1200 or so, so that's OK.

But, in general, when starting at a chess club as an adult you may well have a hard time. Some people lose everything their first year! From playing online, you're not used to the kind of people who don't attack much, don't play opening theory much, don't know much about positional play try to stay solid, but grab their chance when you drop a pawn to a small combination and then just exchange everything and win with it. Stick with it, it's worth it! You'll eventually beat them easily if you just keep improving.


FIDE has long given up on trying to standardize opening names. In 1935 they published a booklet (in French) which attempted to do this, but it had little to no impact. The Latvian Gambit ("Gambit leton" in French) is an ancient opening that was previously known as the Greco Counter Gambit. For some reason the new name for the Latvian Gambit took hold; most of the other proposed new names did not.

Today, as always, opening names are simply a matter of tradition and convention and may vary between countries and writers. For example, in Eastern Europe the Benko Gambit is usually called the Volga Gambit.

See http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/fidehistory.html#Section_7:_Attempts_by_FIDE_to_openings_ for more info.


What exactly means centipawns field in stockfish/uci output?

It's the score of the current position, but it is computed by static evaluation (i.e. counting pieces, pawns, pawn structure, king safety, mobility, etc.) of positions arising in the program's search tree, and applying the minimax algorithm and alpha-beta pruning.

A cp-score of 6000 does indeed mean the engine thinks White is 60 pawns (centi means 1/100) = between 6 and 7 queens ahead. Because it wasn't able to find a forced mate, it will just try to get the highest possible point advantage, knowing that this will bring the game closer to mate. In practice, a score of (+/-)150 is already decisive most of the times.


Does FIDE give titles to chess composers?

They used to, but now the titling process is handled by the World Federation for Chess Composition.

Here's a link to some of the titles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grandmasters_for_chess_composition


As TMM said, you won't get any edge with White without any memorization or tactical, not only positional understanding of the opening.

I would recommand you though to look at the Reti opening 1. Nf3. As a d4 player, you won't be out of your territory and would be able to dodge normal Grünfeld type of positions, which is a sharp opening of course, and the Nimzo-Indian as well, which requires also a lot of work. These subtleties are based on move orders though and transpositional "tricks". You have to know them !
The Reti should spare you some precious time but you won't get away from studying opening.

Against the KID, you should look at the Smyslov variation. You won't be crushed within 15 moves (or even less) as in the main lines.


There is a detailed standard of PGN available, for instance here: PGN standard at the Wayback Machine.

You will never see "e4 e6 f4" in a PGN file, since it is mandatory to mention the move number before white's move: "1.e4 e6 2.f4".


How to play vs the 1...e6 and 2...d6 Pawn structure?

By choosing these moves black is giving you a lot options, and you are free to choose what you prefer with a good game.

Most aggressive is probably Nc3 followed by f4, Nf3, Bd3, 0-0, and looking for attack on the king's side, with f5 or e5 depending on what black does.

But more positional approach with c4 is totally fine.

Another alternative is to fianchetto the light squared bishop, and maybe eventually play f4.

Just play the game that fits your style.


The exhibitor usually gets more time. Not really to compensate for the time walking from board to board takes, but because he potentially has all of the clocks running at the same time!

The most famous clock simultaneous exhibitions were the ones in which Kasparov took on national teams, including those of the Czech Republic and Israel. According to this old Chessbase article, Kasparov had three hours for 50 moves and the Czech GMs two and a half hours per 50 moves, with half an hour added after 50 moves (he won this 5.5-2.5 over two days).

Usually the difference is larger, but I can't find a source.


TL;DR: there are recorded games for Shatranj from the 10th century onward, but I haven't found the variant asked for by the OP.

The earliest recorded game of modern chess was 1475:

  1475: Castellvi-Vinoles, Valencia 1475. The first documented chess game played with the modern queen and bishop moves; the moves were described in the poem Scachs d'amor.

Source: wikipedia

Going to the predecessor of modern chess we have Shatranj:

  The earliest listing of works on chess [Shatranj] is in the Fihrist, a general bibliography produced in 377 AH (988 AD) by Ibn al-Nadim. It includes an entire section on the topic of chess.

Source: wikipedia

chess2u.com provides, what they claim to be, the oldest recorded chess game (10th century):

  f3 f6 2. f4 f5 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 g6 5. Rg1 Rg8 6. h3 h6 7. e3 e6 8. g4 fxg4 9. hxg4 g5 10. fxg5 hxg5 11. d3 d6 12. e4 e5 13. Be3 Be6 14. Nxg5 Ke7 15. c3 Nxg4 16. Ke2 c6 17. d4 d5 18. b3 b6 19. Nd2 Nd7 20. Qc2 Qc7 21. Qd3 Qd6 22. Ndf3 Ndf6 23. Bh3 Bh6 24. Bf5 Bf4 25. Rac1 a6 26. c4 Rac8 27. c5 bxc5 28. Bxc5 Ke8 29. dxe5 Nxe5 30. Nxe6 Rxg1 31. Rxg1 Nxf3 32. Kxf3 1-0 (Black resigns)

However I haven't found any sources for the variant you mention.


Is a loss of two pawns worth the negation of opponents castling?

As mentioned in a comment, sacrificing a bishop for a pawn is a completely different thing than sacrificing two pawns, even when they have equal "pawn values".

Most importantly: If you sacrifice material to prevent the opponent's king from castling, your objective is to lure him out into the open and checkmate him as soon as possible (before your opponent has the chance to coordinate his now numerically superior forces). Giving two pawns for this purpose might or might not be worth it (greatly depends on the specific situation) - their absence might open additional lines for your pieces to attack the opponent's king, so their loss might actually turn out to help you. Sacrificing a bishop on the other hand counteracts your chances to deliver a quick mate: You weakened the squares around the king, but you also weakened your ability to attack these squares. Again, it all depends on the situation. If you can force a mate anyway with, say, your queen and a knight, it's all good. But then the question should be a different one.

Is it worth to sacrifice a bishop for a concrete mating attack? Hell yeah!
Is it worth to sacrifice a bishop just to prevent the opponent from castling, without a concrete mating combination? Most likely not.


No answers here, and I haven’t seen any solution in the rest of the world. So I thought I would post a work-in-progress here.

First let’s take a baby step. Which player is the one who has all these adventures?

Suppose that it’s White. Then the pawn which moves in W9 (White’s 9th move) makes 3 moves to reach the sixth rank. In addition, another pawn makes 5 moves to promote. This must have been the same pawn which executed the earlier en passant. And finally there is the castling. That exhausts 9 moves. So that means that the two or three officers which blocked the castling has to have been cleared out by Black helpful captures. Black made 2 pawn moves for en passant purposes, so that means 6 moves remain for raiding. It can’t have been a promotion because that uses 5 moves and to capture the neighbour would use the 6th, implying the promotion was to R or Q which would disturb his majesty wK. And clearly it wasn’t original R or Q which captured the officer next to wK. Capturing with N requires 4 moves to reach and 1 to retreat. So the other white officer can’t be captured. So by elimination the pieces must have been captured by black bishops. Each bishop requires 2 moves to arrive and one to run away, but in addition black’s first move did not contribute to any of this.

So we have proved that White was not the player who had all the adventures. It must have been Black.

Let’s see how the budget works out if Black is the protagonist. Black promotes, taking 5 moves including a promotion. There is 1 for castling and 1 for B8 pawn move prior to e.p. So 7 out of 8 moves are accounted for.

On the other hand White has 1 move to feed the Black e.p., 3 for the pawn which executes the White e.p. That’s 4 out of 9. But White is required to go capture at least one of the Black bank rank officers. (Another might move away using the Spare Black move.)

