Would the Elo rating system remain useful if different tournament formats were used?

Theoretically there's no problem. But, for example, if 'parking the bus' approach (a player gets a high level in ranking, then he stops playing) is one of the most known practical issues of Elo ranking, the problem should be with weaker players that play just brackets, with one or few games every tournament.

Many post-Elo ranking systems, as Glicko (for chess), or TrueSkill (for X-box games), or rankade (our multipurpose ranking system) have some 'activity dynamics feature' to avoid this.

Rankade adds the option for different weights for match, due to different tournament format and/or match duration, and more.

While playing one-on-one (as in a chess group) or in symmetrical factions (as in basketball group), the total number of rating points is conserved. as per Dag Oskar Madsen comment.


Queen's Gambit Accepted, how to continue after 3. e3 c6

The simplest reply for white is Bxc4 which gives white exactly what he wants, a central pawn majority with tempo because he got his d4 pawn in the center plus his bishop on C4 while black basically doesn't have any pieces or pawns off their starting squares.

That said, a4 is probably also a good move as it makes b5 difficult for black.

Note that c6 isn't a great move for black because quite often in other lines he wants to move his c pawn straight to c5. If he ends up later playing c6-c5 then he has taken two moves instead of one to get there. Better for black would be e5, aggressively challenging white in the center or Nf6 fighting for the d5 and e4 squares.


Is there a chess engine with divide perft for captures only?

I'm not aware of any engine that gives you only capture moves. But you can easily do it yourself, for example, you can easily modify the move generation code in Stockfish such that it only generates capture moves.

It's probably not a good idea to test your implementation with Kiwipete. You should try positions with en-passpant capture, capture with promotion, capture with under-promotion. Once you're comfortable, then move on to the Kiwipete position.


Chess.com has a list of chess coaches, searchable by location, rating and other stuff.

In the ICC store you can also hire chess coaches.


Your terms have been defined by GM Bien in his book
https://b-ok.cc/book/869069/2e0f8a or
https://archive.org/details/chessrecipesfromthegrandmasterskitchen.
However, although mobility is a factor in many engines, it's no calculated by the method you're trying to accomplish.
Common features checked with an evaluation function are pawn structures, isolated, backward, and doubled pawns, king safety, and piece mobility/activity, rooks on the seventh, piece mobility and closeness to the center, and restriction of the opponent's pieces.
Not a comprehensive list, but this should be enough for a school project.  If you was a better list, search for chess evaluation function or read the source code of another's program, there's plenty of examples on the internet, especially on Github.com.


Draws, en passant, and the FIDE's 2014 rulebook revision

Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same.

After 5...Ra8, the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same. Therefore, Black can claim a draw.

  Thus positions are not the same if ... at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant....

At the start of the sequence the pawn could not be captured en passant.


How can I minimise my opponent's chances to make use of a weak square in my position?

Is the only way to prevent this to have pieces tied down to defending
that square because to me that seems like a waste.

No, it isn't the only way. There are two other better ways:

If you don't like the positions that can arise in a particular opening then don't play it. Play an opening you do like.
Normally in an opening where one side has weaknesses there is some compensation for the other player in the form of either counter weaknesses or attacking chances. Good players who choose such openings do so because they want to take advantage of those counter weaknesses and attacking chances. If they do this skilfully then their attack hits home before their opponent can take advantage of those weaknesses. But in any case they get the kind of double edged game they like.


Tactical difference between chess and Chinese chess

Douglas Crockford has written an accurate overview of Chinese Chess (or Xiangqi) from the perspective of a chess player. I quote the following:

  The Board

  Xiangqi can be played on a 9 by 10 uncheckered board. The board is
  separated into two territories by a river running horizontally
  through the center of the board. Bishops are unable to cross the
  river. Pawns gain the ability to move horizontally when they cross the
  river. Each of the territories has a 3 by 3 area called the Palace.
  The kings and queens are never permitted to leave the Palace.

  Pieces

  The king (or general) can move one square horizontally or
  vertically. The king is restricted to the nine squares of the palace.
  The King cannot leave the Palace, even to avoid checkmate. Kings act
  as rooks for the purpose of checking: If the two kings are in the same
  file, there must be at least one blocking piece between them. There is
  no castling.

  The queen (or guard) moves one square diagonally (as in Shatranj).
  A queen cannot leave the Palace, even to prevent checkmate. Queens are
  restricted to five of the nine squares in the Palace. Each side has
  two queens.

  The bishop (or elephant or minister) moves exactly two squares
  diagonally (as in Shatranj), but cannot jump. Bishops cannot cross the
  river. There are only seven squares that a bishop can occupy.

  The knight (or horse) moves like the Chess knight, except that it
  cannot jump. It moves one square vertically or horizontally, and then
  one square diagonally.

  The rook (or chariot or car) moves like the Chess rook. It can go
  any number of spaces vertically or horizontally.

  The pawn (or soldier) moves one space forward only. Unlike the
  pawn in Chess, this pawn does not capture diagonally. It does not have
  the option to go two on its first move. There is no en passant
  capture. There is no promotion of pawns into queens. However, once the
  pawn crosses the river, it acquires the power to move sideways. The
  pawn can never move backwards. Each side has five pawns.

  The cannon is unique to Xiangqi. It is the only piece which moves
  differently than it captures. The cannon moves likes a rook. It
  captures by moving like a rook with a jump over one piece. There must
  be exactly one piece of either color between the cannon and the piece
  it captures. The intervening piece is called the gun mount or screen.

  Checkmate and Stalemate

  Check and Checkmate are the same as in Chess. Stalemate is a win,
  not a draw. You cannot avoid defeat by forcing a stalemate.

  Perpetual check and other repetitions are not allowed.

As someone who has played both games, I would say that Xiangqi is more fluid because you are able to move every single piece on the get-go, meaning that there are more variations in the opening move. You can be aggressive by placing your cannon behind the centre pawn or you can be defensive by placing an elephant there. The good thing about not having a row of pawns in front is that you can deploy your chariot in two moves to control the river where early battles will be fought mainly with lower value pieces such as horses and soldiers.

The middlegame strategy usually involves positioning a number of your attacking pieces to exploit your opponent's weakness, perhaps at the flank. Opportunities can be created when you are attacking your opponent, forcing your opponent to move his defensive pieces like the guard and the elephant to the centre, cutting off his more powerful pieces from coming to the rescue. Other strategies involves deploying double cannons at the centre column or placing them at the last row, effectively forcing the opponent's king out into the open.

If both sides are equally matched, then the endgame would be played where fewer pieces are left on the board. The position of the king becomes very important at this stage if there are no chariots on either side. The king who dominates the centreline would limit the other king's movement to just three squares, or a third of the palace if the opponent's king is exposed.

In conclusion, I would say that there are more similarities than differences between Chess and Chinese Chess. Those who are good at Chess would naturally be good in Chinese Chess and vice versa. Strategies used in Chess can certainly be adapted to Chinese Chess as long as you have a flexible mind and can be creative with your attacks and defenses. For those who have not play Chinese Chess, do try it. It is fun.


How do strong players think during a game?

When chess players play very fast, they think in much the same way that you think when you talk really fast. You don't think about nouns and verbs and grammar and dictionary definitions of words, although language is incredibly complicated; you have that all internalized. Good chess players have internalized the standard patterns of chess the way that you have internalized the standard patterns of speech.

Now, if you're writing a formal essay, with lots of time in which to write it, you'll spend lots of time thinking about how to construct your argument, exact word choice, possible objections of the reader that you want to address in advance, etc. Similarly, chess players think very carefully and deliberately when they have a long time to think.


Is there a term for an attack - similar to a pin or skewer - on pieces of equal value?

I'm not aware of any terms. Maybe it is helpful to think instead of the purpose of the move:

pin: preventing a piece from moving by threatening to attack a piece behind it
skewer: forcing a piece to move, in order to attack the piece behind it

So whether you call a situation with a knight in front of a bishop (or rook in front of a rook like in your board) a "skewer" or a "pin" depends perhaps on what the primary intention is.
In your board position, I would say that the A8 rook is skewered and the B7 rook is pinned.


What would a playable chess variant with a complexity comparable to Go look like?

Actually it is not really correct to say that "simply increasing the board size [...] comes at the cost of losing playability". The complexity of Go on a board of the same size as chess (i.e. 8×8) would be not high at all, in fact less than chess according to my intuition. But it is true that there is some reason why we humans have a vague feeling that increasing the size of the Go board is not what gives Go its intrinsic complexity, whereas increasing the size of a chess board (say duplicating the pieces and putting them on two sides of a 16×16 board) makes it feel less playable. Based on a mathematical view, it seems to me that the main reason is the difference in the nature of pieces. In chess, many pieces can move from one end of the board to the other. In Go on the other hand, each piece has a fixed location and has a semi-local effect, in the sense that it can exert an effect on another location on the board only if it is in some unbroken chain of pieces that reaches over there. Also, the objective function is a global and fine-grained one in Go (i.e. territory), but a very local and coarse-grained one in chess (i.e. checkmate or stalemate of opponent king). Together, these two factors make Go scalable to large boards without losing playability (except for taking longer), unlike chess.

As you noted, simply increasing the branching factor is not desirable, because otherwise all we would have to do is to increase the board size and number of pieces! To increase the complexity but retain human playability, in a fully scalable manner, one can try to make the objective global and fine-grained, or make the pieces have more localized effects than in ordinary chess, or both. Here are some ideas:

Fine-grained objective: Remove check/checkmate/stalemate/castling, allow the king to get captured, and add an extra kind of move, to ascend any of your pieces that is at the final rank. Passing is allowed whenever there is no valid move. The goal is simply to ascend more pieces than your opponent.
Semi-local effect: Restrict the movement of pieces; each piece requires half a unit of energy per king step from its original location (e.g. moving a knight always requires one unit), and capturing an opponent piece requires 1 extra unit of energy, and each player has 2 units of energy per turn, except that White has only 1 unit on the first turn. For instance, on your turn (except for the first turn) you can push two pawns one step each and move a king twice, or you can move a queen one step (0.5 units) and use a pawn to capture an opponent piece (1.5 units).

