What's the plan against Black's kingside fianchetto when playing Queen's pawn game?

You can still play a Stonewall Attack when Black decides to castle kingside with the bishop fianchetto.

Black reacts with d5

Here is an example with "normal" moves from Black.

[FEN ""]

1. d4 Nf6 2. e3 g6 3. Bd3 Bg7 4. f4 d5 5.Nf3 c5 6. c3 O-O 7. O-O Nc6

The stonewall attack is a solid opening with grip in the center:

White controls the important central squares (d4, and e5)
White can install a knight in e5 which will force Black to weaken its position if it wants to remove it.
White can play this typical manoeuvre to exchange the bad bishop in
c1 against the knight in f6 by playing Bc1-d2-e1-h4.
With a closed center, White can then expand on the king's side with g4...

Here is an example with black normal moves that are a bit cooperative!

[FEN ""]

1. d4 Nf6 2. e3 g6 3. Bd3 Bg7 4. f4 d5 5. Nf3 c5 6. c3 O-O 7. O-O Nc6 8. Bd2 b6 9. Be1 Bb7 10. Bh4 e6 11. Nbd2 Ne7 12. Bxf6 Bxf6 13. g4

Black reacts with d6

The setup with d6 suggested by @user1583209 is very clever. d6 is a flexible move that allows Black to counter-attack with e5. Here is an example where Black is okay:

[FEN ""]

1. d4 Nf6 2. e3 g6 3. Bd3 Bg7 4. f4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. O-O Nc6 7. c3 e5

I would suggest reacting with 7.e4 instead of 7.c3 like in this game (obtained by transposition)

[Title "Gleizerov, Evgeny (2544) vs Das, Arghyadip (2404), Gurgon Op. 2009"]

[FEN ""]
1. f4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. d4 Nf6 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d6 6. O-O Nc6 7. e4 e5 8. d5 Nb4 9. fxe5 dxe5 10. Be3 b6 11. Nc3 Ng4 12. Bg5 Qd6 13. Qe2 h6 14. Bd2 Nxd3 15. Qxd3 Bd7 16. h3 Nf6 17. Ne2 Ne8 18. c4 f5 19. Ng3 f4 20. Nh1 Nf6 21. Bc3 Rae8 22. Nf2 g5 23. a3 c5 24. dxc6 Qxd3 25. Nxd3 Bxc6 26. Ndxe5 Bxe4 27. Bb4 Bxf3 28. Bxf8 Bxg2 29. Bxg7 Kxg7 30. Kxg2 Rxe5 31. Rfe1 Rf5 32. b4 h5 33. Rac1 g4 34. hxg4 hxg4 35. c5 f3+ 36. Kf2 Nh5 37. c6 g3+ 38. Ke3 f2 39. Rf1 Rf8 40. c7 Rc8 41. Kf3 Kg6 42. Kg2 Kg5 43. Rfd1 Nf4+ 44. Kf3 Nh5 45. Rc4 Kg6 46. Kg2 Kg5 47. Rd5+ Kg6 48. Rc6+ 1-0


What is the idea of the Kaufmann Attack (5.c4) against the Petroff?

In the main line 5.d4, black responds with 5....d5 in order to occupy the centre and to continue his development. The most popular line continues with: 6.Bd3 Be7 7.0-0 Nc6! 8.c4 Nb4! 9.Be2 0-0 (e.g. Nakamura-Akobian). Important to note: after 7....0-0 white has good chances to obtain an advantage after 8.c4.

With 5.c4 white wants to discourage black to play ...d5. After 5....d5 white seems to obtain an advantage with 6.Nc3. 6....Nxc3 is very dubious: 7.dxc3 Be6 8.Ng5 with a big advantage for white.
Instead, black often plays 5....Be7. After 6.d4 0-0 7.Bd3 d5 8.0-0 white has successfully transposed to 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Be7 7.0-0 0-0 8.c4 (Nepomniachtchi-Wang Hao (blitz)).

However, black has better alternatives after 5.c4, for example:

5....Nc6 (Nisipeanu-Giri) 6.d4 d5
5....Be7 6.d4 Nc6 7.Bd3 Ng5

      [StartPly "8"]

      [FEN ""]
      1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.c4 (5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Be7 7.O-O Nc6 (7...O-O 8.c4) 8.c4 Nb4 9.Be2 O-O) 5...Be7 (5...d5 6.Nc3 Nxc3 7.dxc3 Be6 8.Ng5)(5...Nc6 6.d4 d5) 6.d4 Nc6 (6...O-O 7.Bd3 d5 8.O-O) 7.Bd3 Ng5


Does memorizing chess games improve chess ability?

I would switch the cause and effect. Strong players have many games memorized because chess memory improves with strength, not because the memorization made them strong. I am not saying that memorizing games is useless but I think that there are more efficient ways to improve.


When evaluating score of new position with UCI chess engine is the Hash used at all?

Short answer

No, don't set it to zero, in fact the more the better. Stockfish is using the hash table very heavily, just that you can't see it.

Long answer

Let's briefly cover hashing in a non-technical way

Q: What is hash table?

Hash table is an internal data structure in chess engines to "memorize" previously searched positions. It's like the black-hole; you can't see it but it's part of the galaxy.

Q: Why hash table?

Because we don't want to the engine search the same position again and again. There're lots of repetitions in chess, hash table is a simple but very effective strategy to deal with them. Hash table also helps move reductions and pruncing.

Let's look at the quote:

  Hash size is the amount of memory you want to designate for Stockfish
  to store positions (a temporary hash). You don't want your hash size
  to exceed your physical memory, but you don't want it to be too small
  either.

If your computer has 4GB of RAM, you wouldn't set it over 4GB (google virtual memory if you are interested to learn more). But at the same time, making it too small would be a waste of resources. You would have to pay for the electricity to power up the computer anyway, so we want to maximise the size of the hash table as much as possible without affecting the overall performance.

Let's pretend we are using Stockfish to analyze the starting position.

You were confused because you thought hashing is like just storing the initial position:

Hash Table :  { default position }

This is not correct, because the table is actually being used in the engine search. The hash table would look something like:

Hash Table : { default position, 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.e4 e5, 1.a4, 1.a4 h5 .....}

Although you can't see it, hashing is very important because it memories positions that you will need in the current search and next search. Let's say we play 1.a4, immediately from the hash-table we have an evaluation of 1.a4 h5 from the previous search.


The f2/f7 squares lose some significance after castling has occurred. The square is no longer protected by just the king - the rook now also protects it. But a f2/f7 pawn with a king on g1/g8 might be pinned by a bishop, which sometimes results in tactical opportunities.

Generally, you should attempt to control the center of the board. The f-file is not the center, but it is adjacent to the center. It might make sense to try to control the f-file if it is open or half-open (or if you plan to make it that way) but that's true of any open file.

If the file is not open or half-open, then it probably makes more sense to look at the individual squares rather than the file as a whole. If White has a pawn on e4, that pawn controls f5, but it also means that pawn can never control f4 (so f4 might be weak.)


How do I understand White's +6 advantage here?