Could Black have castled on the queen side? In this case white must have captured two Black officers at home. With only 5 moves this can’t have been pawn or knight. Two bishops require too many moves to escape after. So at least one raider must have been R or Q. This means that the raider would capture N&B, while bQ shielded bK, and both later ran away. Can’t

Can’t quite exclude this one corner case right now, although it seems unlikely. The other, easier possibility is that Black castled on kingside.
If Black did castle kingside then the earlier argument about White castling applies. So one of the two Black officers must run from the back rank.

Therefore in either case we have exhausted the Black moves, and can conclude  that bK did not move after castling and was mated on g8 or just possibly on c8. So the final e.p. was discovered check. Since the castling rook doesn't move after the castling is complete, the discovered checkmate can't just be for bishop/queen on the diagonal. It must be rook/queen checkmate on the file as the old e.p. double checkmate is only available if the king were on 6th rank.

That all seems reasonable: indeed some actual creative thinking maybe required to progress further!


Question on chess commentary in written form

The  comments in braces means that the move before had the effect noted in that set of  { }s  .  It is just annotating the game to explain the moves.

It may have been spoken during the match if it were broadcast,  but it was definitely  printed in the game summary later at the link you provided to bell labs.

The !!  means that the move was excellent, often unexpected, and winning.

In this case the #  means mate.


A piece (often a bad bishop, but in your second example a queen) which is doing nothing more than protecting a few squares is often called a big pawn. To be honest, I don't find your second example a real case of a 'big pawn', because the queen can easily move away and do something useful. And, as Dag Oskar Madsen mentions, in the first example the pawn breakthrough is big, not the pawn itself.

In the position below, the white bishop is a typical example of a big pawn, because of Black's dominance on the dark squares:

[FEN "r4r2/5pkp/1q1pb1p1/2p1n3/2P1P3/1P3P2/2BN2PP/1R1Q1RK1 b - - 0 1"]


Why, in this Capablanca game, was this move considered bad?

2) In this game Capa played h6 I think to prevent Ng5 but according to
  Alekhine this was not a good move. I don't understand why play another
  move and invite the Knight to g5?

This position comes from the famous game in which Richard Reti defeated the reigning world champion, Jose Raul Capablanca, in New York in 1924.

[fen ""]
[title "Reti vs Capablanca, New York 1924"]

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.b4 Bg7 4.Bb2 O-O 5.g3 b6 6.Bg2 Bb7 7.O-O d6 8.d3 Nbd7 9.Nbd2 e5 10.Qc2 Re8 11.Rfd1

However, in this position, Capablanca didn't play 11...h6 but 11...a5, followed by 12...h6. Despite this difference, the question deserves to be asked because h6 is still debatable.

[fen "r2qr1k1/pbpn1pbp/1p1p1np1/4p3/1PP5/3P1NP1/PBQNPPBP/R2R2K1 b - - 3 11"]
[title "Reti vs Capablanca, New York 1924"]

1... a5 2.a3 h6?! (2...Qe7!? {to prepare e4})

Alekhine criticized h6

  This move, which is difficult to understand, is the best proof that
  Capablanca was poorly disposed that day.

Why is h6 inaccurate?

The move h6 is inaccurate because White does not threaten to play Ng5 (He could have done it before, and the exchange of light bishops might weaken the White king). h6 is a move difficult to understand because at this super high level, moves always have a goal. Here we do not clearly understand its purpose. My guess is that

Black is playing a waiting move because it plans to sacrifice a pawn with c5 but waits for a more favorable moment.
Black does not want to push e4, which is natural, but tends to favor White.
Black could have played instead Qe7 to prepare e4.

[fen "r2qr1k1/1bpn1pb1/1p1p1npp/p3p3/1PP5/P2P1NP1/1BQNPPBP/R2R2K1 w - - 0 13"]
[title "Reti vs Capablanca, New York 1924"]

1. Nf1 c5! {was that the plan?} 2.b5! {no thanks!} (2.bxa5 Rxa5 3.Nxe5 Bxg2 4.Nxd7 Bc6 5.Nxf6 Bxf6 6.Bxf6 Qxf6 7.Qd2 h5! {and Black has more than sufficient compensation according to Kasparov}) Nf8 e3 Qc7 d4 Be4 Qc3 exd4 exd4 N6d7 Qd2 cxd4 Bxd4 Qxc4 Bxg7 Kxg7 Qb2+ Kg8 Rxd6 Qc5 Rad1 Ra7 Ne3 Qh5 Nd4 Bxg2 Kxg2 Qe5 Nc4 Qc5 Nc6 Rc7 Ne3 Ne5 R1d5 1-0


what is that database, really?

A chess database is basically a collection of chess games, i.e. a collection of moves with metadata such as player names, date, Elo rating of players, place, opening name ... It can also include comments/annotations for some or all games.

There are various websites such as lichess, chesstempo, 365chess where you can access chess databases for free. Alternatively you can download database files from the internet or buy them from somewhere like ChessBase and access them on your computer. For this you need a program/application such as Scid (free) or ChessBase (not free) which can read the database files and allows you to play through the games and do all kinds of searches/manipulations to the database files.

Also you can of course manually add your (or anybody else's) games to the database.

how a beginner use a database?

You don't, really. As a beginner you should focus on learning general principles of playing chess and studying tactics. You don't really need a database for either.

How can a database be used?

Databases are immensely useful for studying openings. They allow you to keep all the variations/sidelines nicely ordered, you can add comments to moves, you can see which line is the most popular, which line has the highest winning percentage (or which line is more drawish, which more risky...), you can filter games (e.g. show only recent, or only games of high rated players or only white wins, or only a certain variation...). Based on this you can build an opening repertoire (which you could save in a separate database) and/or expand your opening knowledge. Also chess database software works well together with chess engines which gives you further possibilities for study. Unlike books, a database can always updated (e.g. from twic), so you always have the latest developments in opening theory at hand.
You can also use the database to study middle- or endgame plans. For instance you can search the database for specific positions and/or material distributions and then see how a grandmaster plays these positions.
You can prepare for a game against an opponent by studying his/her games beforehand (assuming there are games of your opponent in the database) looking for weaknesses in the opening repertoire or weaknesses in playing certain types of positions.
You could use it to follow your favorite chess player's games just for fun.


Good follow up to 1.d4 Nf6 2. e3 for black

The Nimzo-Indian can be closely paired with The Queen's-Indian, or The
  Bogo-Indian, or much less closely paired with the Benoni.

Lets forget about the Benoni for now and focus on the other two options.

In the Bogo and Nimzo you see Black's Bishop going to b4.  The general idea is to fight for the e4 square, but in some cases Black will trade the Bishop off and then put his own pawns on dark squares (d7-d6 and e6-e5).
When you play an early d5 as Black you kill this secondary plan -- which is totally fine but something to keep in mind.

In the Queen's Indian you target e4 with Bb7 and the other Bishop usually goes to e7.  Here you are also fighting for e4 and because you aren't taking out Whites Queen's-knight who usually will attack the e4 square, you need help of a pawn and d7-d5 is often played.

  So, what's with the Benoni?

If White is avoiding c4 and Nc3 then they are playing slowly and it is not critical.
If they play c4 but avoid Nc3, say 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 then many players like to play 3...c5!   Since White has put their Knight on f3 a lot of aggressive lines with f2-f4 are avoided.

Nick De Firmian paired the Nimzo with the Benoni.
Karpov paired the Nimzo with the Queen's Indian.
Fischer sometimes played a hybrid of the Queen's Indian and the Nimzo Indian.

The smallest amount of theory to know would pair the Nimzo with the Bogo-Indian.


Is there a list of approximate ELO ratings for each Stockfish level?