These two ideas can be used separately or together, and they can clearly be tweaked in innumerable ways to smoothen or sharpen the game play. For example:

Smoother (1): Break ties in number of ascended pieces by comparing how many moves were taken to ascend the last ascended piece. A tie is still possible if both players make the final ascension move at the same time.
Sharper (1): Narrow the focus by changing the goal to count only the number of ascended pawns, while other pieces cannot be ascended.
Smoother (2): Increase the (square) board size by a factor of k and the number of pieces by a factor of m and simultaneously increase the number of units of energy available per turn by a factor of k×m. It is obvious that this is just making the army and the board more continuous, and the game mechanics retain the same flavour as the original (2). But this will greatly multiply the branching factor (more than exponential in k×m). Setting (k,m) = (2,2) should make for a nice long strategy-heavy war on the board.
Sharper (2): Make the pieces have more varied distance limit per energy usage. Doing so will make the strategy sharper because the stronger pieces (like the queen in the original chess) can maneuver more easily to where they are needed, but usually are best used as supporting pieces except when they can capture and get away.


Is there any way to extract PGNs from a DGT live games presentation?

http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/tfd.htm

If you remove the last file name, you get the listing of the contents of the directory:

  http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/

The .txt files are files used by the Flash program to find the moves. But there also is a pgn file:

  http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/games.pgn

However, if I recall correctly, the pgn file does not always exist. If it does not exist, one way would be to write a script that parses the pos##.txt files which contain all moves even when the games are ongoing. I thought of doing that before the pgn files started appearing (probably an update of the dgt software?) in the directories, but never got started.


How large can a rating difference become before either player realizes it's not worth engaging in a game?

One thing is, I think there may be real surprises even if the rating range is quite vast. You'll never know the real strength of an opponent most of the times (because of lack of rated games etc.,) On another perspective, lets say one of the player is 1400 Elo and the opponent is 2000 Elo, it will still result in a good "feeling" for both the players if they take it sportively. The 1400 Elo player will clearly appreciate the consistency in the 2000 Elo player's moves and will really learn a LOT. The other way round, it is a good opportunity for the 2000 Elo player to test out his skill or experimenting things which he would not dare against a player of his own caliber (Like for example sacrificing the Queen for a Knight and Bishop and trying to win in the given situation).

So I feel there is no rating difference that can make the chess game not worth engaging, if you look at the bright sides.


Longest forced win with just a Knight or Bishop

According to this website, the longest checkmate for K+B vs. K+P is a simple mate in one, e.g.

[FEN "8/8/8/8/8/8/p7/k1K1B3 w - - 0 1"]

The K+N vs. K+P case is slightly more interesting, the following position is mate in seven:

[FEN "8/8/8/8/p7/8/N7/k1K5 w - - 0 1"]

1. Nb4 a3 2. Nc2+ Ka2 3. Nd4 Ka1 4. Kc2 Ka2 5. Ne2 Ka1 6. Nc1 a2 7. Nb3#

You can play these endgames with online tablebases, e.g. this one from Shredder.


I must disagree completely with the above answer. In the correspondence tournaments that I have participated in using a computer was considered cheating and if you were the tournament winner you had to do an analysis of one of your winning games, chosen by the tournament directors, to prove that you knew what you were talking about.

Second the computers main advantage against human players is their speed. A computer calculates thousand upon thousands of instructions per second and is able to analyse thousand of possible moves on each of its turns. However the computer has no true intelligence, which a human player does. The computer program Hydra was built to completely dominate the chess world and it did in fact beat every other chess program in the the world and has never been beaten by a human over-the-board. However it was beaten by a correspondence player in two games and drew their third game. I have been unable to find if the player consulted a computer or not, but as was pointed out in the discussions of the games on www.chessgames.com the player, correspondence chess International Grandmaster Arno Nickel, wasn't simply following another program since Hydra could beat all other programs as the time.

To say that unaided humans have no chance at all as though it were an obvious given is simply wrong. Take away the time constraints, have a motivated skilled correspondence player and there is a strong chance that the player will still win.

Hydra ran on a specially designed system that spread the processing required out over a network and is the only chess engine that would have a chance against the correspondence world champions if they were not constrained by time controls.


Are there any symmetric zugzwang positions?

You can easily construct many such positions. For instance:

4k3/8/3P1P/8/8/3p1p2/8/4K3 w - - 0 1

First to move loses - either by moving a king and allowing the opponent to promote or by losing one (and subsequently next) pawn.


Where does the black king stand in this specific position?

The black king must be on c8.
The white king reached g8 through g6 and h7 before the white pawns arrived on g6-h7. A white knight took the Bc8 from b6; the black queen was also taken by a knight. The black king remained en e8, and the black rook on a8, until a few moves ago.
The last moves were for instance:
[Title "Invisible Black King solution"]
[FEN "r3k1K1/ppppp1pP/6P1/8/8/8/8/2n5 w q - 0 1"]

1. Kh8 Na2 2. Kg8 Nc1 3. Kh8 Na2 4. Kg8 O-O-O+
5. Kf7 Rh8


Is it better to start without a queen or without any pawns?

Other than the computer evaluation proving that the Q is better, the biggest problem here is that black basically starts out fully developed since his pieces already have amazing scope, and can quickly coordinate his forces, and attack.


What is the better way to stop blundering all my games?

I am on the road that starts from the "Beginner" stage, trying to leave this "town". I know and understand the rules, I also understand most of the "classic" tactics. I am able to reproduce some mating patterns (and to understand them I think).

Based on your information I think I can safely assume that you would see those blunders if someone pointed them out. This is an important fact that helps me to recommend you the solution.

  It is very difficult for me to force myself to consider all the possible moves of the opponents.

You should not do that-it requires too much mental energy and wastes too much time.

  So the question is: what is the better way to stop blundering all my games?

Much better approach is to understand what your opponent's plan is and to search the best moves he can play to implement it. This requires the ability to understand the position that arose on the board, and a fair amount of objectivity. To achieve this start with the following actions:

Learn the basic moves and middle game themes/plans of your openings-I find Starting Out series to do a wonderful job, I use them myself too.
During play detach yourself from your emotions and use your knowledge of openings, tactics and middle game plans to evaluate quality of the opponents moves. Ask yourself questions like "Where does my opponent lead the attack?" , "What are my weaknesses?" , "Is this move played consistently-does it support opponents plan or is it a deviation?".
Tactical mastery greatly reduces blundering. Try to solve puzzles and try to improve this part of the game by constantly playing.

  Should I forbid myself to "undo" my moves when I play against the computer?

NO!!!

This is the best approach you can use-if you make a blunder just memorize that it is a bad move. Undo move and try to play a better one based on your own knowledge. If you fail to find satisfactory move, just consult books I have recommended or setup a position on your computer and order it to analyze. This will provide you much needed experience in playing that position, and at some point you will simply start to "feel" the good moves.

  How should I read the board?

Watch the entire board and look all the squares opponent's piece attacks ( the piece he played last with ). This is important, I have this flaw in my own game too and it creeps in because you do not "respect" opponents attack enough-believing that you have faster and stronger counter-attack or simply believing that your game is much better and he should resign instead prolonging.

  Is there a standard way of forcing oneself to consider all the consequences of a move?

Use the combination of all the above advices-watch all the squares his last playing piece attacks and try to understand what role that move plays in his overall plan. Knowing the basic moves of the opening will help you to survive 15+ moves, and knowing basic middle game plans will reduce your calculation time since you will be able to assume with great accuracy what is the point behind the last move your opponent played. Also, by knowing your opening and its middle game basics, you will find your counter moves much easier and much faster.

Tactical skill is also important here, and just by continuing to solve puzzles you will be able to find hidden threats faster, both for yourself and for your opponent-which will strengthen your evaluation accuracy.

Hopefully this will help, leave a comment if you need further help.

Best regards.


Shortest stalemate in serious tournament game

Yes, there has been a stalemate in a serious game that is under 30 moves long. According to Tim Krabbe's "Chess Records," the fastest such game happened in 27 moves.
[Title "Sibilio-Mariotti, Ravenna, 1982"]
[fen "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e5 c5 4. b4 cxb4 5. d4 Nh6 6. a3 bxa3 7. c3 Nf5 8. Nxa3 Nc6 9. Nb5 a6 10. g4 Bd7 11. Bg5 Be7 12. gxf5 axb5 13. fxe6 fxe6 14. Rxa8 Qxa8 15. Rg1 Qa3 16. Bxb5 Bxg5 17. Rxg5 Qxc3+ 18. Kf1 O-O 19. Bxc6 Bxc6 20. Kg2 Ba4 21. Qe2 Bc2 22. Ne1 Bxe4+ 23. f3 Rxf3 24. Nxf3 Bxf3 25. Qxf3 Qd2+ 26. Kh3 Qxg5 27. Qf8+ Kxf8


What was the first chess-playing automaton?

In 1910 Leonardo Torres developed a machine he called "El Ajedrecista". It was capable of automatically playing K+R vs K endgames without human intervention. It was publicly demonstrated for the first time in 1914.


Generally it seems to me if you want to keep the pawn on c4 with b5, white can play a4 which is cumbersome for black as protecting the pawn on b5 with c6 or a6 runs into pins on the a file or the h1-a8 diagonal. Even if you did manage this setup with pawns on a6, b5, c6 and c4 and maybe the bishop on b7 (or moving the rook out of the pins), black's light-squared bishop is very passive and moving any of these four pawns will create weaknesses or lose a pawn.

So yes, you could call it a gambit I guess.