It really is about king position, but also about how it affects the evaluation when it programmatically adds up the and compares the differences in mobility for each side's pieces. This is where you get the huge difference, and I think this is what you are looking for.

In each of the following lines, deemed best by Stockfish 11, you can see how little the black pieces can move. in particular, it is of note that in each case, the Ra8 and the Qc8 hardly move, and when the Qc8 finally does, it is just to sacrifice itself, or loses material on the move. The same for the Ra8 in the main line that follows. By comparison, look at the mobility of every white piece. The difference is enormous.

For example:

 [FEN "rnq1kb1r/ppp3pp/4pn2/4N3/2QP4/2N2P2/PPP3PP/R1B1K2R w KQ - 0 1"]

 1. Bg5 Be7 2. f4 Nbd7 (2... c6 3. O-O Nbd7 4. Rae1 Rf8 5. Nd3 Nb6 6. Qb3 Nbd5 7. f5 exf5 8. Nxd5 cxd5 9. Nf4 Rf7 10. Bxf6 gxf6 11. Rf3 Kf8 12. Rg3 Bd6 13. Ne6+ Qxe6 14. Rxe6 Bxg3 15. Qa3+ Kg8 16. Qxg3+ Rg7 17. Qd6) (2... Rf8 3. O-O Nbd7 4. Rae1 Nb6 5. Qd3 c6 6. f5 exf5 7. Rxf5 Kd8 8. Rff1 Qe6 9. Ng6 Qc4 10. Nxf8 Bxf8 (10... Qxd3 11. Ne6+ Kd7 12. cxd3) 11. Rxf6 gxf6 (11... Qxd3 12. Rxf8+ Kc7 13. Bf4+ Kd7 14. Rf7+ Kd8 15. Bg5+ Kc8 16. Re8#) 12. Bxf6+ Kc7 13. Be5+ Kd8 14. Qxh7 Nd7 15. Rf1 Qb4 16. Qh4+ Kc8 17. Qg4 Kd8 18. Qh4+ Be7 19. Qh8+ Nf8 20. a3 Qxb2 21. Rxf8+ Bxf8 22. Qxf8+ Kd7 23. Qf7+ Kd8 24. Bf6+ Kc8 25. Qe8+ Kc7 26. Qe7+ Kb6 27. Na4+) (2... Nc6 3. O-O Nxe5 4. fxe5 Nd5 5. Nxd5 exd5 6. Qxd5 Bxg5 7. Qf7+ Kd8 8. Qxg7 Be3+ 9. Kh1 Re8 10. Qf6+ Re7 11. d5 Bd4 12. Qg5 Ke8 13. Qh5+ Kd7 14. Qg4+ Ke8 15. Qxd4) 3. O-O Nb6 4. Qd3 Nfd7 5. Bxe7 Nxe5 6. dxe5 Kxe7 7. f5 Qd7 8. Qg3 Ke8 9. Rad1 Qf7 10. fxe6 Qe7 11. Ne4 Rd8 12. Nd6+ cxd6 13. exd6


Why did Kasparov avoid the Marshall Attack?(With White)

It comes down to one main thing, but there are other factors that probably played a part too. The main thing is that despite the nature of the Marshall attack, it is considered drawish at the highest levels. At lower levels, of course, it is a double-edged game where anything can happen. And while they are double-edged, white is on the defensive, not where Kasparov liked to be.

There is, clearly, a lot of theory to learn, but it is doubtful that Kasparov was put off by that since he had the reputation as the most prepared player in history at that time.

With the advent of computers, the Marshal has been analyzed to the N-th degree (meaning a lot), and most of the time, black has enough initiative to hold the draw, or better if white is not prepared. Kasparov, being Kasparov, probably felt like "why should I allow that possibility when I can probably play a line that you do not get the initiative, and we keep more pieces on the board, and I can simply outplay you in the long run? I am Kasparov, after all."

Lastly, and I touched on this already, but it is simply not Kasparov's style: He is the player, who loves to play with the initiative, so why play into a line that neutralizes his greatest strength? He did not, and I confirmed that by searching Mega 2020, and you are correct: There is not one game in there where he allowed it, and that includes faster time controls. That is not a practical way to play good chess.


Why is 6. Nge2 better, and 7. d5 a necessary push in this game?

Nf3 is not horrible (it actually transposes into a position that Kasparov once had as White, and won.) I think the reason the engine doesn't like it is that after your proposed Nf3 Bb4 Bd2, Black may play Bxc3.  If that knight is on f3, than after you retake with Bxc3 or bxc3, Black can safely take on e4. If instead the knight was on d2, then you just play Nxc3 and e4 is defended. (See the blunder by Black a little later where he doesn't take on e4.) You do have other options after Nf3 to not lose the pawn, but your pawns may get doubled.


Is there a balanced chess system where players of unknown skill can have an equal chance of winning?

Yes.

The way I've done this in the past is to play a series of games with clocks starting with 10 minutes each on the clocks and then the rule for subsequent games that the winner of the previous game gets one minute less and the loser one minute more. This quickly stabilizes at a level where both players have good chances of winning.


How bad of a chess player was Alan Turing?

A similar question was asked on another forum a few years ago, and the answer that was given was "Alan Turing wasn’t a very strong chess player at all. He was probably at the level of a beginner. He certainly knew the rules of the game, but not much more."

Wikipedia notes, regarding the chess program that Turing and a colleague designed, "... the algorithm is primarily designed around the decision to take a piece or not; according to Turing, the resulting gameplay produces a low level game of chess, which he considered commensurate with his self-described average skill level at the game."  According to the article, Turing's algorithm (it's really difficult to call it a "program", as it never ran on any actual computer - Turning only ever "ran" it on pencil and paper) only looked two half-moves ahead, applied a static evaluation function to each resulting position, and selected as the next move whichever one led to the highest average evaluation after the following half-move.


Although one may try to place the first row as the eighth, the second row as the seventh, etc., the board will appear flipped (as shown above).

This is a horizontal flip (mirror-image over the x-axis) and does not look quite right. Switching the letters from lower-case to capital and vice-versa would switch the colors, but that's not the best solution.

Upon closer examination, a vertical flip (or mirror over the y-axis) of this horizontal flip would solve the problem: Reverse each sub-string delimited by a slash until you hit the second field, then leave it as is.

The final product is the same FEN, except the first field is a reverse string of itself.

# r4rk1/p3ppbp/2n3p1/8/3q2n1/N1N5/PPQ2PPP/R1B1K2R w KQkq - 0 1

Board:

r4rk1/p3ppbp/2n3p1/8/3q2n1/N1N5/PPQ2PPP/R1B1K2R w KQkq - 0 1


One sort of not-always-obvious trap that players can fall into are pawn forks that aren't immediately apparent in a given position. For instance:

[FEN ""]

1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 Bc5 4.e3 Nc6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Nge2 Be6 $2 7.d4 $1

Here White wins material since 7. d4! gains time against the bishop on c5, and can then push on to d5. I've actually won with this exact tactic in more than one OTB tournament game, even against A-class players; and in internet blitz it's happened countless times. If you're not used to playing the black side here, I think it can be easy to miss the shot before you let go of the bishop on e6. This same kind of scenario can arise in other positions with a lot of centrally-located minor pieces.