They have a development pipeline doing testing based on one of the early versions.
I saw a graph of such test in some heavy loading page from Next Chess Move website:

Stockfish Development Builds

The development page gathering the test linked from the Fishtest wiki:

Stockfish Testing Queue

And for completion:

Fishtest GitHub Repository Wiki


Not an app, but very nice if you don't need many bells and whistles is http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php

I recently used it to play a correspondence game with a friend via messenger. You play on the right board and use the "link to share" button to create a link like: http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php?m=e4_d5_exd5_Qxd5_Nf3
As you can see, that link contains the move history, so it's easy to play by sending back and forth the link created after your move. You can even export PGN and FEN files whenever you feel like it to import somewhere else.


What do the numbers mean at the end of predicted variation opcode in and EPD entry?

On a strict reading of the EPD spec, the example shown is malformed; the pv opcode should only contain a list of moves, not any commentary on it, which should be moved to other opcodes.  Indeed the move numbers should not be there either, only raw SAN moves.

I assume that some naive EPD author has simply dumped the output of an engine into it.

Indeed following the discussion from your (fixed) examples link, the first reply seems to agree with me:

  Crafty has an option to clean up epd (called epdpfdr) that produces
  EPD output that most programs can read.  You have a few errors in your
  output below.

…

  No numbers in the pv!
  Like this: Nxg7 Kxg7 Qxf7+ Kh8 Qh7+ Kxh7 Rf7+ Kg6 Rf6+ Bxf6

  Also (a common mistake) is to put ... in the front of the pv when it
  is black to move.  This is not allowed.  You did not do that, but I
  just wanted to mention it.

…

  This stuff:
    (73.507) 130.7;
  is not allowed except in the comments field.


When I played magic the gathering, at a time when they used ELO-style ratings, I did play from time to time against the lowest rated player in the country. He was a nice chap, and very enthusiastic but I suspect he was on the “spectrum” as they say, and this makes me less eager to identify very low-ranking chess players - it doesn’t seem kind


When will the 2018 FIDE Candidates tournament be held, and who will qualify for it?

The Candidates will be held in Berlin, Germany, on 10-28 March 2018 (source).

According to FIDE's Rules & Regulations for the Candidates Tournament of the FIDE World Championship cycle 2016-2018, the following will qualify, in order of priority:

1. The loser of the previous World Championship Match -- Sergey Karjakin.

2. The 2 finalists of the FIDE World Cup 2017 - Ding Liren and Levon Aronian.

This is a 128-player knockout tournament, currently being held from 1 to 25 September 2017, in Batumi, Georgia, with the final in Tbilisi, Georgia (see Wikipedia, which also has details about qualifiers to the World Cup that go too far for this answer).

Karjakin and Carlsen played the World Cup so a situation could have arisen where a player not in the final would qualify, but they were both eliminated.

Quarter finals:

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave beat Peter Svidler 2.5 - 1.5
Wesley So beat Vladimir Fedoseev 1.5 - 0.5
Ding Liren beat Richard Rapport 1.5 - 0.5
Levon Aronian beat Vassily Ivanchuk 1.5 - 0.5

Semi-finals:

Levon Aronian beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 5-4
Ding Liren beat Wesley So 3.5 - 2.5

Final (not relevant for the Candidates, but for completeness):

Levon Aronian beat Ding Liren 4-2

3. The top 2 winners of the FIDE Grand Prix 2016/2017.

There are four events:

18-27 February 2017, in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
12-21 May 2017, Moscow, Russia
6-15 July 2017, Geneva, Switzerland
16-25 November 2017, Palma Majorca, Spain

Top standings after 3 events:

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (3/3 events played): 340
Alexander Grischuk (3/3): 336 3/7
Teimour Radjabov (2/3): 241 3/7
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2/3): 211 3/7

(players with 3 events and insufficient points left out)

4. The 2 players not otherwise qualified with the highest average rating (among those that participated in the WC or GP).

Calculated using the 12 rating lists from january 1 to december 1, 2017.

| Name                      | Avg  | Jan  | Feb  | Mar  | Apr | May | June| July| Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov |
|---------------------------|------|------|------|------|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
| Caruana, Fabiano          | 2808 | 2827 | 2827 | 2817 | 2817| 2802| 2808| 2807| 2807| 2799| 2794| 2799|
| So, Wesley                | 2806 | 2808 | 2822 | 2822 | 2822| 2815| 2812| 2810| 2810| 2792| 2788| 2788|
|---------------------------|------|------|------|------|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
| Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime   | 2796 | 2796 | 2796 | 2803 | 2803| 2795| 2796| 2791| 2789| 2804| 2794| 2796|
| Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar    | 2786 | 2766 | 2766 | 2772 | 2772| 2772| 2800| 2800| 2797| 2797| 2791| 2802|
| Nakamura, Hikaru          | 2785 | 2785 | 2785 | 2793 | 2793| 2798| 2785| 2792| 2792| 2781| 2774| 2780|
| Anand, Viswanathan        | 2785 | 2786 | 2786 | 2786 | 2786| 2786| 2786| 2783| 2783| 2794| 2783| 2783|

5. One organiser's nominee.

Vladimir Kramnik was chosen as the wildcard.

This could have been player with a rating of 2725 or higher in one of the rating lists in 2017.

Next update: the final Grand Prix, result 25 november.


When to decide King or Queen side castling?

If pawns are more advanced on one side, or there is a material inequality to one side of your opponents pieces, castle opposite the majority of attack.

Typically, king side becomes favored, probably in part because of the property of castling you noted:  that it's quicker to king side castle.  Well, that and the King isn't as close to the center with King
 side castling.

Queen side castling is a bit easier to attack from however due to the imabalance of position (ie typically the other king is castled on its' king side).


How to measure Leela Chess Zero improvement

The number of games doesn't really effect improvement.
Let's say that in the 500th game that is discovers the common Nf7 fork.  This knowledge isn't useful until it plays enough games to discover that the rook is worth mort than a knight.  Both pieces of information is needed, plus and ability to associate them, to understand that the fork is a positive play.  And we also have to discover when there is an exception to the general rule, ie when castling pins the knight or the wasted moves justify a viscous attack.
The improvement is randomly found, so this play could discover the usefulness and exceptions within 500 games, or it may never stumble across it within 1,000,000.  I've seen people make master before they ever saw the Scholar's Mate, which he fell into that trap, so number of games, intelligence, nor strength of the player are any indication of knowledge of any position.


What are the differences between the How To Reassess Your Chess books from Jeremy Silman?

The editions do not form a series. It just is that the 4th edition is the one released at the latest date (October 2010) with revisions to the text.

There is also a workbook which contains a summary of the main book, with about 300 examples with detailed answers. This was released in December 2000. This is the book that I personally found the most useful.


KID Gligoric-Taimanov Variation [E92] Black inaccuracy? Move 7 .... Nc6

Chess engines are currently not able to give you a good analysis of opening moves all by themselves. This is basically due to the huge number of possible variations during the opening phase. Engines are effectively limited to a certain depth and if the potential positions some 10-20 moves later are still roughly equal you cannot decide on a best move.

Particularly the KID is known for being tricky for engines. Usually they give white a large advantage and underestimate any counterplay of black.

Because of this, analyzing openings is usually done with human interaction. For instance a player would pick certain lines that he is interested in and have the engine look more deeply into those directions. Also other factors than just objective computer evaluation do play a huge role in openings, such as:

how playable is this line for me and for my opponent (does he have to play only moves or is it easy to play)
am I aiming for a save draw or for a wild game with chances for both sides
etc

Also, they'd use stronger engines and strong computers than the one on the lichess website.

Anyway, in this particular case you should ignore what the engines says and trust many decades of games played in this line.


Why isn't 5. f4 considered strong in the French Advance, main line?

After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.f4, black can put white's center under pressure very quickly. For example, after 5....Nh6 6.Nf3, black is already better after 6....Qb6 or 6....cxd4 7.cxd4 Nf5.

In contrast, one of the main lines of the Tarrasch variation goes 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Ndf3. In this line, white has a firm grip on the center, while black cannot manoeuvre Nd7 to the outpost on f5.