Deep Fritz 14, Houdini 4, Komodo 9 and Rybka 4 all use the same Graphic User Interface (GUI).  It allows you to blundercheck, do full game analysis, calculate elo ratings for sets of games.  It has a Handicap and Fun mode for dumbing down these engines, so you have a chance.  You can also play timed games, and adjust the engine's style.  There is also a hotness meter that shows you how sharp or dynamic the position is.

ChessBase 13 cannot do timed games or full game analysis, but it can do infinite analysis.  It can create opening and endgame theme keys, and has a search mask for locating games with certain traits quickly.  Lists of games can be sorted by player name, year, result, elo rating, tournament just by clicking on the header.

Komodo 9 is probably stronger than Houdini 4 which is stronger than Rybka 4 which is stronger than Deep Fritz 14.  Some people like the slightly weaker engines because they believe they have special characteristics, for example a sharp or solid style, more human feel, or the like.

Both ChessBase and the engine GUIs allow you to annotate games, add variations, draw arrows on the board, watch videos, do infinite analysis, play on Playchess.  The Engine GUIs have some basic database functions.  The Engine GUIs are mainly for playing against, and ChessBase is for building an opening repertoire, and preparing to play specific opponents.


The simplest answer is "No" because draw offers are not retained. By that I mean that although the players may record draw offers on their scoresheets, that information is thrown away when the games are transcribed and saved.

In all events where norms are possible the organizer has to send the records of the games in electronic (pgn) format to FIDE. When the game inputters input a game they do this by using a program like Chessbase or Scid vs PC which gives the ability to enter a game using the mouse. Many of you will be familiar with doing this with your own games.

Adding extra information like draw offers is very time consuming and not a requirement. Hence no game inputters do this. The information is lost. The only time this information survives is when a game is annotated, perhaps by one of the players, using the original scoresheet, but this applies to only a tiny minority of GM games.


I'm assuming that you are trying to avoid French-like positions, rather than avoiding the named opening - the latter is latter impossible after 1.e4 as most texts consider the French beginning as soon as black plays 1.e6.

In short, if you want to play 1.e4 regularly there is no way of avoiding the French Defence with a 'standard' opening. After 1.e4 e6, all sensible moves from White can be made to resemble some features of the French if Black wants to press the game in that direction.

To give some general advice: avoiding an opening by playing really unusual moves almost always results in objectively worse positions if your opponent plays correctly. Because of this, I'd recommend putting time into finding a response to the French that gives you a position that you feel more comfortable with. The Exchange variation is very different from the Advance, which is different again from the Classical and Winawer. With the number of different lines you should eventually be able to find something you at least don't feel too uncomfortable playing. Alternatively, a system-like approach with the King's Indian Attack (KIA) or similar could work if you don't want to learn lines that your opponent may be more familiar with.


"Knight rebus"-Decipher an encoded chess position

Assume the board is in it's usual position (the bottom row is the first row) then this is the solution:

[FEN "1B6/8/1k6/R7/1n6/2K5/r6p/q1r1n3 - - - 0 1"]

and Black's last move was b2xc1R++.

I could write an explanation here about I came to this result, but it would essentially be copying @Maxwell's answer. I didn't use it, though.


Why is 7 Bd3 in the Cambridge Springs QGD more often met with 7...Ne4 than 7...dxc4?

7...dxc4 is absolutely just as good as 7...Ne4. Stockfish 10 (at depth 32) gives 7...dxc4 an evaluation of -0.31, while 7...Ne4 is 0.23. A difference of 118 games vs 96 games isn't a big deal and has very little weight in determining the objective strength of a move. So this is one of those cases where deciding which move to play is a matter of taste.

EDIT - according to online saved results, Stockfish (as of Aug 1 2019) at depth 47 gives 7...dxc4 a -0.43 evaluation. So it's definitely sound :)


Is there a free downloadable mini-chess program or 'chess engine'?

Zillions of Games isn't free, but it plays Los Alamos chess. ChessV plays 50 chess variants.  I believe Sjaak plays microchess.

ChessV
http://samiam.org/chessv/

Sjaak
http://www.eglebbk.dds.nl/program/chess-index.html


On how to learn Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) or Shogi (Japanese Chess)

I learned Shogi from these videos.  It goes from absolute beginner to analysis of grand-master games.


Relation between Elo and search depth for basic minimax

If we use the most basic approach to a chess engine (for example, for
a codegolf): minimax to a fixed depth with the material count as
static evaluation, then how strong is this algorithm?

Not very strong.
Even though the material value is a significant factor in evaluation. There are many more factors that you need to consider to build a strong evaluation function.

Mobility
Center Control
Pawn structure
King Safety
Blocked pieces
Tempo

These are just the key points, there are in-fact many more factors you can add.
Now, coming back to the question which is the relation of depth to the strength of the engine

Short answer:
The greater the depth, the stronger the chess engine is. With experience, I can say that the engine you described in your question would be quite weak, and could be defeated by any amateur chess player.

Long Answer:

I would say that it has a significant impact.
The problem is that depth doesn't necessarily denote the number of moves you have searched. This is because modern chess engines apply something called pruning which is reducing the number of moves it evaluates. It cuts down on a huge number of moves that seem bad during the beginning of the search, which can cut down a huge branch of moves. Due to this engines like Stockfish can reach depths of more than 15!
If you use a basic algorithm like minimax that applies no pruning, depth 6 with a reasonably fast generator function will already be slow. Anything after depth 7 would just take forever.
If there are an average of 20 moves in a position, this is how many moves you would be evaluating approximately when the depth increase
depth 1 = 20
depth 2 = 400
depth 3 = 8,000
depth 4 = 160,000
depth 5 = 3,200,000
depth 6 = 64,000,000
depth 7 = 1,280,000,000

1.2 trillion moves. That is a LOT of moves. And chess engines today search moves NOWHERE NEAR that number.
I gave ethereal about 7 seconds to search for moves in this position for black

Using arena I could see the details of this search, and to my surprise, it had gone to a depth of 22! Does this mean it evaluated 134217730000000000000000000000000000 positions?
No, it evaluated only 9,799,1101 positions. Again, because of pruning.
It did go to a depth of 22 but it did not evaluate all the variations.
Using a simpler search algorithm like minimax which applies no pruning, you will be seeing the same number of moves at depth 4-6 but those moves have very little meaning. Because a huge part of them could start with you hanging one of your pieces.
So your evaluation function is weak as it only considers material balance, and your search algorithm isn't great either, you can understand why this engine will be weak.
EDIT: As I said earlier the greater the depth of the search, the stronger the move it picks.
At greater depths, the difference will only become greater because a single increment in the depth could result in searching millions of more nodes. There is no simple relation between the elo and the depth of an engine because as I also mentioned earlier depth is one factor amongst a hundred others.
If you see the top engines today, all of them search to a similar depth, but some are very clearly stronger than the other. Which just proves my point.


What is the idea of 'ponder' in the UCI protocol?

It's been a long time since I programmed anything, so I may be wrong.
Pondering, like in the comment, allows the computer to think on your time.  It basically switches sides and maintains a principle variation (PV search) (although I've seen some engines which maintain 3 PV searches) of what it considers to be the best line.  When you make your move, if it's the PV, then it should play the next move immediately.
The problem with ponder is the probability of having a wrong evaluation/incorrect line in the PV.  If the opponent's move was made quickly, the computer may have a random move in the PV, not really a possibility with modern computers searching a 3 million NPS, but older computers 20 years ago did have this problem.


Best way to prepare files with openings for future use

Here I will describe the usual and probably best way of preparing an opening repertoire.

Black

The usual way to prepare an opening repertoire with black is:

Depending on your style of play, skim through several games with different openings that suit your style of play and choose one (opening) for every starting move.
Starting with the most played (usually 1.e4) have a general look at the main line and a couple of important sidelines of your preferred defense. Choose a line that you like and feel comfortable with the position. Bear in mind that whenever black can deviate, you may only choose one deviation to begin with, but whenever white can deviate you must have a look at all (or at least most of) the deviations.
Build up an personalized file with your choice of opening repertoire. This should include the line you have chosen, the possible deviations for white and your answers. When theory ends, you should add a sample game (or even two if possible) with a relevant idea or position on said subline. Concerning the notes, if you find an annotated game (the annotator having a good level, preferably GM and that the game was his) on your pet line (or even if it's not your pet line) with relevant commentaries, it is surely a good idea to include it in your repertoire.
This is not always strictly necessary since most people only play for fun, but in general it is useful to check (now or when choosing the lines you want to play) that your repertoire is sound, or at least playable.
Repeat 2. and 3. for the rest of the opening moves.

Example

Despite the huge variety of opening moves, you may choose intelligently your opening repertoire so that you only have to prepare a couple of main defenses and get away with playing similar positions with different move openings. The main opening moves are 1.e4 and 1.d4.

I am a tactical player, so against 1.e4 I will play the Sicilian Dragon. Against every possible attack by white (Smith-Morra, Classical variation, Yugoslav attack, Russian system and so on) I will prepare the main line in almost all of them, since it is more probable that the'll play into may preparation that way. Particularly, on the Yugoslav attack I will play the Chinese Dragon (Rb8 instead of Rc8 at some point). I will play Be6 aginst the Classical variation. I will play e6 and Nge7 against the Closed Sicilian and so on. I will prepare a file on this defense.

Following this same tactical ideas, and because it also is a fianchetto defense (and I am used to having my bishop on g7 because of my main defense against 1.e4) I will play the Grunfeld defense against 1.d4. The main attacks are (of the Exchange Variation) Bc4, Be3, Nf3 and Rb1, Qc3 and others, and againts all of them I will choose a more positional setup (Bg7, c5, Nc6, Bd7 and b6 on the main line, and the ideas are similar on the rest), as the opening is already quite tactical to need to memorize hundreds of forced lines. I won't lack of tactical opportunities. I will prepare another file on this defense.