The specification is correct here.

An appropriate implementation would start a search, and then terminate it once a checkmate has been found in x full moves, or 2x plies

  I believe this should say "search for mate in x plies", as plies are used in most of the protocol.

This is not the case.

The way that mate scores are handled is one of the quirks of the UCI Protocol. As it happens, using full moves to describe mates is consistent with the rest of the protocol.

For example, here is the section which describes how scores should be reported:

* score
    * cp <x>
        the score from the engine's point of view in centipawns.
    * mate <y>
        mate in y moves, not plies.
        If the engine is getting mated use negative values for y.

Here, the mate scores must also be reported in full moves, just like the requirement for go mate <x>.

You are, however, right to find this unusual, as most chess engines do represent mate scores in plies internally.


Formal definition of corresponding squares

Two squares A and B such that after the attacker (player going for the win) moves to square A the defender must move to square B to hold the position (at least for the moment).

This doesn't say that the attacker won't still win the game down the road (with objective play from both sides). But to prevent an immediate win the defender must go to B after the attacker goes to A.


Why did I get only 5 points even though I won?

Most chess sites use some variant of the Elo rating system

If you have a much higher rating than your opponent, the expectation is that you will win. So if you do win, then we haven't gained that much information, so the change in rating for both you and your opponent will be small. If your opponent wins, there will be a much larger change in rating as their win was less expected.

In your case, you have a rating of 775 and your opponent had a rating of 651. Since you have a much higher rating, winning didn't result in a large rating increase. If you had won against someone much higher rated than you, you would have experienced a much larger rating increase.

Mathematically, the rating change of each player is calculated as some empirical constant (K, 32 is often used) multiplied by the difference between the actual score and the expected score of that player against the other. The expected score is calculated from the difference of the two ratings.


What chess endgame rules have few or no exceptions?

Here are a few off the top of my head -

In K + B + P vs K endgames, the position is a draw if the pawn is a rook pawn and the queening square is on the opposite color of the bishop.

[FEN "7k/8/7P/8/4B1K1/8/8/8 w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. Kg5 Kg8 2. h7+ Kh8 3. Kh5 Kg7 4. Kg5 Kh8

In K + P vs K + Q endgames, when the pawn is on the seventh rank and the king can cover the queening square the game is either a draw or a loss depending on what column the pawn is on. The game is a draw if the pawn is on the a, c, f, or h files and a loss on the b, d, e, g files. There are certain exceptions to this case - the opposing king can be close enough to the queening square or he can advance using discovered checks.

These positions are draws as white can use stalemate tricks:

a file

[FEN "1K6/P7/8/8/8/8/2q5/7k w KQkq - 0 1"]

c file

[FEN "3K4/2P5/8/8/8/8/2q5/7k w KQkq - 0 1"]

f file

[FEN "6K1/5P2/8/8/8/8/2q5/7k w KQkq - 0 1"]

h file

[FEN "6K1/7P/8/8/8/8/2q5/7k w KQkq - 0 1"]


Why is it a mistake to trap this bishop?

You get a bishop in exchange two pawns and initiative for white piece.

This is the explanation: After you go to g5, your opponent can play knight takes g5 and if you recapture the knight with your pawn, queen opponent will go to h5 and it is a check. Your pawn on g5 will be captured in the next move by your opponent queen.
Black position is vulnerable and d5 pawn is the weakness that can be exploited by white.


How can I increase the search ply depth of my minimax function for my chess engine?

Build a cache. You're exposing yourself to endless transposition.
Please don't shuffle your moves. I don't have the numbers but I doubt randomly shuffle all your lists can be quick. It's O(n). I fail to see how it can address your repetition anyway.
Double check your generator. Source code is not here, so I have no idea
I don't know what exactly your table is, but deep copying can never be quick. Each deep copy would need to allocate some memory space. Don't copy, you need to make a move and then undo the move. In chess programming, we don't make a deep copy of the board at every node, we make a move and then undo it.
Double check how exactly your chess board makes a move, is that efficient?


What is a move that "is recorded in such a way that its true significance is impossible to establish"?

an ambiguous move is one that does not fully indicate the piece to be
  moved and its destination, such as "I move my bishop back",
  "castling", or "I'm gonna queen a pawn".

No. You obviously haven't reached "Recording of the Moves" and clarifications given in the glossary. A move, to be a move, has to be written in algebraic notation. None of the expressions you have written qualify as moves let alone ambiguous moves.

If the player had rooks on a7 and c7 and he wrote Rb7 then that would be ambiguous.

  What is the meaning of clause b. above?

If the person trying to read the move can't work out what the move is because part or all of it is illegible then that would qualify. In general this a catch-all clause that basically says you can't work out what the move is for some reason other than ambiguity. Complete absence would also do. i.e. the player seals a blank sheet of paper.


You're not being naive.

It sounds like you're a positional player.  You'll probably favor closed games.  Closed games are ones where there are pawns in the center, reducing the long-range power of many of the pieces on the board.

Too much memorization is unhelpful. You will need to memorize a a few openings, and not too deeply. As long as you understand what the openings are trying to accomplish and you know basic principles you'll be fine.

For openings, play 1. d4, and work through some main lines of the Queen's Gambit.  From this link, you'll see that your play won't change much for the first few moves; there's a theme.

If you're on the black side of the board, you have more choices.  You'll probably see 1. e4 more than 1. d4.  For the latter, look at the 'closed game' and similar:

1. d4 d5
2. c4 e6
3. Nc3 Nf6
4. Bg5 Be7
5. e3 O-O
6. Nf3 Nbd7

See how black avoids lines where the center pawns get traded off?

Against 1. e4 you'll be looking for the same thing - lines that leave the pawns on the board or at least, like this Caro-Kann, leave a solid position:

1. e4 c6
2. d4 d5
3. Nc3 dxe4
4. Nxe4 Bf5
5. Ng3 Bg6
6. h4 h6
7. Nf3 Nd7
8. h5 Bh7
9. Bd3 Bxd3

Here's a link for a plethora of e4 openings.

Which opening to pick?  Narrow down the field by examining games of Anatoly Karpov, Tigran Petrosian, Aron Nimzovitch, and Mikhail Botvinnik.  Nimzovitch is the godfather of the 'prophylactic' style you describe.  You might get a copy of 'My System', one of the first books to collect, state, and explain the principles of positional play.  Be advised this book (and many others) are old and were written using the now-obsolete 'descriptive' notation.  You probably want your copies to be in algebraic or figurine algebraic notation.  If you buy a copy off of e-bay etc you should verify what you're getting.


No reason for Shizmoo's site closure in 2008 has been published online that I could find. There is a forum for former Kung Fu Chess enthusiasts here, but it's not particularly busy at the moment: http://www.zenchess.com/forum/

A few turnless/live chess variations inspired by Kung Fu Chess have sprung up, though, notably:

Ninja Chess for iPad

http://www.nordlysa.com/ninjachess/

Two players, iOS.