      [StartPly "4"]

      [FEN ""]
      1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 (3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Ndf3) c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.f4 Nh6 6.Nf3 cxd4 (6...Qb6) 7.cxd4 Nf5


In the Berlin Defense(ruy lopez), why has the Ne7 Ng6 plan gone out of fashion?

One of the reasons could be that the knight on f5 is already developed. Probably it doesn't appeal to many players to spend 2 tempi to reposition the knight, while black is already slightly behind in development.

Futhermore, many alternative setups are possible and perfectly playable: Ke8, Bd7 and Kc8, etc...

However, it seems that an early Ne7 recently regained some of its popularity:

So - Kramnik
Maze - Smith
Caruana - Dominguez
Caruana - Carlsen
Nakamura - Topalov


It's very unlikely you'll be able to compare opening books just by playing against them. Main lines will be approximately same in all books, what you really want to see is how "wide" these books are, do they contain only a few main lines, or plenty of variations as well.

The easiest way to do that would be to convert the books back to the readable (PGN?) format and see how many different games are included for a particular opening.

Might be easier to do that using some software than comparing by hand. Even better if the software can read the books directly, this way you don't lose any information while converting books to .PGN format, but you'll have to be able to program for that to happen, because I don't know any ready-to-use software for the books comparison.


Alpha-beta engines, in many endgame positions, will quickly find a mate and therefore will pick the move which prolongs the mate for the longest.

Engines which use Monte Carlo Tree Search, however, pick the line with the greatest winning/drawing chances. For example, Lc0, a neural network engine which uses MCTS, suggests Kg8 as you wanted in your position:

8/6k1/6P1/7K/6P1/8/8/8 b - - 0 1

1...Kg8 2.Kh6 Kh8 3.Kg5 Kg7 4.Kf5 Kg8 5.Kf6 Kf8

Lc0 does not play endgames as well as alpha-beta engines, but it tends to play them in a much more human manner.

I would also suggest taking a look at Komodo 12 MCTS, which may also exhibit this type of behaviour.


It depends on the players and how black continues after whites moves.
For me, I find it easy to beat players using it for black.
That might speak more to their lack of experience than the opening.  But then you dont find many high rated players using it so there is no conclusive proof.


Human analysis for a KRBNNPP against KRRN ending?

@SmallChess is right. This position is absolutely hopeless for White, and there is a very human strategy for Black, which consists here in not exchanging pieces, but hunting the white king. This strategy will force White to exchange pieces unfavorably or White will lose material to avoid being mate.

The principle behind this strategy is simple "with three or more pieces in the attack the enemy king will not be able to escape."

Here is an example where nothing is forced but it's very difficult to suggest good ideas for White. White is completely squeezed.

[White "White"]
[Black "Black to move"]
[FEN "8/rp4p1/1N1nkb2/3n4/6R1/1R6/8/2K5 b - - 1 38"]

1...Nc3! {Black chases the king and cuts off the two rooks. They can't easily coordinate.} 2.Nc4 Nde4! {same strategy: coordinating the pieces to go against the White king} 3.Kc2 (3.Ra3 {is probably better but now Black is happy to exchange and push the g pawn} 3...Rxa3 4. Nxa3 Kf5 5.Rg2 g5-+) b5 4.Ne3 (4.Rxb5 Nxb5 5.Rxe4 Kf5-+ {does not help White}) Rc7 {here with get our principle of three or more pieces in the attack and the White king feels unsafe} 5.Rg2 (5.Kd3 Nf2-+) Na2! 6.Kb1? (6. Kd1 {is better but the King does not escape} Rc1+ 7. Ke2 Nac3+ 8. Kf3 Rh1-+) Rc1 7.Kxa2 Ra1#


Why did non-Russian masters allow Capablanca to play "standard" openings against them?

Capablanca's non-Russian rivals did not press him hard in the opening because they didn't know how:

  Capa continued to dominate until the unthinkable happened: He lost his world title to Alekhine. A grossly overconfident Capa entered the match unprepared psychologically for the new and improved Alekhine. In the end Capa lost the match because he had never previously been tested to the degree with which Alekhine pressed him.

Source: Capablanca: Move by Move by Cyrus Lakdawala. Emphasis is mine


Analyze game and explain why bad moves break theory

You might be looking for something like decodechess.com/:

The first AI chess tutor, DecodeChess explains the why  behind chess
moves in rich, intuitive language.

This screenshot  shows an example of a position of DecodeChess's natural-language explanation for why, for example, Qa1 is good:

Escapes the black queen's threat (Qf6(b6)-b2)
Supports the rook at a7
Threatens to play Bxd5
Supports the rook at d1

Although you ask for something to "explain in human language why a particular opening move breaks theory," in my limited exposure to DecodeChess it focuses on explaining why you should make a particular good move, rather than why you should not have made a bad move.
DecodeChess has a free trial available, which is pretty limited in capacity (two "decodes" per day), and monthly and annual subscriptions to get unlimited access.


What's the point of the full move counter in FEN?

You may want to record a fragment of a real game starting from move number 24, for example. Then you specify the FEN after the first 23 moves and set the full move number to 24.


Currently most of the 7-piece Lomonosov tablebases have been created. the only ones that weren't, were the K vs. K + 5 pieces. Those took about 6 months using the Lomonosov supercomputer.

Based on this answer, creating the 8-piece tablebases could take 100x the time it took to create the 7-piece, give or take an order of magnitude. Extrapolating, that would mean it could take 5/50/500 years, and probably on the lower end, 5-50 years for a supercomputer, and likely longer for Google or Amazon.

After a certain point, however, storage becomes a problem, as the number of game-tree possibilities surpasses the number of atoms in the universe. (see the Shannon Number)


What is the best way to maintain an opening repertoire in electronic form?

There is no one answer to this question, because what is 'best' in this case is subjective. It also depends on how you play chess (online/IRL, OTB/Correspondence) and what you want to get out of the record (Professional games using line X, or just a list of what moves you want to play).

If you just want a list of what lines you want to play, then you could even just use something like this in your text editor of choice:

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5  a6 4.Ba4
  ........... Nf6 3.Nxe5
  .. c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4

However, if you want a visual list or references to Master games using each line, then Other solutions would be more appropriate.


I don't remember where I first saw this kind of trick:

[Title "Could White (or Black) possibly win this?"]
[FEN "8/1p4p1/1Pp3p1/k1P3p1/1pP3Pb/1P4p1/6P1/7K w - - 0 0"]

Yes, the Kingside is necessary!

[Title "White mates in 19 (with Black's help)"]
[FEN "8/1p4p1/1Pp3p1/k1P3p1/1pP3Pb/1P4p1/6P1/7K w - - 0 0"]

1.Kg1 Ka6 2.Kf1 Ka5 3.Ke2 Ka6 4.Ke3 Ka5 5.Ke4 Ka6 6.Ke5 Ka5 7.Ke6 Ka6 8.Kf7! Ka5 9.Kxg6! Ka6 10.Kf7 Ka5 11.Ke7 Ka6 12.Kd7 Ka5 13.Kc7 Ka6 14.Kc8 Ka5 15.Kxb7 g6! 16.Ka8 Ka6 17.b7 Ka5 18.b8=Q Ka6 19.Qa7#

Black could mate a few moves later after (say) 19.Qf4 Ka5 20.Qf2 gxf2 etc.

P.S. It turns out the I first noticed this trick in a help-stalemate
problem by Tivadar Kardos (see my comment below).  Looking at that
problem and some of his others suggests this improved setting of the
same idea:

[Title "White's turn.  Could either side possibly win this? (NDE after T.Kardos)"]
[FEN "5brk/4p1p1/3pP1P1/1B1P2p1/3p2p1/3P4/4K1P1/8 w - - 0 0"]


Are there any gambits involving sacrificing a piece?