Now, because of my opening choice, against 1.c4 I can use a Sicilian Dragon setup (the symmetrical English), so I won't have to choose another defense. Moreover, against 1.Nf3 I can also play 1... c5 and enter similar positions to the ones I know. This means that my whole repertoire is reduced to "only" two defenses.

White

The usual way to prepare an opening repertoire with white is:

Depending on your style of play, choose an opening move. The general guidelines for this are that 1.e4 is for tactical players, 1.d4 and 1.c4 are for positional players. This however highly depends on the position the defender chooses. Other opening moves are, in general, not as good as those three.
Make a list of the main defenses to the opening move you have chosen.
Starting with the most commonly played, have a general look at the main line and a couple of important sidelines. Choose a line that you like and feel comfortable with the position. Bear in mind that whenever white can deviate, you may only choose one deviation to begin with, but whenever black can deviate you must have a look at all (or at least most of) the deviations. This is the exact opposite that happened with your repertoire with black.
Same as 3. before, build up a repertoire file. The same comment on 4. applies, soundness of the lines are generally good advice.
Repeat 3. and 4. on this list for every other defense you may face, going through the list starting with the more common.

Example

As I am a tactical player, I will open the game with 1.e4. The main defenses I will face are: Sicilians, e5 answers, French, Caro-Kann, Pirc and Scandinavian.

Every one of them has his own body of theory, but I will choose the open Sicilian (trying to play more or less main lines against all the Sicilians), the Yugoslav attack against the Dragon, the Richter-Rauzer attack against the Classical, the English attack against the Najdorf and Scheveningen and so on. I will also play the Scotch against 1... e5 since it's a very tactical opening. I will play the Tarrasch Nf4 against the French, which is a very wild line. The Caveman attack against the Caro-Kann (from the Advance variation, an early h4), the Hungarian attack against the Pirc and the main line against the Scandinavian will be the rest of my repertoire.

Of course, this has to be well researched and saved in a file.

Conclusion

This task should not be extremely difficult, but it will be long. I suggest you take a look at this video, as his main purpose is to teach how to use SCID to develop an opening repertoire. Choose wisely, as good choices will serve you well for the rest of your chess life, whereas poor ones will have to be changed over and over.


Either the game score is incorrectly recorded or this was a pre-arranged draw, because in that final position everyone beyond basic club level would realize that Black wins with Qh4# (a basic Fool's mate pattern).


Endgame player vs middlegame player: Is the result inevitable?

My point was that Anand could prevail in dynamic middlegame positions, while Carlsen could prevail in endgames with a minimal advantage. Of course, Carlsen masters all three phases of the game on a top level. At the same time, sharp and complex middlegame positions release more adrenaline and require more focus. Regarding comparing a middlegame expert and an endgame expert, it is not so easy to exchange pieces. An exchange of pieces is a mutual decision and it takes two to tango. One way of keeping most of the pieces on the board is to select opening systems accordingly. For instance, you can choose the Volga gambit

[FEN ""]
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5

and most of the pieces will be on the board for a good while. In some systems, it is easier for the endgame expert to steer the game towards e.g. an early exchange of queens. While in other systems, it is much more difficult to steer towards multiple exchanges. That being said, all the professionals are experts in all three phases of the game. So the key is to steer towards positions where they risk the most and therefore create the situation they prefer to avoid.


How opening moves determine the whole game play?

Your intuition is right; it's all about the pawns.

As you note, they can't move backwards.
They can't capture straight ahead, so two opposing pawns facing each other (say on e4 and e5) can't move.
They are the least valuable piece, so no one (generally) will capture one with a piece if their piece can be recaptured in turn. So (generally) the only thing that gets exchanged for a pawn is another pawn, which can be hard to make happen because of the way they move.

As a result of all of this, your pawn structure is (generally) the least dynamic part of your position, and all your other piece movement is in relation to it. These pawn structures are often set pretty early in the opening, so they recur a lot and people have studied them very deeply.


How are online chess engines' architecture designed?

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

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


Actually it is worse than you say. Igor Khenkin has had a total of 5 FINs (FIDE ID numbers)! He has had the following FINs -

62480 (January 1990, FINs first introduced)

4101430 (July 1990, oops! What happens if we have more than 99,999 FIDE rated players? Make FINs longer. Everybody's FIN changes)

2802350 (July 1993, Khenkin changes federation from RUS to ISR)

4135814 (January 1998, Khenkin changes back from ISR to RUS. Note he doesn't get his old number back)

4659600 (January 1999, still not happy he changes federation from RUS to GER)

Note also that the situation with Shirov's FIN - 11600012 - is also worse than you suggest!

In the January 1990 list when FINs were first introduced the player S. S. Alsharfi from South Yemen was given 71366. Six month later when the longer FINs were introduced his FIN was changed to 11600012. By the time of the January 1991 list South Yemen and North Yemen had merged into Yemen. This meant a new federation and so his FIN was changed again to 9400010 leaving 11600012 free.

Meanwhile Alexei Shirov's FIN history looks like this -

82074 (January 1990 list - short FINs, he is playing for USSR)

4100220 (July 1990 - long FINs)

11600012 (January 1992, FIDE recognizes the breakup of the USSR and Shirov becomes a Latvian player, with a new FIN. Except it is actually an old FIN previously held by the South Yemeni player)

2209390 (January 1995, Shirov moves from Latvia to Spain and gets a new FIN leaving 11600012 "vacant" for use by a Latvian player)

In October 2008 Latvian player Olegs Marutkins gets Shirov's old number.

The current FIDE rating website goes back to 2001 and doesn't seem to have knowledge of FIDE ratings and FIDE rated players before then. Players who were inactive then and who have remained inactive do not appear. One example would be the current British chess problem solving champion, English player Ian Robert Watson. He was active from January 1978 through January 1984 with a rating varying between 2200 and 2215. He played before the era of FINs and doesn't appear in FIDE's records. He still plays local club chess and has an ECF rating of 198 which is roughly equivalent to 2200.

However since 2001 the FIN changes with federation seem to have stopped. For instance Fabiano Caruana had the FIN 2020009 in 2004 when he played for the USA. When he changed federation in 2005 to Italy he retained the same FIN and again when he changed back to USA in 2015.

OlimpBase is a good source of information. The FIDE rating website only has information from 2001 while OlimpBase has records going all the way back to 1967 when unofficial rating lists were first produced.

FIDE first gave out FINs in January 1990 but they were only 5 digits long. Somebody worked out that this didn't give much room for expansion and so when the new list came out 6 months later everybody got a new, much longer FIN.

Note that OlimpBase has collected this early rating information which can be downloaded here. They also have information for the period 2002 through 2009 here. This was what I used as the source for the information above.


What is the best way to free your queen as soon as possible?

I don't think that getting your queen out early should be your goal in the opening.  Fighting for the center, developing your pieces, and king safety should be your priority.  That said, e-pawn openings are your best bet to open lines for your queen as soon as possible.  Look into the Ruy Lopez:

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5 ...


Why does the engine suggest Be7 after Qe4+?

While Be7 loses the queen in three moves, Kd8 will lose the queen in the end as well. This kind of position contains a lot of forcing moves (checks, mating threats) and can be analyzed quite deeply by engines like Stockfish. They will evaluate the position at the end of their search tree, which is often >15 moves deep. For the engine, it doesn't matter if you lose your queen in one move or in 15 (though losing the queen sooner increases the chance of losing more material) - it's the end result that counts.


Why do GMs repeat moves instead of offering a draw?

A repetition giving the opponent the opportunity to claim a draw is a de facto draw offer but not a de jure draw offer.
What does that mean? Well the "de facto" part means that in practice it has the same effect as a formal draw offer while the "de jure" part means that legally it is not a formal draw offer.
Psychologically it makes a subtle difference but practically it makes an important difference. The difference is the legal aspect. Why is this important?
According to article 11.5 of the FIDE Laws of Chess:

11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.

Normally arbiters interpret this to mean repeated draw offers in a small number of moves. That is why you are instructed to notate your game as follows in Appendix C.12 -

C.12 The offer of a draw shall be marked as (=).

Repeating the position does not constitute a formal draw offer and so cannot be part of a claim of disturbance due to repeated draw offers.

What do you think the psychological difference is?

When you ask for a draw you are a supplicant. It's like you are asking for a favour. "Will you please give me a draw?"
When you repeat the position you are saying something completely different which is why in some positions the experts advise you to repeat once (so no possible draw offer) to demonstrate dominance, let the other player know who is the boss.
If you are a much lower rated player and you repeat twice in a forcing situation you are effectively saying "What ya gone do, punk? Repeat and give me the draw? Or deviate, play a bad move and give me a chance to win?"
I have won several games with that exact tactic. It's surprising when it works but some players have more ego than common sense. It's like their response is something like "No way am I accepting a draw against you. I'm so much better than you that I can beat you from a losing position". I have to admit I've been on the opposite side too. I've played a bad move rather than accept the draw and I've paid the price.


As Black, what is the fastest way to beat Gnu Chess on easy mode?


Chess games that advanced endgame theory

In a game at the 1954 Olympiad in Amsterdam, Botvinnik had the white pieces against Nikolay Minev of Bulgaria, and reached the following position after 57. Qxe6:

[FEN "8/8/4Q3/k6K/8/6P1/8/q7 w - - 0 1"]
[StartFlipped "0"]

In Half a Century of Chess, Botvinnik writes,

  Ten years prior to this game I had such an ending against G. Ravinsky ... There I did not understand the specific character of the ending and I tried, as in a rook ending, to keep my king on the eighth rank to support the promotion of the pawn at g8 and, this made the win most difficult.