Real Time Chess

http://play.svenardo.com/chess/

One-player vs computer, in-browser, iPad, Mac and Windows, where the first player to capture the king wins. Moved pieces cannot be moved again until their timer completes.

JebChess

http://jebchess.com/

A four-player live version.


I feel like the 90-minute (+ 30s increment) games are just perfect for getting better, but it might be caused by the fact that I'm used to it. Pretty much any longer time control will do the job.

But definitely, your choice to play with longer time controls is a good one. For me, a 30-minute game is a rapid game and even FIDE thinks so :)

  A ‘Rapidplay’ game is one where either all the moves must be completed in a fixed time of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player; or the time allotted plus 60 times any increment is of more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes for each player.

The big difference will obviously be the "redundant" time for you. I think you can use that for improving in some techniques like double-checking and evaluating positions.

The idea is to use these methods extensively (and consciously) until they become part of your unconsciousness. I learned this idea from a book called Pumped Up Your Rating by Axel Smith.

Some other advice:

Your brain can adapt to the time quickly and, especially if you're a "time-trouble player", what might have seemed as a lot of time before is suddenly not that much... That doesn't mean you shouldn't think, just anyway be aware of the time situation on your clock.
Don't be hasty when your opponent starts playing quickly. That applies generally, but in longer time controls it is more important than anywhere else. For example, you have no reason to become nervous when your opponent has 80 minutes left and you have "only" 55 minutes on your clock after 20 moves - it's quite a lot of time. Just stick to your time management.

I guess the last point falls into the category of mental preparation because you might feel pressure in such a case. So it's good to be prepared for that.

The last thing I have on my mind is how you spend the time when it's your opponent's turn. In rapid games, players are usually used to sit at the board throughout the entire game, which is almost impossible in case of long games.

It usually depends on the character of the player, some stand up from the games very often, some not. Just keep in mind that you shouldn't distract yourself too much when you're off the board as you don't want to build your concentration from the bottom-up again. I think you will have to try this yourself.


Chess software that enables you to set up a position from scratch?

You don't mention what platform you are using, but on Android I use the "Analyze This" app - it lets you set up positions from scratch, and also use an engine to analyze.  There is a free version of the app, and a paid "Pro" version.  In the free version, the only available engine is Stockfish; in the "Pro" version, you can add other UCI engines.


The WCC was the "World Chess Council".

It was formed in 1998 by Kasparov after the collapse of the PCA (Professional Chess Association) in 1995. It was Kasparov's fourth attempt at an organization separate from FIDE.

It organized the candidates match between Kramnik and Shirov in 1998, which Shirov surprisingly won (5.5-3.5), and he was slated to play Kasparov for the title. The match never happened since the organization collapsed during the negotiations when the organization lost its sponsors, and folded.

The best detailing of the events of that time that I have found can be found here. (Note that this outstanding site has many more pages of history, so click the "next" and "previous" buttons at the bottom to read more. I would love to just cut-and-paste it, but it is copyrighted material, so you will have to go visit the site.)

You can also find a little information here.


Is there a collection of chess images in public domain?

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/greatest-chess-photos

Has probably some of the most epic pictures in chess history


How many possible chess moves are there?

The white king can move to 8 fields from the inner 36 fields, to 4 fields from the 4 corner fields and to 5 fields from the remaining 24 boundary fields. That's 420 moves for the white king, add 2 for castlings to arrive at 422. If you distinguish captures, this almost doubles (castling can't capture) to 842. Now allow for the black king to double this (1684)? Or identify moves they could both make (i.e., all but castling - 844)?
A rook can always (given free line of sight) move to 14 squares. That's 896 moves. Double to 1792 if you distinguish captures. Double again (3584) if you want to distinguish colour.
On a diagonal (NW to SE, say) of length n, a bishop can make n(n-1) moves (pick a start field and a distinct end field). Sum over n=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 (i.e., ignoring the colour of the bishop) to arrive at 280 moves, double to 560 to count both diagonal directions. Double (1120) if you want to distinguish captures, double once more (2240) if you want to distinguish by colour.
For the queen simply add rook and bishop, thus counting 1456, 2912, or 5824 moves.
The knight can typically make 8 moves, but as with the king we have to account for nearby boundary. It is easier to count by direction: There are 42 (6 by 7) fields from where we can go two to the right and one up, say. We have the same number 42 (though with different fields) for all eight directions, hence a total of 336 knight moves. Double (672) if you distinguish captures. Double again (1344) if you distinguish by colour.
A white pawn can move two fields ahead from its initial position (8 moves). It can move one ahead from rows 2 to 6 (40 moves). It can move ahead from row 7 and promote to queen, rook, bishop, or knight (32 moves). For pawns, we must distinguish captures: In only seven of the eight columns, we can capture to the right, and in seven of eight columns we can capture to the left. This gives us 70 capture moves from rows 2 to 6, plus 56 capture with promotion. So far 206. If you want to distinguish capture en passant from a normal capture by the same movement (start and end field) of the pawn, add 14 to arrive at 220. Again, at least for pawns it seems useful to distinguish by player and arrive at 440.
In summary, the most generous way of counting possible moves might lead to 1684  + 3584 + 2240 + 5824 + 1344 + 440 = 15116 distinct moves. One could raise the number even higher by distinguishing moves that give check or even checkmate, or by distinguishing captures according to the piece captured.


Open source engine that doesn't lose on time

Stockfish is strong and able to handle your time control increments. Have you tried Stockfish?


I was reading through "American Chess Magazine Volume 1" on Google Books, which is from 1897. There is an old article on the origins of chess therein, with the basic summary of how the game to be: it's reminiscent of today's Wikipedia as it was at the time. To my surprise, on page 264, there was direct mention of what you speak of! It occurs when speaking of chess's predecessor, Shatranj, which itself is a form of the much older, four-player game Chaturanga, aka "Indian Chess."
Here is the relevant text.

The King was limited Shatranj, as in our game, to a move of one square in any direction, except that once during a game he was allowed the move of a Knight ; i.e, from his own square to King's Knight's second square, to King's Bishop, third square, to Queen's third square, or to Queen's Bishop's second square. This Knight move was omitted and Castling substituted.

At the end of page 265, it says:

In all variations of Chaturanga, the common origin is shown by the retention of one object, viz.: the capture of the opponent's King. When this is accomplished it is a checkmate, "Shiek-Mate," the death of the King--the game is finished.

So there is a primary source, I suppose. It seems to me that the special knight move can only be used by an unmoved king. Also , reading into it, that an opponent can walk their king into a king's knight move range. Shatranj is a variation of Chaturanga, I think, and if the goal is to capture the king. So "stalemate" as we know it doesn't exist, and therefore so doesn't check. I admit that this interpretation of the check is my opinion, so it is still unclear, but what is clear is where on the board "Indian Castling" can take place.


Is it possible to win this endgame(either white or black)?