This is kind of out there (virtually nobody plays it as white and even fewer allow it as black) but there is a rather crazy queen sacrifice line in the Grand Prix:

[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1 "]
1.e4 c5 2.f4 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Ng5 Nf6 5.Bc4 Bg4!? 6.Bxf7+ Kd7 7.Qxg4+ Nxg4 8.Be6+ Kc6 9.Bxg4

5...Bg4!? by black is quite rare and combative, inviting (daring) white to initiate the festivities where 5...e6 instead is calmer. So white takes it up and sacrifices the queen for just two minors and the hope of long-term play against black's lack of development. Yes, there isn't any quick tactical win, just long-term pressure while down a queen.

The position has occurred several times in master play (check the lichess database) but is extremely rare, and most examples not recent. It was even featured on chessgames.com many years back: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1648780


Which is better-Stockfish 10 or AlphaZero?

We can't say for sure since AlphaZero is a private engine, i.e. we don't have games between it and the latest versions of Stockfish. Still, if AlphaZero hasn't improved since it was unveiled, it will likely lose to the latest version of Stockfish. That's because AlphaZero beat Stockfish 8 by +155 = 839 -6, which is an elo difference of about 50. The latest versions of Stockfish are capable of beating Stockfish 8 by about 150 elo (see also this). It's true that elo isn't transitive (i.e. engine A can beat engine B, which beats engine C, but C could still beat A in a match); however, the differences are so large that it would be incredible if AlphaZero is capable of beating the latest versions of Stockfish. You ask about Stockfish 10 (not latest Stockfish), which still beats Stockfish 8 by 100 elo, so it should be capable of beating AlphaZero as well.
Having said that, Leela Chess Zero is an engine based on AlphaZero techniques. It incorporates many new innovations not in the original paper, and therefore should be stronger than AlphaZero. Indications are it's competitive with Stockfish, and (for now at least) stronger: it won the most recent version of the Top Chess Engine Championship by five games - an elo difference of about 15.
Caveats:

In the world of computer chess, 100 games is an incredibly small sample size. Engine developers regularly need tens of thousands of games to conclusively say that one engine is stronger than the other. These games are played at bullet time controls, which isn't really chess as us humans understand it. Still, we can't play ten thousand games at long time controls - that takes too long - so we have to be satisfied with 100.
Stockfish continues to improve. As of time of writing, Leela has kinda stalled while a new net is being trained. So while Leela was (probably) stronger two months ago, it might not be the strongest engine right now.
Stockfish is not Leela's only competitor. In fact just two seasons ago, Leela actually failed to qualify for the superfinal, losing out to AllieStein. Like Leela, AllieStein is a neural network engine; unlike Leela, AllieStein includes human knowledge. Plus, as of time of writing, all three of Leela / AllieStein / Stockfish are behind Stoofvlees in the qualification tournament for the superfinal.

You might be interested in the ongoing Season 18 of the Top Chess Engine Championship, live games are available here.
tl; dr: AlphaZero is probably inferior to Stockfish 10, and even more so to the latest versions of Stockfish. Leela is at least competitive with Stockfish, and there's a good chance it's stronger (right now) as well. For the question "who is the strongest engine right now?", the situation is fluid; there are several engines that could all claim to be #1 at any one time. For the foreseeable future, this situation is likely to remain the case.
Edit: Deepmind acknowledges that AlphaZero would probably lose to the latest versions of Stockfish and Leela. They don't perceive it as a challenge, however, because they're not a chess engine company and don't view having the best engine as a big deal.


DroidFish's rtb folder's file placed somewhere else

Let \path\to\endgame\tablebase\files be ... the path to endgame tablebase files. This means that the directory should contains only tablebase files, and not for instance folder for up to 5 pieces tablebase files and a folder for 6 pieces tablebase files. The files are .rtbw or .rtbz files. (These are Syzygy files, I don't know how it works for Gaviotta files (for which DroidFish provides the gtb folder) but I guess it works the same.)

The .rtbw files store win/draw/loss information including, where applicable, information on the 50-move rule. During the search only the .rtbw files are accessed. These files are "two-sided": they store information for both white to move and black to move.

The .rtbz files store the distance-to-zero: the number of moves to the next capture or pawn move. These files only need to be accessed when the root position has 6 pieces or less. They are "single-sided".

Anyway, all these files for up to 6 pieces endgames are in the folder \path\to\endgame\tablebase\files and now you should make DroidFish point to it. This takes place in DroidFish in "Settings --> Endgame Tablebases --> Syzygy Directory" where you have to put the complete path -- don't forget the "\" the path necessarily starts with.

It may be stupid as you already put files in that folder so you think you know its path, but beware as for instance on my samsung galaxy, the application "My Files" (the samsung file explorer) gives me a wrong path : if I use the path it gives to me, I don't see that tablebase are used by the engine in analysis mode :

as in the last line there is only "d:35/55 3:g4 t:431.7 n:1935M nps:4483k h:99" and no "tb:x" in it. Recall that "d" is the depth of analysis expressed in number of moves, "3:g4" at this point indicates that the third best move is g4, "t" is the time spent on the analysis so far, expressed in seconds, "n" is the number of nodes the engine searched through, "nps" is the current number of nodes the engine searches through per second and "h" divided by 10 gives you how full in percent the hashtable is, in previous picture's case it is therefore 9.9% full. (These notations and definition are UCI engines standards.)

The reason is that the "My Files" application does not give the absolute path to the folder. To get the absolute path to the folder, you have to use for instance the "Explorer" application which, while you browse, will display the absolute path the to place you browsed at.

Example for a folder placed in the hard disk of my phone : /storage/emulated/0/DroidFish/rtb
Example for a folder placed in the micro sd card plugged in my phone : /storage/3661-6463/Syzygy

The /storage/emulated/0/DroidFish/rtb is a vanilla DroidFish folder that you should use if you have place enough on your phone's harddisk. In /storage/3661-6463/Syzygy the /storage/3661-6463 is the absolute path of my micro sd card and the Syzygy is the folder I created in it.

I give all these precisions about paths because what is for instance provided here does not work in my case. So beware, the absolute path (internal or external = on the sd card) depends on your device.

When it works, the analysis looks like :

and you see the "tb:15" bit in the last analysis line, showing that the tablebased are used. The "tb" indicates the current number of tablebase consultations/hits by the engine. Sadly, even as Stockfish provide dtm and dtz information, they are not printed in droid fish analysis part and as far as I know there's no option allowing to tweak this ...

I have a samsung galaxy s9+ with 64Gb of internal memory and a 250Gb micro sd card that contains 150Gb of endgame tablebase files versus a samsung galaxy s10+ with 1Tb of internal memory containing the same 150Gb of tablebase files and I don't see any real difference of performance. It's just a tiny bit slower on the s9+ when the analysis depth gets bigger, but nothing major. In any cases, it will crush any human more than 99% of the time on average. ;)


Describe White's performance in these two games

Well, certainly not highly tactical or aggressive. Both games strike me as rather slow and systematic. You can call that solid, if you like, though the openings seemed to be a bit shaky.

It seemed to me that you saw the tactical details a lot better than your opponents, which made the games rather onesided. But that is not so much a stylistic difference, but a difference in strength. Of course, more evenly matched games usually give a better impression of a player's style, so next time maybe choose games games where you actually meet some resistance (possibly even lose! ;-)).

Some GMs say that amateurs don't have a style of play. They say a true chess style only develops when you reach master strength. I think that is chauvinistic bullshit. The weaker you are, the stronger personal preferences feature in your choice of moves. To me that is part of the beauty of chess, you can be creative even if you don't know much more than the rules.


Today the newest Elo list was published:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/february-2015-ratings-the-fulfillment-of-promise

48.   Jobava, Baadur 2696


For Black, against the Caro-Kann Advance Shirov variation 4. Nc3 which move tends to lead to the most positional, slow, solid and strategic positions?