That earlier game against Ravinsky had been analyzed by Keres, but still little had been properly understood about this ending. For instance, in a note after 61. ... Ka4 in the Minev game, Botvinnik points out, "Minev willingly occupies a4 with his king, as this was recommended by Keres in a well-known article where he analysed the ending of my game with Ravinsky." Instead, it turns out that the best place for the black king in this situation would have been the corner a1 square. There was an adjournment at move 73, and Botvinnik notes,

  Although I did not find the correct plan before the adjournment, nevertheless I instinctively avoided moving my king to the eighth rank. After thorough analysis I finally found the right way of playing this ending. ... The winning plan consists in placing the white king on the same rank (or file) as the black king, or on the adjacent one. In this case White has a good chance of sheltering his king from checks. Once the method is found, of course, it looks simple.

Finally, after White's 91st move, Botvinnik's plan had reached fruition:

[FEN "8/6P1/8/2KQ4/k7/8/7q/8 w - - 0 1"]
[StartFlipped "0"]

  Black has as many as three checks, but they all lead to the exchange of queens. Here the game ended, Black resigned, but the first page of genuine theory was opened on the ending "queen and pawn against queen".

For yet another source commenting on the ending to this particular game,
here is Giddins in his The Greatest Ever Chess Endgames:

  Relatively little was known about this type of endgame at the time this game was played, and despite a few inaccuracies in the play, Botvinnik first demonstrated the winning method for such an ending in this game. ... Without the aid of either tablebases or any substantial theoretical practice, apart from his own game against Ravinsky years before, Botvinnik effectively "solved" this ending in his adjournment analysis, identifying all the key elements of the winning method in such positions.


How can an Elo 1300 player improve his or her endgame?

Some advices:

Look at grandmasters' endgames with comments.

Replay their games and try to understand their moves and the evaluation of commentators. There are several good books, I think Evgenny Shereshevsky's excellent classic "Strategy in the Endgame" is understandable at 1300-level. At least most of it, and you can keep the most difficult examples for later when you will have developed a better understanding of general principles. Some books about Bobby Fischer's endgames have been well commented too. I suppose there are good videos/DVDs on the market as well. Avoid anything overly complicated right now, like John Nunn's works; Mark Dvoretsky's and Karsten Muller's ones are very good but too hard at 1300 elo - keep them for later.

Start with pawn endgames.

The rules there are somewhat more clear-cut (there is basically one single goal: queening one of your pawns first), and they are mandatory if you want to understand more complex endgames later on, because several concepts are similar and because they may transpose to pawn endgames in case of exchanges.

Do not try to swallow too much theory.

Endgame theory can be surprisingly complex, it is a dry matter to memorize, and pratical endgames is what you should be looking for. At 1300 elo, I assume you already master the basic mates KQK, KRK and KBBK. KBNK is fun to look at but not super useful in practice, learn it if you enjoy it but don't force yourself if you don't.

I would still encourage you to learn KPK well enough to be able to evaluate any position with KPK in less than thirty seconds, and be sure about the next best move. Have a look at KPKP theory (counting in pawn races, opposition, trebuchet) and at KRPKR (Philidor, Lucena), but already here you merely want to get familiar with the ideas, not to remember everything.

Some training websites

like chesstempo or lichess offer endgame exercices and adapt their difficulty to your performances in solving them. If you have fun doing some once in a while (I sure do), do it! Usually the free registration is enough to get access to five or ten exercices per day - just the right amount for effective training !

Stay away from tablebases (and more generally from chess engines).

You may use them to have a look at the evaluation of a given position if you have already studied it by yourself or with a book/video and want to check your conclusions. But going through variations generated by tablebases is disheartening enough : sometimes they lack logic, or make you feel that simple things are overly complicated because they try to minimize distance to mate, and they come without explanations (or explanations limited to even more complicated variations)...

If you play endgames in your own games, study them afterwards.

The best way is: first alone or with your opponent, then write down your main conclusions/interrogations, and then review the endgame with a stronger player / a coach / a reference book if the position is a theoretical one / a software if really you have nothing better available. Finally, compare with your first notes, that's when you will make huge progress about your thinking process !

Good luck !


Why not 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 Nf6 against the Reti opening?

This is identical to the position that occurs after the move order 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 d5. The central push d5 is common in many openings, for instance the Grunfeld, but here the timing is bad. The position after

[FEN ""]
[Title "Reti 2... Nf6"]
[Startply "7"]

1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. d4

is one I often get with white when I play online, and it usually ends up very well for white. White will follow up with e4 and get an advantage in the center with tempo.

The main difference with the Grunfeld is that there is no white knight on c3 that black can exchange the knight on d5 with, and the knight (and black's whole position) will end up slightly passive.

Sample line:

[FEN ""]
[Title "Reti 2... Nf6"]
[Startply "13"]

1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. d4 g6 5. e4 Nb6 6. h3 Bg7 7.Nc3

with a slight white advantage.

Black can also try 4... Bf5 to stop e4 temporarily, but then they have to be really careful. For instance

[FEN ""]
[Title "Reti 2... Nf6"]
[Startply "15"]

1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cxd5 Nxd5 4. d4 Bf5 5. Qb3 e6 6. Nc3 Nc6 7.e4 Nxc3 8. exf5!

is very good for white.


How to I apply moves (bitboard) and continue searching? My current attempt is throwing a strange error!

The issue may be here:
Board newBoard = board;

This creates a new variable, but it doesn't actually create a new Board. board and newBoard are pointing to the exact same Board object. So, when your code changes anything in newBoard, it also changes it in board, and when it changes, you get this error.
What you may want to do is make an actual copy of board, so when you change it, it doesn't change the original.


My own web application can help you
https://www.apronus.com/chess/puzzle/editor.php
(1) Paste the PGN text into the 'PGN import' tab.
(2) Adjust the speed of animation on the 'diagram' tab.
(3) Click 'download animated diagram'.


Is 80 points FIDE equivalent to twice as good a player?

This can't be true. I (rated ~1900) expect to score 100% against a 1000 player. I don't think a 1980 rated user is able to score 200% against the same opposition.

In table 8.1b in the FIDE rating regulations, you'll find the expected scores corresponding to a rating difference. A rating difference of 80 corresponds to an expected score of 0.61, which is much lower than twice the 0.5 expected score for equally rated players.

The only point in the table where a rating difference of 80 corresponds to a doubled expected score is at the very end. Against opposition rated 500 points higher than you, your expected score is 0.04; against opposition rated 580 points higher it's only 0.02. The expected score formula is explained on Wikipedia:

  If Player A has a rating of RA and Player B a rating of RB, the exact formula (using the logistic curve) for the expected score of Player A is

  EA = 1 / (1 + 10 (RB - RA) / 400)


No difference whatsoever.  As with tournament results, ELO (or Glicko, or any other chess rating system) counts all losses the same, all draws the same, and all wins the same.  Doesn't matter if you lose on time, resign, or get mated on the board --- nor whether it took 12 moves or 120.  Likewise a draw is a draw, whether by agreement, repetition, stalemate (either side), or even the 50-move rule.


A mere 3 moves are needed to reach a position in which White has a forced #4.
[FEN ""]

1. e3 b6 2. Bc4 Bb7 3. Qf3 d6 {Now the helping play is over.}  4. Qxf7+ Kd7 5. Qf5+ e6 6. Bxe6+ Kc6 (6... Ke7 7. Qf7#) 7. Qd5#

However, longer mates are also possible to produce in just three moves.
Here is a #5.
[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 f5 3. Qe2 h6 {Now the helping play is over.} 4. Qh5+ g6 5. Qxg6+ Ke7 6. Qf7+ Kd6 7. Qd5+ Ke7 8. Qxe5#

Even a #6 can be done.
[FEN ""]

1. e3 d6 2. Bc4 b6 3. Qf3 b5 {Now the helping play is over.} 4. Qxf7+ Kd7 5. Qf5+ e6 6. Qxe6+ Kc6 7. Qd5+ Kd7 8. Qf5+ Kc6 9. Qxb5#

Addendum 5/22/2021-A is #7 indeed possible, albeit in 4 moves.
[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 d5 3. Qh5 Ke7 4. f4 Kf6 {Now the helping play is over.} 5. Qg5+ Ke6 6. Qxe5+ Kd7 7. Qxd5+ Ke7 8. Qxf7+ Kd6 9. Qd5+ Ke7 10. Qe5+ Be6 (10... Kd7 11. Qe6#) 11. Qxe6#

For an #8, 5 moves is my best result so far.
[FEN ""]

1. e3 e5 2. Qh5 Ke7 3. Bc4 Kf6 4. c3 g6 5. d3 a6 {Now the helping play is over.} 6. Qf3+ Kg7 7. Qxf7+ Kh6 8. e4+ Qg5 9. Bxg5+ (9... Kxg5 10. h4+ Kh6 11. Qxf8+ Kh5 12. g4+ Kxg4 13. Qf3#) Kh5 10. g4+ Kxg4 11. h4 Nf6 12. Qxf6 Kh5 13. Qf3#


Does anyone know the anecdote about Ostap Bender?

As a person who read the book, I will explain:

So Bender is a con-artist from the book, and as any person of such kind he tries to transfer money from other people to himself. He has done a lot of such things in the book, but you are interested in the chess part. In this part Bender came to some average small city and was looking for a way to get some money. He found a chess club, where he decided to play chess having no idea how to do so. His idea was to create a simultaneous match with as many opponents as possible.

He called himself a GM, wrote an ads where he told that he (GM) a lesson of how to play chess and will play a simul game on 100+ chessboards. Take your chessboards, pay fee for a game, fee for an entrance and you good.

Before he started the game, he was able to persuade the owners of chess club to give him all the money by explaining them his idea how to make their city and their chess club one of the most profitable. He told that he would you all his connections in chess world (he is GM, who knows Lasker and Capablanka) to organize next world chess tournament in their city which will eventually makes it better than Moscow, New York and will give huge amount of money.

Back to simul games. When people came - he started to abstractly speak about chess, how cool the game is, how is it connected to everything without any details. Then he started his games. Because he had no knowledge how to play, he decided to play 'solid' e2-e4 (he new that he can not lose straight after that move).