Of course either black or white could win this endgame. All it takes is one blunder by either side.
If what you meant to ask if either side can force a win, then the answer is "No". Black is a pawn up but white has a much more active rook and the black king is cut off on one side of the board by the white rook.
As Tarrasch is supposed to have said "All rook and pawn endgames are drawn". With best play this is also very probably drawn but best play is very rare for humans, particularly in the endgame and particularly when the clock is ticking.
Even if black succeeded in exchanging off pawns until left with king+rook+pawn versus king+rook it would likely still be drawn as long as white managed to keep the rooks on. Even with rooks off as well there are many positions where king+pawn would still be a draw against lone king.


In this YouTube video, the author says that 10...f6 "leads to disaster"...Why?

The video's author might be overstating it by calling it a "disaster" as there is no clear knockout blow.

Nevertheless, white is clearly better, and the attack will continue with best play, but it requires accuracy or the extra piece may tell the final tale. White will remain down a piece for two pawns, and will probably win a third in the near future due to the indefensible black king. Here is a couple of sample lines, but since neither side is forced, there are many other possibilities.

 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1 d5 7. Bxd5 Qxd5 8. Nc3 Qa5 9. Nxe4 Be7 10. Bg5 f6 11. Nxf6+ gxf6 (11... Kf7 12. Ne4 {And white is not down any material, and the attack will continue. The black king is just too open.} Re8 13. Bxe7 (13. Nxd4 {Or this.} Bd7 14. Bd2 Qb6 15. Qh5+ Kg8 16. Nf3 {Idea Qd5+ and taking the Bd7.} Nb4 17. Neg5 Qg6 18. Qxg6 hxg6 19. Rxe7 Rxe7 20. Bxb4 $18) 13... Rxe7 14. Neg5+ Kg8 (14... Kf8 15. Rxe7 Nxe7 16. Nxh7+ Kg8 17. Nhg5 Bg4 18. Qxd4 Bxf3 19. Nxf3 Qd5 20. Qg4 $18) 15. Qd3 g6 16. Qc4+ Kf8 17. Rxe7 Kxe7 18. Qf7+ Kd8 19. Re1) 12. Bxf6 Rf8 13. Bxe7 Nxe7 14. Qxd4 Qb6 15. Qc3 Bf5 16. Rad1 Rd8 {This is clearly the best move here.} 17. Rxe7+ $1 Kxe7 18. Qe5+ Qe6 19. Qxc7+ Rd7 20. Qc5+ Rd6 21. Re1 Be4 22. Ng5 Qd5 23. Qe3 Qd4 24. Qxe4+ Qxe4 25. Nxe4 {And the position has finally clarified.}


What is the longest proven forced win (including 50 & 75 move rules)?

Otto Blathy is famous for his long mate problems. There are different records depending on whether you allow an illegal starting position, or promoted pieces, or minor duals in the solution, so your answer might be anywhere between 257 and 292 moves.
This answer on Puzzling.SE shows a construction in 271 moves that is not Blathy, but by Nenad Petrovic.
[Title "Nenad Petrovic, Zagreb 1969, Mate In 271"]
[FEN "8/Bk3p1p/1P3p2/KP2n2p/1P1p4/1Pp2p2/B1P5/7B w - - 0 1"]

1. Bb1 h4 2. Ka4 Ka8 3. Ka3 Kb7 4. Ka2 Ka8 5. Ka1 Kb7 6. Ba2 Ka8 7. Kb1 Kb7 8. Kc1 Ka8 9. Kd1 Kb710. Ke1 Ka8 11. Bb1 Kb7 12. Kf1 Ka8 13. Kf2 Kb7 14. Ke1 Ka8 15. Kd1 Kb7 16. Kc1 Ka8 17. Ba2 Kb7 18. Kb1 Ka8 19. Ka1 Kb7 20. Bb1 Ka8 21. Ka2 Kb7 22. Ka3 Ka8 23. Ka4 Kb7 24. Ka5 f5 25. Ka4 Ka8 26. Ka3 Kb7 27. Ka2 Ka8 28. Ka1 Kb7 29. Ba2 Ka8 30. Kb1 Kb7 31. Kc1 Ka8 32. Kd1 Kb7 33. Ke1 Ka8 34. Bb1 Kb7 35. Kf1 Ka8 36. Kf2 Kb7 37. Ke1 Ka8 38. Kd1 Kb7 39. Kc1 Ka8 40. Ba2 Kb7 41. Kb1 Ka8 42. Ka1 Kb7 43. Bb1 Ka8 44. Ka2 Kb7 45. Ka3 Ka8 46. Ka4 Kb7 47. Ka5 f4 48. Ka4 Ka8 49. Ka3 Kb7 50. Ka2 Ka8 51. Ka1 Kb7 52. Ba2 Ka8 53. Kb1 Kb7 54. Kc1 Ka8 55. Kd1 Kb7 56. Bb1 Ka8 57. Ke1 Kb7 58. Kf1 Ka8 59. Kf2 Kb7 60. Ke1 Ka8 61. Kd1 Kb7 62. Kc1 Ka8 63. Ba2 Kb7 64. Kb1 Ka8 65. Ka1 Kb7 66. Bb1 Ka8 67. Ka2 Kb7 68. Ka3 Ka8 69. Ka4 Kb7 70. Ka5 f6 71. Ka4 Ka8 72. Ka3 Kb7 73. Ka2 Ka8 74. Ka1 Kb7 75. Ba2 Ka8 76. Kb1 Kb7 77. Kc1 Ka8 78. Kd1 Kb7 79. Ke1 Ka8 80. Bb1 Kb7 81. Kf1 Ka8 82. Kf2 Kb7 83. Ke1 Ka8 84. Kd1 Kb7 85. Kc1 Ka8 86. Ba2 Kb7 87. Kb1 Ka8 88. Ka1 Kb7 89. Bb1 Ka8 90. Ka2 Kb7 91. Ka3 Ka8 92. Ka4 Kb7 93. Ka5 f5 94. Ka4 Ka8 95. Ka3 Kb7 96. Ka2 Ka8 97. Ka1 Kb7 98. Ba2 Ka8 99. Kb1 Kb7 100. Kc1 Ka8 101. Kd1 Kb7 102. Ke1 Ka8 103. Bb1 Kb7 104. Kf1 Ka8 105. Kf2 Kb7 106. Ke1 Ka8 107. Kd1 Kb7 108. Kc1 Ka8 109. Ba2 Kb7 110. Kb1 Ka8 111. Ka1 Kb7 112. Bb1 Ka8 113. Ka2 Kb7 114. Ka3 Ka8 115. Ka4 Kb7. 116. Ka5 h3 117. Ka4 Ka8 118. Ka3 Kb7 119. Ka2 Ka8 120. Ka1 Kb7 121. Ba2 Ka8 122. Kb1 Kb7 123. Kc1 Ka8 124. Kd1 Kb7 125. Ke1 Ka8 126. Bb1 Kb7 127. Kf1 Ka8 128. Kf2 Kb7 129. Ke1 Ka8 130. Kd1 Kb7 131. Kc1 Ka8 132. Ba2 Kb7 133. Kb1 Ka8 134. Ka1 Kb7 135. Bb1 Ka8 136. Ka2 Kb7 137. Ka3 Ka8 138. Ka4 Kb7 139. Ka5 h2 140. Ka4 Ka8 141. Ka3 Kb7 142. Ka2 Ka8 143. Ka1 Kb7 144. Ba2 Ka8 145. Kb1 Kb7 146. Kc1 Ka8 147. Kd1 Kb7 148. Ke1 Ka8 149. Bb1 Kb7 150. Kf1 Ka8 151. Kf2 Kb7 152. Ke1 Ka8 153. Kd1 Kb7 154. Kc1 Ka8 155. Ba2 Kb7 156. Kb1 Ka8 157. Ka1 Kb7 158. Bb1 Ka8 159. Ka2 Kb7 160. Ka3 Ka8 161. Ka4 Kb7 162. Ka5 h6 163. Ka4 Ka8 164. Ka3 Kb7 165. Ka2 Ka8 166. Ka1 Kb7 167. Ba2 Ka8 168. Kb1 Kb7 169. Kc1 Ka8 170. Kd1 Kb7 171. Ke1 Ka8 172. Bb1 Kb7 173. Kf1 Ka8 174. Kf2 Kb7 175. Ke1 Ka8 176. Kd1 Kb7 177. Kc1 Ka8 178. Ba2 Kb7 179. Kb1 Ka8 180. Ka1 Kb7 181. Bb1 Ka8 182. Ka2 Kb7 183. Ka3 Ka8 184. Ka4 Kb7 185. Ka5 h5 186. Ka4 Ka8 187. Ka3 Kb7 188. Ka2 Ka8 189. Ka1 Kb7 190. Ba2 Ka8 191. Kb1 Kb7 192. Kc1 Ka8 193. Kd1 Kb7 194. Ke1 Ka8 195. Bb1 Kb7 196. Kf1 Ka8 197. Kf2 Kb7 198. Ke1 Ka8 199. Kd1 Kb7 200. Kc1 Ka8 201. Ba2 Kb7 202. Kb1 Ka8 203. Ka1 Kb7 204. Bb1 Ka8 205. Ka2 Kb7 206. Ka3 Ka8 207. Ka4 Kb7 208. Ka5 h4 209. Ka4 Ka8 210. Ka3 Kb7 211. Ka2 Ka8 212. Ka1 Kb7 213. Ba2 Ka8 214. Kb1 Kb7 215. Kc1 Ka8 216. Kd1 Kb7 217. Ke1 Ka8 218. Bb1 Kb7 219. Kf1 Ka8 220. Kf2 Kb7 221. Ke1 Ka8 222. Kd1 Kb7 223. Kc1 Ka8 224. Ba2 Kb7 225. Kb1 Ka8 226. Ka1 Kb7 227. Bb1 Ka8 228. Ka2 Kb7 229. Ka3 Ka8 230. Ka4 Kb7 231. Ka5 h3 232. Ka4 Ka8 233. Ka3 Kb7 234. Ka2 Ka8 235. Ka1 Kb7 236. Ba2 Ka8 237. Kb1 Kb7 238. Kc1 Ka8 239. Kd1 Kb7 240. Ke1 Ka8 241. Bb1 Kb7 242. Kf1 Ka8 243. Kf2 Kb7 244. Ke1 Ka8 245. Kd1 Kb7 246. Kc1 Ka8 247. Ba2 Kb7 248. Kb1 Ka8 249. Ka1 Kb7 250. Bb1 Ka8 251. Ka2 Kb7 252. Ka3 Ka8 253. Ka4 Kb7 254. Ka5 Kc8 255. Ka6 Kd8 256. b7 Nd7 257. Bxf3 h1=Q 258. Bxh1 d3 259. cxd3 f3 260. Bxf3 Ke7 261. b8=Q Nxb8+ 262. Bxb8 c2 263. Bxc2 Ke6 264. b6 Kf6 265. b7 Ke6 266. d4 h2 267. Bxh2 f4 268. b8=Q Kf7 269. Bxf4  Kg7 270. Bh5 Kf6 271. Qe5#