At this point, it's very hard to keep the game quiet. You have two choices: keep the center closed (then a flank attack will be justified and advantageous), or open things up. The good news is that if you open up the position according to modern theory, or at least play accurately, you will be objectively better, and White's flank attack will be turned into a weakness.


Empirical question: Is a drawish opening line really a concern for an ambitious player?

You're right that drawing lines don't really affect people who are lower rated. However, your bar for 2500 isn't practical. Most people who are close to master rated (say 2100+, and even some lower rated) will have memorized some of the main drawing lines in their main weapons. That being said, there's a huge difference between playing openings that give you level positions but with a lot of play left in the position (such as the Petrov or the London), and playing openings that give you drawing lines (such as the forcing variations of the English attack Najdorf or Bg4 Panov-Botvinnik attack).
If it's easy and practical to memorize one or two main branches in a "drawing line" you can be sure: the higher-rated your opponent, the more likely they are to know these lines. If your opening simply gets you a roughly equal position, but there are enough pieces still on the board that you have something to actually play for, then that should be totally fine for most people up even to the highest levels of chess.


Are there any moves that are more popular in databases of GM games but are objectively inferior?

It really depends on how broadly you want to define the openings.

For example, while not popular at that level, GMs have played the Smith Morra. Of course, a standard open Sicilian is better.

The same goes for those, who have played the King's Gambit when trying for the Ruy Lopez is better.

The Ruy Lopez is probably objectively better than the Italian Game, but we saw the Italian played the last two days at times in the World Rapid and Blitz events.

The same goes for the Benoni, Benko, and Dutch. They are not horrible, but there is a reason the do not dominate high-level opening play.

Anytime a GM needs to win, and plays a sharp opening that is not objectively best, and that happens a lot.

I am sure there are plenty of examples that are deeper into the opening, but this already shows how common it is.

Lastly, many GMs play sidelines, and have pet openings that are not considered best. They play them when they need an imbalance, and to win.


I wanted to understand the chess engine comparison. What does this result matrix show?

@muclux is right on the results. Check his comment. I'll answer what "16" mean.

Scroll further down on the page.

The number is the rating change. Stockfish lost 16 rating point to Houdini, similarly Houdini won 16 points from Stockfish (convince yourself by going to the Houdini vs Stockfish cell).


Since each engine has its own style of play… which engines are more positional/strategic and which engines are more sharp/tactical?

EDIT: With the advent of Lc0 and the new Stockfish 13, unfortunately this question is now beyond human comprehension.
I am not very well versed on the theory of chess computer programs, but I've used them for a long time. At first, I used Houdini, then switched for a few months to Rybka, back to Houdini, had another short incursion into Komodo, back to Houdini and now I've been using Stockfish for a year or so. The following is based on my personal feelings with the aforementioned engines (and thus, subjective).

Rybka: It is the model of a tactical player. Playing on (very) low depth, some times deviates from the opening theory just to see if the opponent would fall into a well-hidden trap. Playing on normal depth, it takes a little to make his mind, but he finally chooses (usually) a theoretical line. It also relies strongly on tricks and tactics to avoid calming the position (although not always with success). When in a closed position, this engine collapses.
Komodo: It plays half-positional, half-tactical. That is, he has no preference over either, but has good calculating power and can play relatively good in semi-closed positions. His endgame skills, however, are what differentiate him from other engines. There he is hard to beat when in an inferior position and plays accurately when having a small advantage.
Houdini: This is a good combination of tactical abilities and positional understanding. Can evaluate well (not great, but well) closed positions and two of his main characteristics are long combinations involving piece sacrifices to recover the piece and even win a couple of pawns after 10 to 15 moves and a tremendous defensive capability, being able to hold a draw in seemingly lost positions (it is said that this is where the name came from, in reference to his escapist abilities). Not extremely good at the endgame.
Stockfish: Extreme versatile engine, can calculate long and precise and has a good understanding of the positional nuances of a closed position. There are few positions in which he cannot perform well, and these can be easily tuned from the "options" available in any GUI (that is, change the way he always looks for a win or if he can allow a draw when having material advantage). However, I think it has a small tendency to drawish positions.


How to learn chess if you're still a 3-digit rating after a few years

Very simple.
Join a chess club and play people face-to-face. You'll improve rapidly after that.


Penalty for violating FIDE rule 8.1.2 - writing moves in advance

Should it be a verbal warning and loss of the game on a subsequent
  attempt or something else?

It depends entirely on the circumstances, although a player would never be defaulted for the specific reason of writing the move before playing it. (I will return to this point at the end)

A big part of the problem is that years ago young players were taught to write the move down, do a final blunder check and then make the move. If the blunder check revealed a problem or they just had second thoughts they changed what was written and made the new move. This is the nub of "making notes".

First, if as an arbiter, I'm observing a game and the player is consistently writing the move, pausing for reflection then making the move then I will step in and warn him.

If the player is just writing the move and then immediately playing the move then I will not intervene unless the opponent complains but I will speak to player after the game and tell him that what he is doing is against the rules and tell him not to do it again. This is a general principle for very minor infractions when the arbiter intervening would disturb the players unwarrantedly.

Coming back to what I said at the beginning, that a player would never be defaulted for this, we can look at what happened in the Wesley So case which is analagous. He wasn't writing moves down but writing advice to himself about how to play. He was defaulted after 3 warnings but he was not defaulted for writing notes.

He was defaulted for ignoring the instructions of the arbiter which is something different and, in the extreme case that a player continued writing moves down before making them after several warnings from the arbiter, this would also happen. The player would be defaulted for ignoring the instructions of the arbiter. It may look as if it is the same thing but it is not.


After 23...Ra6? White has the option of going for an immediate kill, as black's king is in danger of getting checkmated: 24.Re7+! is a very strong move, forcing black to play 24...Kc8 (since the reply 24...Kc6?? would be immediate checkmate after 25.c4! followed by 26.Rc7# whatever black plays).

After this, white may play 25.Rc7, after which black is practically forced to play 25...Kd8 (if black goes 25...Kb8, white can play 26.a5! after which the simple plans of Rd7-d8# or Ne7-Rc8# are quite crushing) and in this situation, white may choose a few different winning plans. The most basic one is to just take pawns by either Rxb7+ or Rxf7+ using the fact that there is a discovered check. But the most crushing move seems to be 26.a5, after which black will lose at least the exchange, if not more.

A sample line: 26...Ke8 (stepping out of the pin) 27.Rxb7 (threatening Nc7, and the rook on a6 is trapped; there is no way of preventing the move, and black loses the rook on a6 for at most the bishop on b6.)


ChessKid or an adult chess site for a 15-year-old?

My advice would be to use the adult site. I've had several students but never recommended a kid-friendly site to anyone older than 8 years old.

It would be good to know why exactly you want that membership for further advice:

If what you are looking for is a site where your daughter can play and get experience, then make an analysis of those games (no engine please!), you probably won't even need to pay for a membership. chess.com and Lichess will both make the job easy for you. They also include tactical training, which is critical specially at the lower levels (see also ChessTempo, which also include a huge game database)
If you are interested in teaching material, then a subscription to a site like chess24 can be a good deal. You can find most things on YouTube but it's harder to filter out the "trash". There is just too much material to work with and no time in the world to study it all, so we have to filter out. If possible. I would consult with a chess coach what kind of material is the most helpful for her. After all, there's a lot of content that, while being good, may be oriented to players of a different skill level, or for a player of a similar level but with different strengths and weaknesses


In King's gambit, is Fisher's conclusion that "3...P-KN4 ... is inexact" inexact?

Apparently instead of 5...Nf6 in the line Fischer gave, 5...d6 6.Nxg4 Be7 is superior for Black.