So he played e2-e4 with everyone. His games were not long, soon he lost to the first guy, was doing mistakes with chess movements, tried to steal a piece and so on. He lost to almost every player and ran away.

P.S. it might not be 95% accurate and looks like a starting place for my own book, so do not be mad with inaccuracies.


Why I can not improve in chess & why I can not see the things?

Everything is a matter of dedication, but with the correct techniques.

You should not feel angry, but glad! Your opponent just gave you the opportunity to figure out what are your weakness, so you can fix it! :D

Also, you are probably playing a lot of fast games. DON'T DO THAT!

Chess is a game of thinking. You need time for that. That's why chess is naturally a slow-paced game. Everything is so fast nowadays... Slow down a bit. :)

Prefer to play slow games (30min at least - 1h+ ideal). Let your speed build up naturally, at your own pace.

Also, I strongly recommend that you study the basics deeply. Most players (specially beginners) have a lot of "holes" in their knowledge (and don't know that), but they think they have a "playing style".

Stop trying to "win fast" using traps and studying lots of openings and variations. That's remembering, not playing.

There are a few concepts that you MUST know by heart to play good chess in every move:

1) Find all possible:

Checks
Captures
Threats (Pins, forks, etc.).

And I mean ALL of them. Don't consider if it's good or bad yet. That's how the Masters find such great tactics and sacrifices! It's the CCT technique.

2) Find the Least Active Piece (the one that dominates the least squares), and think about what is the best square to put it, where it will have it's Maximum Activity (controls the most squares possible). That's the LAP=>MA technique. Piece Activity is the most important of all concepts, because all the others come from it.

3) Now you reorder the moves you found from the most forced (aggressive) on the top of the list, going down to the least forced (passive) move. That's the Candidate Moves List technique.

4) To be better organized and don't get lost doing that, look at one piece at a time, in descendant order of power/importance: King, Queen, Rooks, Bishops, Knights, Pawns.

5) If you are in the opening, keep in mind it's main goals: Develop the pieces, Control the Center, Protect the King. That's the DCP technique.

6) In the endgame, pawns are everything. Remember that each of them is a potential Queen! Don't try to chase the opponent's King, because in an open board, with few pieces to help, he can escape easily, and you will waste time.

Important! - Do all of that to your opponent first!! (like if it's his turn again). Only after that, you calculate for your own side. That's a great secret, hard to find anywhere, and is the best way to avoid those embarrassing blunders.

The deeper (more moves ahead) you can calculate, the better. About 3 is good, 5 is great (you will hardly need more than that) and 7 is about Master level.

Plus: When you are going to study a game (the ones you lost are the most important), a book, or a video, use all those techniques combined with the "Guess the move":

In a book, cover the moves list an try to figure out the next move.
In a video, pause it after every move, and try to find the next move.

Try as hard as you can, on every single move, always for both sides.

When you think you found the best move, write it down on a paper and include WHY you think it's the best move.

Only then you can see what was the next move made.

Did you guess it right? Great! Go to the next one.

Did you guess it wrong? Don't go further before you find out and completely understand why your move wasn't the best.

You will see that all those techniques combined are enough to bring you (at least) close to the Master level!

I spent 15+ years to find that out... Oh if I had someone to teach me just that when I was beginning... Only now I'm getting at 2000's.

You won't need to remember lots of variants of lots of openings. They will just start to feel right.

Try all those techniques in every move, since the very first one.

Try them everyday to solve chess tactics problems! You will see how things will suddenly start to make sense! And you will hardly make blunders if you use them correctly.

Of course, there is no "chess pill of success", but you won't get much closer than that... :) You have to take your time to learn how to use all of that properly.

I hope that helps. Forgive my bad english... I'm from Brazil.


Primarily because computers have rendered adjournments obsolete. In addition, with the advent of digital clocks with delay or increment, it is much more fair to have people play it out over the board. It is much better to have the players decide it than having a team of people helping them overnight, or nowadays, a strong computer.


It really depends on where your skill level is at. If you play rated Federation chess or happen to be buzzing around your favorite online server, you'd probably fall into a rating class or have a rating that serves as a great predictor of your skill/strength level.

With that being said, here's a category-based answer to your question (using the USCF classes and typical online server ratings).

( I'm only going up to class C as I'm currently a B player who's done his time climbing the ladder => is therefore somewhat qualified to make these recommendations :) )

USCF E (1000-1199) or 1200-1400 ICC/FICS with Slow Time Controls:

Avoid just looking at Master games with no textual explanations.  There is ZERO value for somebody at your strength level.
Avoid game books that contain no annotations/text descriptions for each move.
Avoid player game collections (e.g. My Best Games - Vishy Anand) and focus on the few Instructional + Annotated game collections out there.
Totally avoid any book containing games played AFTER the 1900s.
Avoid game books that don't print out a diagram every 2-3 moves.
Always go over the game with a board or a computer.
A lot of these books mean well but often drown you in a ton of variations. It is fine to skip over this part and just get to the move that was played! :)
If you are using a computer, keep the engine off. You don't need it at your current strength level.
Get used to covering up the next move and playing "guess the move". You'll want to do this for every game you ever look at going forward.
Pay attention to the opening PRINCIPLES, don't even dare try to memorize openings or worry about the nuances. It really doesn't matter at this stage ... the principles alone are sufficient.
Write things down on paper or use a database application. The minute something feels vague or does not make complete sense to you, write down your question. Don't immediately read the author's explanation. Come up with your best answer. Then .. and only THEN read the text. You'll be able build a great foundation and start thinking for yourself. It will also boost your confidence when your own ideas are in sync with what was played.
Go back to this game a week later  and review it again. It should feel like a grocery store you've visited in another city a year or so ago. You'll feel comfortable but not enough to not notice something or find a new question worth asking.  Review your previously asked questions ... do the answers now seem obvious? If so, you're making progress!
Finally : Always find a strong-er player or ask a credible forum about a position that stumps you. Even some well written instructional books may not completely explain why a certain move was played in a given position.

Recommended Books: A First book of Morphy (Rosario), Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur (Euwe)

USCF D (1200-1399) or around 1400-1600 ICC/FICS with Slow Time Controls:
Same as above, except now:

You can and should use a computer engine to look at other tactical possibilities that the book did not go over.
You can start looking at pre-1950s games, but still avoid contemporary games/the modern era.
Practice finishing off the game vs. a computer from the position at which one of the Masters resigned. For fun, try to win it at blitz time controls! If this is becoming a struggle, seek help from a stronger player to show you the correct technique (which was bloomingly obvious for the Master who resigned :))
There are some very famous games in chess history that every "Russian schoolboy" knows. Google them out and play through them.

Recommended Books: Chernev's Logical Chess and his Most Instructional Games of Chess.

USCF C (1400-1599) or around 1600-1800 ICC/FICS with Slow Time Controls:

Same as above, but you can finally start poking around at what the big boys of modern chess are doing.  You still want to read books that are intended to be instructional, not just a showcase of somebody's favorite games.
You should have a set of pet openings (repertoire). Seeking out games of Masters who play your opening makes sense.
Make sure you now work through the variations those books tend to spit out. They are quite insightful and show you how much calculation is often needed in critical positions.
Focus on players who often play very natural and beautifully elegant games without tons of complexity. (Capablanca, Fischer would be good examples)
Start focusing on the endgame aspect of their games. Especially how the winner strategically transitions into the endgame he WANTS, making the correct piece trades at the right time.

Recommended Books: Weeramantry's Best Lessons of a Chess Coach.


Are there any "underground" openings or gambits?

In bullet chess (1 min or less), you basically don't have time for thinking and will pre-move or make moves instantaneously often making assumptions about your opponent's moves. In such situation playing the best moves becomes less important; basically you just need to move fast without blundering too much. Playing chess at such short times becomes more about bluffing and less about thinking.

The practical value of dubious lines/moves can be two-fold:

your opponent has to think (=losing valuable time) to refute the move
your opponent plays a standard (pre-move) which is not the best in this situation

Due to the limited time it is difficult to refute such dubious lines even if you lose a minor piece. So there is little risk involved.

I doubt there is much private analysis involved.  I also doubt there is much value in trying this at longer times (3 min or more).


Here are two games from which you can tell my style.

How could anyone judge something like this basing on two games? Imho those games aren't good examples at all. Those weren't any tactical, sharp games and not positional ones for sure. Your opponents just blundered. But you have taken adventage of it, so you're perceptive, that's good for you:) A bit offtopic: I'd suggest you to learn some openings, I've got a feeling that you don't have a solid repertoire.


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

You can use Xboard/Winboard depending of the OS you have and uncheck the option "Test Legality" at the general options menu, I did it myself with in my Xbord/Linux configuration and this is it:


Generate an entire chess game up to a position

It is very easy to generate a "proof game" for this positions (and if you are too lazy, you can use problemists tools like Natch or Jacobi, but I think it will be very hard to make the proof game look "natural". (It gets worse as the position itself is rather unnatural. Did the Kg6 have a death wish? Maybe if the last move pair was Rf6xg6+!, it looks a bit more believable, but still the Qg8 is ridiculous.)


Classically positional play is what is described in part 2 of Nimzowitsch's "My System". Part 1, The Elements, is more tactical in nature. It describes play in open files, using the 7th and 8th ranks, passed pawns, pins, discovered checks and a few other features.

Part 2, Position Play, deals with stuff like

Fighting for the center, which you do by moving pawns and pieces (firstly knights and bishops, later rooks) so that they occupy, support or attack the center.
Over protection of important points or squares, in the first instance central ones later they may be points important for attack or defence, is important because it strengthens those points. This in turn gives more freedom and flexibility to the pieces involved. They are not firmly tied down because other pieces are sharing the burden. And it gives prophylaxis. Because these points are over protected you are not going to get caught by a sudden attack from your opponent.
Certain static features are described and discussed which have positional characteristics. Doubled and isolated pawns are usually positional weaknesses. Very occasionally they may have good features but mostly they are bad. The IQP (isolated queen's pawn) is covered in great depth. Depending on how the two sides play the IQP can be a dynamic attacking tool or it can be a static weakness which will eventually fall.
The two bishops (when you have two bishops and your opponent has either two knights or one bishop and one knight) is positional plus because of the way they can work together. They can cut an impassable diagonal line across the board in the same way that a rook can cut such lines orthogonally.