(legal position, with promoted piece, with minor duals in the solution)
Those problems involve regular pawn moves, so the fifty-moves rule doesn't change their validity. On the other hand, all long (500+ moves) tablebase mates (as the first diagram in the answer linked above) show series of more than 50 moves without capture nor pawn moves.
Finally a beautiful problem exploiting the 50-moves rule was composed by Noam Elkies, who comes sometimes on Chess.SE. I will refrain from giving the solution here for people who want to search (but I have already given away the main indication and lazy people can just follow the link).
     [Title "Noam Elkies, 1991 - White to play and draw"]
 [FEN "8/1p6/1p6/kPp2P1K/2P5/N1Pp4/q2P4/1N6 w - - 0 1"]


In terms of rating points, how much stronger should a coach be than their student?

So, you are about 1800 and you are worried that a coach with a rating 500 points higher than you will not be able to give you the help you require?

I think you are too fixated on rating. What do you think a player rated about 2400 looks for in a coach? Do they also "need" somebody rated 500 points higher? While he was alive IM Mark Dvoretsky coached grandmasters. How was that even possible?

A coach who can help you improve by several hundred rating points is not going to do it by magically transferring his extra rating points. He will do it by teaching you how to study and work better, by directing the work that you do and to some extent by motivating you to do the work.

When you sit down at the chess board the moves that come out will reflect the work that you have done, how much, what type, not the rating of your coach. The most important factor your coach has is how good a teacher, trainer and guide he is not how strong a player. Look for these qualities first.


After 16... Bxa6 17. Qxa6 the problem is that black has no play. His white-squared bishop is really important in the upcoming attack on the white king (this is the only play black can try), so if he exchanged it on a6, white would have a very comfortable position (mainly thanks to the attack on the black's weak queenside) and nothing to fear.

EDIT: I completely omitted the fact that black's pawn down. Of course that is somewhat important, too... :-)

You may oppose me with the fact that white managed to exchange these bishops anyway (see move 18. gxf3 later in the game), but at least black destroyed white's perfect pawn structure.

My second point is that you can't always take Capablanca for granted. He wasn't the most modest player in the world :-) and the fact that he already had known the result of the game when he was commenting it is also important. He was indeed one of the greatest players, but sometimes I find his comments biased.


Historic time controls for World Championships

I have spent far too much time on this as is, but here we go. Time control phase X/Y means X moves in Y minutes for each player, + means increment per moves (in seconds).
Steinitz's era
An idiosyncratic era with matches decided by direct negotiations.

1886: Steinitz-Zukertort, FT10 wins with 8-8 or 9-9 declared as draw

30/120 then 15/60

1889: Steinitz-Chigorin,?
1890: Steinitz-Gunsberg, FT10 wins with 8-8 or 9-9 declared as draw

26/210 then 15/60

1892: Steinitz-Chigorin, ?

Lasker's era
The time control for all of these is 15/60, except Lasker-Marshall 1907 and Lasker-Janowski 1910 which I couldn't find.

1894: Steinitz-Lasker, FT10 wins
1896: Lasker-Steinitz, FT10 wins
1907: Lasker-Marshall, FT8 wins
1908: Lasker-Tarrasch, FT8 wins
1910: Lasker-Schlechter, BO10
1910: Lasker-Janowski, FT8 wins
1921: Lasker-Capablanca, FT8 wins

Alekhine's era
Capablanca's "London Rules", subsequently adopted by Alekhine, made this fairly regular. Formats is first to 6 wins capped at 30 games, except the 1927 match which had no game limit. Time controls are 40/150.