You might look to Shirov for what is best in the King's Gambit.   He gave 1.e4 e5 2.f4? in his book and said "Prove me wrong".  In the past I saw him play a 3-minute game against 3000 rated computer on ICC in the King's Gambit and he crushed it.


Loss as black in 4.e3 English / rook ending

Let me try to cover your bullet points:

After 7...Rb8, ...Bg4 idea:  First I don't see the connection of Bg4 with pushing your f-pawn.  Your pawns are on dark squares so trading your light square bishop is not a great idea either.  How about 8...h6 with the idea of 9...Be6 and 10...d5.
After 10...f5 11.h3 I am losing the bishop pair:  You didn't properly calculate your Bg4 idea.  What did you think was going to happen with Bg4?
14...g5!?: this is fine.  White floundered the last few moves so attacking is good.
A 17...g4:  I would strongly consider 17...e4!  You have 2 knights and no light square bishop so closing the center with a space gain and tempo looks correct.  You can follow with c6, or h5 and g4.
Instead of 20...Qf5, should I consider 20...d5?  I would definitely calculate d5, but why open the whole board for the battle when you have space by his king.  I like throwing pieces to the king-side.
Maybe  21...Rbe8:  21...exd4 is where you start going wrong with the idea of liquidating.  Why do you want to liquidate?  At this point you should be asking yourself "What does White want to do?"  The answer is liquidate! Nc3 is probably his next move. I'd be look at ...Bh4 here.
compelled to play 35...b6: First, lets go back to move 26 where you should have played 26...Kf7 and have no worries.  You can't let him double rooks on the open file for free.  Of course 35...b6 is horrible.


Was the value of thorn pawns fully appreciated in decades past?

I had never heard the term, but such pawns are very important for their contribution to certain mating patterns, the most famous of which would be Damiano's mate, which was included in Damiano's 1512 book Questo libro e da imparare giocare a scachi et de li partiti. Here's an archetypal example:

[FEN "5rk1/6pQ/6P1/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 1 1"]


Sometimes when your opponent is in zeitnot (English: "time trouble"), it can make him nervous if you repeat moves a couple of times.

Also when your opponent is in zeitnot, it is a good idea to think on your moves thoroughly and not to try to play as fast as your opponent does. This also applies to when you're in zeitnot; you should at least try to make your opponent play as fast as you do.

I often try to learn rarely used variations to disturb my opponent and make him think with his own brain instead of mindlessly replaying moves from theory.

If I know that my opponent is rather a strategic player, I will try to play very tactical positions against him and to out-calculate him. When my opponent is better at tactics then I'll try to play more closed, maneuvering positions. In other words, when I know my opponent well, I'll try to play positions that he feels least comfortable in.

I've heard of other tricks of questionable taste, and I personally don't think they fall under "fair play" in my understanding of it.

Another thing I always do (though it is hardly psychological), is that I never inform my opponent if he forgot to press his clock. I use his time for analyzing the position, and make my move only after the opponent pressed the clock.


Why are the symbols 0-0 and 0-0-0 used for castling in algebraic notation?

The castling notation was invented by Johann Allgaier and used for the first time in his 1811 2nd edition of his Neue theoretisch-praktische Anweisung zum Schachspiel.

He didn't explain why he came up with it.

Allgaier (and algebraic notation in general) used digit-0. The use of letter-O is an anglo-saxon oddity.


Make Arena send last move to chess engine

I think for this you actually want the XBoard protocol, which specifies:

result RESULT {COMMENT}
After the end of each game, xboard will send you a result command. You can use this command to trigger learning. RESULT is either 1-0, 0-1, 1/2-1/2, or *, indicating whether white won, black won, the game was a draw, or the game was unfinished. The COMMENT string is purely a human-readable comment; its content is unspecified and subject to change. In ICS mode, it is passed through from ICS uninterpreted. Example:
result 1-0 {White mates}
Here are some notes on interpreting the "result" command. Some apply only to playing on ICS ("Zippy" mode).
If you won but did not just play a mate, your opponent must have resigned or forfeited. If you lost but were not just mated, you probably forfeited on time, or perhaps the operator resigned manually. If there was a draw for some nonobvious reason, perhaps your opponent called your flag when he had insufficient mating material (or vice versa), or perhaps the operator agreed to a draw manually.
You will get a result command even if you already know the game ended -- for example, after you just checkmated your opponent. In fact, if you send the "RESULT {COMMENT}" command (discussed below), you will simply get the same thing fed back to you with "result" tacked in front. You might not always get a "result *" command, however. In particular, you won't get one in local chess engine mode when the user stops playing by selecting Reset, Edit Game, Exit or the like.

(emphasis mine)
UCI protocol is designed to be stateless, so an engine does not know when a game begins or ends, but is merely given a position to search.
As a compromise, you could trigger learning on a ucinewgame command, but this is not nearly as useful, because UCI does not send you the winning move. Perhaps perform a depth-1 search to see if there was a mating move, then assume they made that.


Is a forced draw by 50 moves possible with Bishop and Knight endgame?

It takes at most 33 moves to win this endgame from any position (excluding positions where bishop or knight can be captured). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate and references there.

So, no, a forced draw is not possible in this endgame. However if the defending side is playing perfectly (e.g. an engine with tablebase), it could be very hard to win this for a human within 50 moves if you start from one of those 33-moves-to-mate positions.


Share a board in realtime to teach chess

Is there any online service which allow to share a board in real time
  (I suppose to show it in a frame)?

Have you tried sharing your desktop in a Skype conference call?

Another alternative might be Google+.


Complete game Ojanen - Ridala , Helsinki 1959

I am unable to find the complete game, therefore must conclude that it is no longer available. These are the methods I used:

Searching the Chessmaster and Fritz for Fun databases yields no results. Referencing the comments  by @dfan and @Iodebari, the complete game is not in Chessbase's Mega Database or in MillionBase
Google doesn't return it
I've emailed Tim Krabbe, the author of the site linked to in the question, but have received no response
The game is not in any books that I have in my (admittedly limited) chess library. E.g. the game does not feature in Mastering Chess Strategy by Johan Hellsten

PS. A note about topicality:

On meta I've asked a question about how to answer questions where I don't believe there is an answer. If you feel that this should have been a comment instead of an answer, please feed back on the meta question What do we do with questions that I don't think there is an answer to?

Additionally, if you have an answer to the question, I would love to see it. My own research methods are limited and I don't mind being proven wrong if someone can find the complete game.


Why continue to increase search depth after mate is found?

When an engine searches, it doesn't look at all possible moves. It has to do Alpha-Beta pruning, where it rules out moves it considers extremely bad, and doesn't even consider them.

Once the engine finds a move, one of the things it does is then go back to these moves that are probably bad, and reconsiders them. I'm guessing that the 100 ply search depth is dedicated to those sidelines, with the engine trying to find a better line than the one it originally suggested.

You're right though that this would be impossible, given the engine already found a mate in 32, or 64 ply. But engines don't care how good their original line is, they always try to find a better one (what else would an engine do in the meantime?). Maybe it's more logical to get an engine to stop searching in the scenario you mentioned with the quickest possible checkmate, but again it's not like it has anything else to do.

When they perfect AGIs that can specialize in a variety of things at the same time, you'll probably see your logic implemented. But for now, mere AIs may as well search indefinitely.


How do people use chess software to improve their practical skills?

I know that I, for one, have used them to tell me why a line not mentioned in the books is bad. Most books show you all viable lines of play and maybe a few dubious ones, but a book can't mention all possible variations. More often than not, my opponent will play something very early on in an opening that isn't mentioned in any of the books I have on hand and so I assume it's incorrect play but struggle to know why it's an inaccuracy and how I can punish the inaccuracy. This is where, in the absence of a seasoned pro, a computer can be useful.