Why are these concepts important? Well, when you first start playing you don't really know what to do with your pieces. As Nimzowitsch says you probably think you should get your pieces out, castle on the opposite to your opponent and then each of you should launch a pawn storm attack against your opponent's castled king. First one to break through wins. It can certainly be a lot of fun but it's just not going to work against somebody who has mastered a more positional way of playing.

These positional concepts give you guidelines of how to play when the position doesn't call for a tactical solution. In some respects it gives you guidance of how to build up your position so that you can either start your own tactical attack or frustrate your opponent's tactical attack.

Mastering tactical and positional play will likely take you to somewhere round about the 2000 level, which is no mean feat. To make progress much beyond this level you will have to start to learn and understand when to break these positional guidelines.

My System has many examples and games which Nimzowitsch uses to illustrate his points. He also wrote a follow on book of more examples and games called Chess Praxis which is highly recommended for further study of positional play.


Emotionally getting over silly, stupid, mistakes

No serious chess player has managed to avoid losing in a way similar to that which you described. Failing to play at ones usual ability is certainly disturbing when it happens, but it is part of being human; after all, humans can get tired, distracted, or fall into a panic due to time pressure, affecting their ability to play.

Always remember this while you play: since you're human, you can make silly mistakes! If, during a game, you realize that you've made a silly mistake, you need to get your emotions in check no matter what. Just admit to yourself "ok, I made a mistake" and afterwards go on and try to salvage your position with a cool demeanor. DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP DURING A GAME FOR THE MISTAKES YOU'VE ALREADY MADE! Letting your emotions take over while you're still playing will just end in a disaster.

After the game however, feel free to be as disgusted with yourself as you please, but if you still have games to play, it's better to take a deep breath, tell yourself that you played bad but will bring down the hammer of judgement on yourself after you're finished playing, and go on to play your games as if nothing happened.

When you finally get some time to reflect over what happened in the game(s), you should once again try to be objective, and try to figure out the reasons why you made your mistake(s). Were you distracted? Were you careless, and if so why? Was it because you didn't know what to do in the position? What can you do to prevent the mistake(s) from happening in the future?

In the specific case you brought up, I think you may be able to prevent yourself from losing in a similar manner in the future. Let me ask you this: Would you have lost the position due to time pressure if you had K+Q vs. K instead of K+R+2p vs. K+R+p? Probably not! Why? Because I assume that you know how to win K+Q vs. K like the back of your hand! Here I boldly assume that you weren't down to 5 seconds without increments (severe time scrambles without increments isn't really chess, it's more of a lottery imo), but rather that you had the time on the clock to actually perform your moves without dropping the pieces. If you lose a theoretical ending it's almost always possible to practice it afterwards until you know it as well as K+Q vs. K. That way you can play such endings perfectly, even under rather severe time pressure.

To summarize: everybody makes stupid mistakes in chess, don't beat yourself up about it during actual games, and try to see whether there is an easy way for you to avoid making the same mistakes in the future by being objective in your criticism of yourself.


Why is increment more popular than delay?

Very simple. Move quickly (faster than the increment) and you end up with more time. Over the course of a dozen or so quickly made moves you can build up enough time to allow for another serious think if required.

With delay you can never get more time. Once in zeitnot you are permanently in zeitnot.


"In short, I'm usually good at tactics" - most of what you wrote up to that point kind of does contradict that: Your attacks are easily rebuffed, you cannot easily find attacking moves, and you fail to correctly predict your opponent's answers.

You have to understand that strategy and tactics go hand in hand. Good strategy uses tactical threats to force your opponent to make trade-offs, and good tactics are almost always prepared by strategically placing the pieces in supportive positions.

My guess is that what you were trying to say is that you are good at solving tactical puzzles where someone else already placed the pieces for you and you just have to find the mate in two or three. Now the question is how to get there, right? For this, try to expand the scope of the puzzles, e.g. try to find mates in 4 or 5, or try tactical problems where the goal is not to mate, but just to win a piece or even just a pawn. And do a lot of these puzzles, the more the better. To improve at "attacking play" you MUST practice how these attacks actually play out. Chess skill is mostly about learning and applying patterns.

Maybe counterintuitively, deepening your tactical understanding will improve your strategical play as well! The better you start recognizing the patterns from your tactical knowledge, the further you will be able to think ahead - hopefully further than your opponent. It works in both ways: On the defense, you might spot sooner that your position is weak to certain tactical motives - before your opponent can actually line up his pieces to exploit this instead of when the attack starts and it's too late. On the offense, you might spot the weaknesses to certain motives in his position and base your strategy around that (pressuring weak points in a way to force him to make concessions elsewhere because he needs to redirect his defenders).

I personally used the IdeaTactics app during an almost 10-year-long hiatus where I only did puzzles frequently while waiting for the bus etc., but did not play on-the-board at all. And I have to say that I am much better now that I started playing for real again, especially in the department of strategy! Of course, real games are good practice too, and you don't have to use this specific app (there are loads that do the same with the same quality). Good luck!

Comment to your analysis

Thanks for explaining your thoughts a little more! I have some thoughts about some of the moves, as well as your general strategy.

1-4: The opening is the Scotch, not the Italian Game (but who cares how it is called, this is just for clarification).

5+6: Good moves that delay his development.

6: While it generally is advisable to castle early, did you have in mind that the game tends to be a lot sharper when both players castled on opposite sides? Sometimes it is better to delay castling to see which side your opponent chooses. Since the queens are already off the board, your king is much safer from sudden mate attacks and can be allowed to remain in the middle for a few more moves. Castling here isn't bad, but it has implications. I would suggest 6.. Be7 first, development + coverage for g5).

7: Unfortunately, you don't give an explanation for Rd7. That move does nothing for your position at all except that it allows White a light pin on your knight in the next move. Where you scared about the possible fork on f7 and wanted to be sure? You didn't have to, because White had no way to attack f7 with another piece anytime soon (the queen was already gone and your bishop prevented his bishop to use the traditional Bc4. And Be2 can be met with Nf6 to control the h5 square while developing). To avoid the isolated doubled pawns, you probably have to play Re8, even though this loses the open d file for now (if Rd6, then Be3, threating Bc5).

9-11: Nothing to complain about.

12+13: The move b5 contradicts your plan from one move before: You force the white bishop to cover c2. Doubling his pawns on b3 might look nice, but it comes at the cost of opening your king's defense. Although, as mentioned, without queens you have a bit more freedom in that regard and your king is not threatened yet.

14+15: Good moves, put pressure onto your opponent.

16: Now your king is completely open. I see your idea, if White takes on c5, you can develop your bishop, free your rook on h8 and attack his knight. But, of course, he is smart enough to see it. Still, no harm so far.

17: Again, you completely step away from your plan from one move before. Remember, you wanted him to take on c5. Why destroy the bait now? Maybe you started feeling the lacking safety of your king, and indeed, he now has the option to pin your pawn with Rc1. You can however catch two flies with one hit: Kb7 not only moves your king out of the soon-to-be-open c file, but also covers the a6 pawn that will be undefended after the exchange on b4, which you can then still do next move with added safety.

18-20: The little combination looks fancy, but it is a terrible exchange in hindsight and the turning point of the game in my opinion. His knight was totally useless on e3 (virtually all of its forward moves are covered - even after it relocates to c2). Meanwhile, your bishop, even though still undeveloped at this point, isn't bad at all: It is a possible defender of d5, it can be used to attack his weak link on e3 some more (likely preventing him from castling) - while at the same time continue to put pressure on b4. Worse, the whole exchange frees White's own bishop to immediately pounce on d5. Your poor pawn structure was up to this point compensated by better piece activity, and you deliberately threw that compensation away. I'd still recommend Kb7 here. General rule of thumb: On the attack, you should not want to swap (unless you can force a mate/material winning combination by doing so) - after all, who is going to continue the attack when the attacking pieces are gone?

21: You felt like you had the momentum - big misconception. You just lost it without noticing, and have to start organising your defense now. You will lose either a6 or d5, but you won the pawn on b4 before, so that's okay. b4 does nothing for you, that bishop wanted to take on d5 anyways. Pressuring the opponent to do moves he intended anyways is not pressure at all.

22+23: Damn, if only your king had been on b7 already, then these moves would have been really cool and turned the game into a win once more.

24: Unfortunately, you have to move your king. I agree that your choice of Kb7 is better than Kd7 despite losing e6 as it doesn't open the king to checks from the rook on h1.

25-26: Reasonable, his bishop was much stronger than your knight.

Rest of the game: Let's face it, at this point you have lost anyways because of this reserve pawns on the kingside. Still, one last misplay before it could come to that, the promotion race. After 32 e7, you both have a similar situation: One rook blocking the enemy pawn, one protecting the own one from the side. You even had the additional advantage that your defending rook attacked his pawn at the same time. So how comes that..

..he hold off your promotion attempts with just one rook? Simple.. he never moved it away from the blocking position. To get past that block, you need at least one of your own rooks (to attack him from the side while covered by the pawn) and either the king or the other rook (to meanwhile defend the pawn).

..and got his promotion done using the other? With a little help from you. You did move your rook away from the blocking square. This greatly facilitates the described method: If he plays Rf7 and Rf8, with your rook still at e8, he only creates one threat (taking your rook with his) and you can simply take on e7 with the attacked rook, nullifying the threat. But after you moved the rook to b8, Rf8 actually creates two threats: Taking on b8 and promoting on e8. You can't cover both with the same rook, as now the attacked rook cannot take the pawn. The other rook is actually meaningless in this situation!