1927: Capablanca-Alekhine
1929: Alekhine-Bogoljubov
1934: Bogoljubov-Alekhine
1935: Alekhine-Euwe
1937: Euwe-Alekhine

FIDE 1948
After the death of Alekhine, a quintuple round-robin with five of the best players in the world (Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres, Reshevsky, Euwe). Botvinnik won. Games were 40/150 followed by 16/60.
FIDE era I
FIDE's championships were generally of a standard format, notwithstanding player disputes, leg-swinging, yoghurts and gurus, return matches and off-the-board politics.
All matches from Botvinnik-Bronstein 1951 to Kasparov-Karpov 1990 were 40/150 followed by 16/60.
All were also BO24 (champion retains title if 12-12), except the cancelled Fischer-Karpov 1975 (that was a point of contention in the negotiations), Karpov-Korchnoi 1978 and 1981, and the aborted Karpov-Kasparov 1984, which were all first to 6 wins.
A mess
Welcome to the era of FIDE and PCA and general chaos.
Direct matches (PCA/BrainGames/whatever really)

1993: Kasparov-Short, BO24, champion retains if 12-12

40/120 then 20/60 then adjournment

1995: Kasparov-Anand, BO20, champion retains if 10-10

40/120 then 20/60 then G/30

2000: Kasparov-Kramnik, BO16, champion retains if 8-8

? There is a time control at 40 moves but I can't find the details.

2004: Kramnik-Leko, BO14, champion retains if 7-7

?

Direct matches (FIDE)

1993: Karpov-Timman, BO24, tiebreaks if 12-12

40/150 then 16/60
Tiebreaks four sets of two games at 40/60 then 20/15

1996: Karpov-Kamsky, BO20, tiebreaks if 10-10

40/120 then 16/60 then adjournment

1998: Karpov-Anand, BO6, tiebreaks if 3-3

I can't find the details.

Knockout (FIDE)
Because FIDE had the brilliant idea to create a knockout format and further annoy the champions and challengers.

1999 (Khalifman), 2000 (Anand)

40/100 then 20/50 then G10+30
Tiebreaks G25+10 rapid, G15+10 blitz, Armageddon G5 vs G4 (+10 second increment?)

2002 (Ponomariov), 2004 (Kasimdzhanov)

40/75 then G15+30 (in 2004, 40/90 then G15+30)
Tiebreaks G20+10 rapid, G5+10 blitz (?), Armageddon G6 v G5

FIDE era 2
The reunification of the championship begins with an 8-player double round-robin in 2005.

2005 (Topalov)

40/120 then 20/60 then G15+30

Sanity ensues when Topalov wins in 2006, and from there everything becomes much nicer.

2006 to 2014: BO12, tiebreaks if 6-6

40/120 then 20/60 then G15+30
Tiebreaks 1 set of 4 games of G25+10, then 5 sets of 2 games of G5+3, then Armageddon G4 v G5 with +3 seconds increment from move 61 and above.

In 2016 the classical time control was tweaked slightly, but format and tiebreaks remained the same.

2016 and 2018: BO12, tiebreaks if 6-6

40/100+30 then 20/50+30 then G15+30
Tiebreaks see 2006-2014.

Sources
Wikipedia, chessgames.com, Edward Winter's history pages, Mark Week's WCC pages, 2005 FIDE regulations (Wayback Machine, .doc file), FIDE regulations (.pdf files) (2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, and a bunch of books and other pages I am not fully remembering now.)


Why can a chess move improve the chance of winning, according to the computer?

If the computer was capable of evaluating every line of play right to the end of the game, the evaluation would never change. Indeed, the evaluation of every move would be either "win", "lose" or "draw". This is essentially what happens in endgame tablebases.* If computers could do this for every position, every game against a computer would consist of the computer either resigning without making a move, offering you a draw in the initial position or being annoyed that you hadn't resigned or accepted that draw offer.

However, computers cannot evaluate that far because it would take impossibly long, both because games can be very long (hundreds of moves, in principle) and because there are many possibilities at each move.  So, computers have to take a number of shortcuts. This includes trying to figure out quickly what the most important candidate moves are (taking an unprotected piece is probably a great move; hanging your queen is probably an awful move; ...) and also stopping the search after several moves and using some heuristics instead of more searching to try to figure out if the resulting position looks good or not.

The problem is that these shortcuts can go wrong.  The computer might decide that hanging a piece is bad when it's actually a genius sacrifice. It might decide that a position has stabilized when really it hasn't. It might just not have enough power to see far enough into the future to see the real point of a particular move.

Here's a simple example, though it's no longer very realistic.  Suppose you're about to checkmate me but I have a series of ten checks I can make to delay you.  If I only look ten moves in advance, I'll think I'm doing OK: maybe I'm even a pawn up, so my evaluation is "After ten moves, I'm still a pawn up, so I'm good. Score +1" I play my first check, you respond, and now I see that it's mate in ten and resign. This is the so-called "horizon effect" which modern programs try to avoid (e.g., by looking deeper along lines that have a lot of forced moves) but it illustrates the general principle.

If the engine can see, say, ten moves into the future, then it's seeing farther into the game as each move is made.  At the initial position, it can see what the board will look like at move 10; after one move, it can see to move 11 and so on. (Again, this is a simplification, since computers don't, these days, look a fixed distance into the future, but it gives you the general idea.)

The example you've given is just a less dramatic version of the examples I've given. As more moves are made, the computer can see deeper into the game, so it can give a more accurate evaluation.  Another way to see this is in terms of information: as more moves are played, the computer has more information. It used to be guessing about what your response to 1.e4 would be, but now it knows that you've play the Sicilian, and so on.

* There's a slight nuance here in that you actually need to count the number of moves to the win to avoid repeating positions. For example, consider the endgame of KQ vs K. Every move that doesn't stalemate or surrender the queen wins, so you need a mechanism to drive towards checkmate, rather than just randomly moving and saying, "Wow, I'm totally going to win this – almost every move wins!"


Effective method to teach defense (I.E. opening as Black) to children

It seems that your question deviates from the the point that Black is at a disadvantage. Instead, you seem to mention opening principles that are color agnostic. Controlling the center, protecting the king, and developing pieces are the three key idea in the opening.

I wouldn't worry too much about teaching specifically attack and defense. These are actually higher-level concepts that are taught at a higher level.


What does it mean to play "positionally", and how do you train that?

There are three general types of players: Positional, tactical, and universal, which is being adept and comfortable in both positional and tactical games. Tactical means that you love open positions that require a lot of calculation, and often include all-out attacks.

Positional chess is generally slower, and you work to build small advantages by placing your pieces and pawns on good squares. Using your pieces and pawns effectively, you gradually hope to create pressure and threats that force small (or large, if you are lucky) weaknesses in your opponent's position. Once you have one small advantage, you can often accumulate more small advantages, and with the accumulation of these small advantages, you hope to turn that into one big advantage with a final winning tactical maneuver, or "tactical shot".