Let me illustrate with an example. I am a Trompowsky player and I learned most of my lines from a book by Peter Wells and a video from Andrew Martin. Together they cover a lot of material and I feel reasonably prepared to play at least passed move 8 or so. In many blitz games, however, I was frequently encountering the line:

  d4, Nf6
  Bg5, Ne4
  Bf4, g5?!

Now this g5 move is not listed in any material I've come across. I can probably assume it's bad or it would be mentioned as a viable line, but I couldn't come up with why it was bad over the board. Maybe with careful analysis, I could, but if you are like me, time is in short supply. I am a husband and father to 4 so I need to make good use of my time. Or, in this case, good use of the computer's time. Finally getting tired of seeing this line in view of

  Be5, f6
  Bg3, h5

and I'm not sure where the bishop is going to go after h4. So I put the position into the computer after 4. Be5, f6 and let it run for awhile. After some time it came up with the surprising

  e3!, ...

threatening Qh5#. I had completely missed this and always assumed that the bishop must keep on moving or retreat all the way back to c1 after 3. ..., g5. You can argue that I should have been able to find this without a computer, but the fact remains that I didn't and there are plenty of situations out there where my opponent may play something dubious but I may struggle to find out why it's dubious and what the correct response is.

In sum, I think you'll find it useful to use a computer to refute variations that appear strong on the surface, but aren't mentioned in your reading material so it's not likely that they are as strong as you fear. Computers can easily find those counterintuitive moves that will shock your opponent who isn't as prepared.


Is it possible to configure SCID to use English descriptive notation?

I looked through the help, the menus, and the option file. I didn't see anything that looked like it could do this.

Of course, SCID is open source. If you know programming, you could always add this functionality yourself.


Are there exercises besides tactics that beginners should know about?

The easiest way to improve at almost any stage is hiring a good coach (not one that plays well, but one that caoches well, which is often cheaper)
While tactics should be the main focus of your training at this point, there are other types of exercises you can do. "Systematic Chess Training" by Sergiu Samarian is a great book that combines different types of exercises, but it's probably a bit too hard for you right now. "Modern Chess Planning" by Efstratios Grivas could be a more adequate alternative. There's also a couple of books by Jacobo Caselas "Entrena tu juego estratégico", but I'm not sure if there's an English translation available.
Grivas's book contains 75 games where you must choose a plan at a critical stage of each of them. The game continues with a detailed analysis. The other books I mentioned are essentially strategy teaching manuals that contain a lot of exercises.


In what ways is it the best to use a computer in correspondence chess?

Obviously, as long as they are permitted within the rules of the organization, here is how I would use a computer.

First, realize that different programs are better at different things, and I will divide them into two categories. I heard GMs Peter Svidler and Jan Gustafsson discuss this during the Firouzja-Carlsen game just yesterday.

The first program is for opening play, and that is where Leela shines. I have not had much experience with this program, but Jan mentioned that it can, apparently, blunder at times. They both agreed that Stockfish is still the king of analyzing in the middlegame. I watch a lot of relays of top tournaments, and I follow along with Stockfish, and it is currently the best program out there for the middlegame, and the best part is that it is free.

The next thing is that in most circumstances, I only look at the top two lines (in ChessBase, you can click the little plus/minus sign in the engine box to add/remove the number of lines). I would probably increase this to the top 5 lines for correspondence since there may be a line that fits in better with what you are trying to do, so you can, at least, know to explore it.

Next, in the opening, it helps if you have a good understanding of the opening pawn structure, and the typical plans that are played. As you get into the opening, look at a bunch of GM games from a database to see what they have done before you decide on your moves. Have Stockfish going while looking at them...you never know what you might find if it pops up an unusual eval.

Lastly, and the stronger you are, the easier this is, and the better you will be at it, but you want to play "advanced chess". "Advanced chess" is term for using both the computer and your knowledge to pick the best move. In its infancy, Anand was considered the best at this, and there were a few tournaments where these top players were allowed to use a computer. Here is an article. As part of this cyborg play, and this is the key, you want to force in certain series of the computer's best moves or even some of your own human moves, so, in essence, the program only starts analyzing from that point.

For example, if you and I are playing and we are on move 28, and you just let your computer analyze from there, it may analyze out to move 38. Not bad, but if I am able to force in 7 likely moves based on my 40 years' of experience and the computer's evaluation along the way, and only then let it think uninterrupted, I start at move 35, and might get to move 45.

If you are evaluating a position based on the end result at move 38, but I am evaluating it based on move 45, 7 moves later; I am much more likely to be successful, and win the game.

That is how I would use one if I played correspondence chess. Frankly, I am too impatient so I was never into correspondence in the old days of postcards, but the advent of computers really turned it into more machine versus machine, so that really killed any chance I would get into this in the future; but to each his own.


Why do some openings have Indian in their name?

In Indian Chess, the game that was played in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in India (not to be confused with its ancestor Chaturanga), the rules allowed no castle, but :

The king can make a knight's move once in a game, known as Indian castling.

As a consequence, g3 followed by Kg2 for White or ...b6 followed by ...Kb7 (the black king stands on d8 at the beginning of the game in Indian chess) were very common moves in the opening, since it was the fastest way to bring the king towards the corner where it will usually find the most safety.
Of course, playing g3, b3 or ...b6, ...g6 could also be followed by a "normal" fianchetto with the camel (our bishop).
When Indian players started playing western chess (during colonization), they quite naturally used a lot of fianchettoes, since they are common in Indian Chess. As explained in user1583209's answer, that was the case for Moheschunder Bannerjee in his games against Cochrane around 1850, and The Chess Player's Chronicle used the term "Indian defense" to refer to 1.e4 d6 2.d4 g6 after him, about 30 years later though (1884). This is the first documented use of the appelation about that kind of defense with fianchetto - although "Indian Opening" appeared earlier to refer to 1.e4 e5 2.d3.
The term "Indian Defense" as we understand it today (After 1.d4 Nf6, thus excluding Pirc-Ufimsev and other schemes with e4 and not c4 for White) established itself after WWI, its use being popularized by Savielly Tartakower and Hans Kmoch.


What is the fastest possible stalemate by castling?

I’ve found a way to reduce the count down to 31 plies.
[FEN ""]

1. f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6 3. exd6 Qg5 dxc7 Qxg2 5. cxb8=Q Qxh2 Qxa7 Qxg1 7. Qxa8 Qg2 8. Bxg2 g5 9. Qxb7 g4 10. Qxc8+ Ke7 11. Qxf8+ Ke6 12. Qxf7+ Ke5 13. Qxg8 Kf4 14. Qxh8 h5 15. Qxh5 Kg3 16. O-O

White has only two non-capturing moves, the first pawn move and casting. Black uses up all of their moves without rest. Therefore, I think that 31 plies may be optimal unless a pawn capture can be shaved off.


Is it poor sportsmanship to resign immediately after a major blunder early in the game?

It is totally normal, and actually, I would consider it good sportsmanship, but that is a bit relative to your level of play.

Among masters, if someone blunders even a piece, they know that their master opponent will have no problem converting, so to play on could be considered rude and a waste of time. That said, they have the right to, and if they do, you don't really complain about it.

At MUCH lower levels, sometimes players are not strong enough to win, even up a queen, so playing on may make sense.

In either case, it is your opponent's right to resign a position they do not want to play. Take the rating points, and smile.


Why does my ability/rating against bots vary?

The bots do have a lot of variance, especially the weaker ones. I just tried playing Oliver and he hung his queen on move 3. If that happens you're obviously going to have an easy game.

and started to get stuck around the 1100s with having to take time with my games to get past them

although rushing the openings, I haven't been able to consistently beat him.

So when you play the stronger bots, you take your time, and when you play the weaker ones, you don't? That explains it. It's pretty easy to get into a losing position fast if you aren't taking the game seriously enough, even against a weak opponent. This can happen both against computers and against real players.