You could have resolved this particular problem earlier with 32 ..Rxe7, but you would have lost the resulting single rook endgame regardless. Maybe with slightly improved odds because your king would have been closer to the kingside compared to the continuation that happened in the game.

General Strategy

There were many good aspects in your play already, so don't give up hope! I also got a much better perspective on why you think you are lacking in the strategy department (correct observation). I think you still live too much in the here-and-now and do not consider longer lasting effects of your moves as much as you should. This goes hand in hand with how you evaluate the pieces (or don't). To you, you swapped two minor pieces (both 3 pawn units, so equal value) and got a pawn out of it (yay). What actually happened is that you swapped one vital of your own pieces for a useless piece of your opponent and a pawn, only to loose 2-3 pawns immediately afterwards as a consequence.

Thus my main advice is to push yourself to a different state of mind:
It is not important what a piece is, or where it is, what truly matters is where it can go. That knight on e3 was bad because it couldn't go anywhere useful soon. Your move 6 ..Be6 was good because now the white bishop on c1 couldn't easily go to a useful square (f7) anymore. This extends not only to the squares that a piece can directly reach, but also those where it can reasonably be without hindrance (e.g. the Be3-Bc5 manoevre to counter 8..Rd6).

If you look at squares rather than pieces, you can develop much better plans by going backwards: Think of the squares in your opponent's structure that you would like to control. Then backtrack and make a plan of how to get your pieces there. Your calculation skills seem to be quite decent, so you can make use of that. If you spot a structure that is vulnerable to some kind of tactic, think of how you can get your pieces into positions where you could actually execute said tactic. Or how your opponent can get stuff into position towards your own weaknesses, even before he starts doing it.

Also, don't be impatient if your opponent finds the right answers to deflect your threats. That does happen. If both opponents play perfectly for the entire game, it will end in a draw. Don't try to force things when they are not there. And remember that chess is a game of tradeoffs: If your opponent replaced a piece to cover a square that you threatened to attack, that piece now does not cover other squares anymore. Maybe you can now attack there?

All of this comes from experience. If you lose again and again because you moved your pawns away from your king, your brain will get the message at some point (as long as you correctly assess your mistakes). So if you want to get better, play, play, play. And look at your games afterwards to see where you went wrong! The best way to do this is in a club with better players that can guide you (you can't put all your games on StackExchange :P).


How to calculate the number of combinations for Chess960 positions

You're counting the same position a couple of times and not including the rule that the bishops have to be on opposite colors.  (And possible that the king must be between the rooks.)

The actual number is 4 x 4 x (6 x 5) / 2 x 4

4 for the LSB

4 for the DSB

(6 x 5) / 2 for the two knights (halved due to account for the same type of piece being placed)

4 for the queen

1 due to the king must be between the rooks  (Without this rule, it would be (3 x 2) / 2 or 1440.)


Trying to figure out why the engine suggested this move

On my quad-core running Stockfish 10, the evals are very close, but Bd3 is preferred, and to me, I agree since you develop a piece with tempo, black defends the mate, and then you still take on a8 winning.

It is really about the same, but Bd3 is slightly better on my engine.

Basically, your intuition is right, and maybe your engine or computer are not as strong...or maybe even mine is not.


Can 'Favorites' tagged with "Scid on the Go" be searched for in Scid on PC?

Found the answer - 'Favorites' in "Scid on the Go" show up as a "User" Flag in SCIDvsPC, and can be searched for that way as well.


Software for tournaments, leaderboards and result tracking

I recommend SCID. It's free and works on any operating system, and there are even mobile versions available.

As far as recording your games during casual play, I would just use regular score sheets and enter them in the computer later. If you play online, sites like Chess.com let you download your games in PGN format, which can be imported into SCID or other database software.

Most people who use databases prefer to only include their tournament games, since casual games are going to show patterns that might not apply when you're playing serious chess. You could keep them in a separate database if you really want to record everything.

For fun, see how much of a casual game you can play back from memory after the game is over. You will remember more if:

You are consistent with the openings you play.
Your moves follow a general plan.
You actively concentrate on what is happening on the board, how you got there, and where you're headed. This keeps the sequence of moves fresh and connected, for reconstructing later.


When can king and pawn win against another king and pawn?

As far as I can tell, in your proposed variant a player could always force a draw by placing the king in a reasonably centralized position, regardless of what the other side chooses. Even if he allows the opponent a seemingly superior king position, it still winds up as a draw with correct play.

Let's say Black chooses the king on the D file and the pawn on the C file. If the pawns start on the same file, Black could allow a position like this and still get a draw:

[FEN "3k4/8/8/2pK4/2P5/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.Kxc5 Kc7

With the pawns one file apart, it's a similar pattern:

[FEN "3k4/8/8/2p5/2KP4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.Kxc5 Kc7

With the pawns two files apart, Black can take the diagonal opposition:

[FEN "3k4/8/8/2p5/3KP3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.Kxc5 Ke7 Kd5 Kd7

Three or more files apart? No problem. White must abandon his pawn to eliminate Black's pawn.

[FEN "3k4/8/8/2p1K3/5P2/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.f5 c4 2.Kd4 Ke7

And, of course, Black can and probably will get his king to a better position than that. This is just to demonstrate that even if he doesn't, he can still draw.

As far as when a king and pawn can win against a king and pawn, there's one position that comes to my mind, outside of the obvious pawn race scenarios. This position is a loss for whoever has the move - they must abandon their pawn and will be out of position to block the opponent's pawn:

[FEN "8/8/8/1Kp5/2Pk4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]


Which World Champions other than Viswanathan Anand had a jolly personality?

Ah. I somehow missed that during live relay. Thanks for sharing.

Mikhail Tal comes to mind based on his Life and Games. He mentioned about 'forgetting' to stop his clock during tournament games for the sake of his time troubled opponents.

I don't know how many of us mere mortals could consider doing that. He must have been a jolly good fellow.


Is this an Anderssen's mate or Opera mate?

I assume you took the mates' definitions from here. Then, it fits the description of the Opera Mate but I don't think that's intended – a 'real' Opera Mate doesn't happen in the corner.

Then again, those two terms aren't commonly used anyway. I bet most grandmasters will have to check Wikipedia as well to find out what they mean. Of that list, just a handful are common knowledge (the back-rank mate and the smothered mate being the most well-known).


Gambit openings for black recommendation?

Two gambits that your opponents would likely play into a fair amount, and are defined by move two, are the Latvian Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5, like a reversed King's Gambit) and the Albin Counter-gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5). Between the two, the Albin is considered more sound, and even sees top-level games from the likes of Morozevich and Nakamura. The Latvian is generally seen as much shakier. In any case, these two bring the fight to White without delay, and might be the sort of flavor you're looking for.

[White "Latvian"]
[Black "Gambit"]
[fen ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5

and

[White "Albin"]
[Black "Counter-Gambit"]
[fen ""]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5


Is it still possible to develop new openings?

Yes, it is still possible to find new openings. The combinatorial space after 3-4 moves is such large, that there are still many uncharted waters in opening theory.

Many of such openings probably violate learned principles and are pruned by experienced players before going deeper into the game tree, but there may be undiscovered gems among them.


In how many cases of K, P vs. K, N, N endings can the stronger side force checkmate?

Let's assume that white is the side with the two knights, and black has the single pawn. The endgame study composer A. A. Troitzky gave an analysis (in a lengthy supplement to his 1937 Collection of Chess Studies) that established what is now known as the "Troitzky line":

So long as a white knight has the black pawn securely blockaded on one of these squares (or further back), then white can win no matter the other arrangement of the pieces. Now there are also times when white can still win with the pawn already advanced beyond the Troitzky line, but then it usually depends on the location of the black king; that is, the board usually breaks down into a drawing region for the black king, and a losing region for the black king. Establishing that was also part of Troitzky's work.

I'd be way out of my depth trying to say anything about the details of Troitzky's analysis, and besides, he spent a good 60 pages or so working out the things that he did. But it's not too hard to get the conceptual idea behind the Troitzky line. The most basic winning approach for white is this: to blockade the pawn with one knight, then use the king and other knight to corner the black king, and finally release the pawn to move while bringing the blockading knight in to deliver checkmate.

In order for this to work, white needs a fortuitous combination of (1) the pawn not being too quick to queen, and (2) the white knight not being too slow to deliver checkmate. Since the knight is most mobile - has the most travel options - in the center of the board ("A knight on the rim is dim" and all that), it stands to reason that the further away from the center the knight starts, the more time it will need for a win to be guaranteed in general, and so the further back the pawn needs to be from queening. This reality is reflected pretty clearly in the inner V shape of the Troitzky line.

But what about those far advanced rook pawns in the Troitzky line? Well, as often happens with rook pawns, they lead to special cases. Here, the reason white has this additional leeway is because of Stamma's mate, as is pointed out, for instance, in section 35.03 of this article on ChessCafe by Karsten Müller (of Fundamental Chess Endings fame).

One caveat in all this is that the Troitzky line does not take into account the 50-move rule; though there are wins in all those cases, some of them take longer than 50 moves to convert against perfect play. In the article I just mentioned, Müller raised the question of determining a "second Troitzky line" that does take the 50-move rule into account. And in a followup article he announced that Helmut Conrady solved that problem by using Rafael Andrist's Wilhelm program to analyze the Nalimov tablebases. This second Troitzky line is

So if a white knight securely blockades the black pawn on one of these squares (or further back), then white can always win in under 50 moves. Note that while there's no guarantee of a 50-move win with either a b- or g-pawn, Conrady's analysis also showed that if the pawn is blockaded on b6/g6 or further back (as in the first Troitzky line), then for over 99% of the possible positions there is a win in under 50 moves.


A .cbh file is not a complete database. A database in Chessbase format consists of multiple files.

To backup or transfer Chessbase databases between computers, you can either:

Backup in Chessbase to a .cbv file
Save games in portable PGN