I gave a very detailed list of positional elements in this post. Be aware that positional sense is one of the last things that a chess player develops, and it takes a lot of time to develop. Most players are pretty experienced by the time they really start to understand this well.


If black plays QxR then white plays Qc3+ with mate to follow. Black's Qg7 stops the mate. With the black queen on b2 white cannot play Qc3. The Re2 move is to divert the black queen

[FEN "5r1k/1pQ4p/3nB1p1/3P4/5p2/1P5P/rq5P/4R1RK w - - 0 1"]

1. Re2 Qxe2 2. Qc3+ Qe5 3. Qxe5+ Rf6 4. Qxf6#


Why 4... Nxb4 is not played in Evans gambit?

It comes down to flexibility. In most cases, Nb4 will end up in the same position, as you said, but Bb4 give you at least two more common alternatives, and a couple less common ones.

 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Nb4 5. c3 Nc6 (5...Na6?) 6. d4 exd4 7. cxd4

Compare this with this line where black can play Ba5, Be7, Bc5, and even Bd6 have been played a fair amount of times. It is, generally, favorable to make your opponent worry about more options.

 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bb4 5. c3


Central control disliked by engine in 1.e4 e6 2.d4 a6 3.c4

It's not inaccurate whatsoever. 3.c4 is just as good a move as 3.Nf3, 3.Nc3, etc. In general you should take what engines say that early on with a grain of salt, unless the position is already extremely tactical. What was the evaluation drop when you played 3.c4, and what depth was Stockfish thinking at? For me, at depth 27 Stockfish 10 goes down from 0.58ish to 0.48ish, which isn't significant on move 3.


When did the light-on-the-right convention ascend to dominance?

Sometimes chess textbooks would rotate the board by 90 degrees, under the assumption that the players sat at the left and right of the board:

  The only clear evidence of the use of different sources is supplied by the diagrams. While the great majority are oriented in the way universally followed in modern text-books, a small number in each work are at right angles to the ordinary arrangement. These must have been derived from an MS [manuscript], in which the positions were drawn on the supposition that the players were seated to the right and left of the board.

Source: A History of Chess: The Original 1913 Edition by H.J.R. Murray

Murray unfortunately does not give the origins of 'light on right'.


Why are the golden rules in chess openings true?

Indeed, these rules seem to me being golden rules!

  Shouldn't you move your knight to an edge because of the opponnents bishops?
  Edge pawns shouldn't be played because they don't remove any obstructions?

In chess opening, the main idea is to develop your pieces and control the center of the chessboard. In order to control the center, moving your knight to edges is not accurate move. Same reason for edge pawns. For example, moving your knight on f3 permits to control d4 et e5 squares.

  Why shouldn't you use your queen early-on?

Moreover, moving a queen early-on can be dangerous because this piece must support other pieces at the beginning of the game. And queen is kind of protected if it is behind the other pieces and not attacked by your opponent pieces development.
However, several openings play queen early and work well (Scandinavian Defense for instance).


What are some games I can watch to become better in playing chess?

First, by far the most popular chess YouTuber is Agadmator. His channel does a nice job of going over famous games, and explaining them.

Other good videos are what are called "banter blitz". Banter blitz is when players, and you want to watch Masters, explain what they are thinking aloud as they are playing. You can then get a better idea of what we see, and what we are striving for. You can search "banter blitz" on YouTube. There are even many games by World Champion, Magnus Carlsen.

That actually gets into a deeper question, and that is if modern games are as easy to learn from, and I think the answer is "no". The problem is that in modern chess, everyone at the top level is so good, that even if one player is a weaker 2650 GM compared to the 2750 GM he is playing, both have a deep understanding of chess. They both counter each other's plans too effectively, that you cannot see a clear path from the beginning of a plan to the end of a plan.

That is one of the reasons that the older greats like Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine are great to study. They often played strong players, but still players that were in a different class, so you could see a clear plan from beginning to end, and the opponent put up resistance, but minimal resistance (I mean positionally, speaking). This also allowed these greats to annotate these games very clearly, showing you what they were trying to achieve, and exactly how they did it.


Should aspiring chess players analyze all of their games?

It all depends on the result of the game.

Every single game that you lost was because you made at least one mistake. If you don't correct your mistakes you will continue to lose to the same kind of mistakes. The only way you are going to stop making the same mistakes, same kind of mistakes is by analyzing your games, identifying what you are doing wrong and correcting it.

Analyzing the games you lost is the one constant of the life of a player who wants to improve.

Analyzing the games you won is nice for your ego but in general does little to make you a better player.

Analyzing the games you drew can be very useful for identifying the "one that got away". If you were winning, or thought you were winning, and the game ended in a draw then it is useful to find out where you went wrong. Either your judgement was wrong and it was always more or less even or you really were winning and you made a mistake that let him get away. This is often a problem in endgames.


What is meant by the term "challenging" a move?

Yes,challenge means to "just go b5 anyway" when considered tactically, but this misses the ideas.
Chess is a game of who has the better idea.  When deciding on a move will you further your own idea or challenge your opponents idea?
The game is a benoni structure where Black may try to expand rapidly on the queenside with great effect, ..a6, ..b5 etc.  gaining space while driving back White's pieces.
White's a4 counters this idea, trying to suppress queenside expansion with the idea of a further a5
Challenging a4 means "You cannot stop me, I will expand on the queenside anyway!"  this doesn't necessarily mean that ..b5 is the next move.
I didn't find Tal's sidelines very illuminating.  Try this amazing game which features a battle of whether Black can expand on the queenside, with a thrilling conclusion.
[Event "European Club Cup"]
[Site "Ohrid MKD"]
[Date "2009.10.08"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Maxim Rodshtein"]
[Black "Vugar Gashimov"]
[Result "0-1"]
[BlackElo "2740"]
[ECO "A62"]
[EventDate "2009.10.04"]
[WhiteElo "2623"]
[FEN ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.d5 d6 5.Nc3 exd5 6.cxd5 g6 7.g3 Bg7 8.Bg2 O-O
9.O-O Re8 10.Bf4 a6 11.a4 b6 12.Re1 Nh5 13.Bg5 Qc7 14.e4 Nd7 15.Rc1 h6
16.Bd2 Qb8 17.Bf1 Ra7 18.b3 Nf8 19.h3 Rae7 20.Qc2 g5 21.Kg2 Ng6 22.Bd3 Nf6      23.Rh1 Qb7 24.Rce1 Bd7 25.Bc1 b5 26.axb5 axb5 27.Bb2 c4 28.bxc4 bxc4 29.Bxc4 Bxh3+ 30.Kg1 Rc8 31.Ba2 Nxe4 32.Rxh3 Nxc3 33.Rxe7 Nxe7 34.Bxc3 Rxc3 35.Qe4 g4 36.Qxg4 Qa6 0-1


Simple programs for recording chess games -- Like ECTool -- for Ubuntu and Windows

It sounds to me like what you want is a chess database program. If so, the one I would recommend is Scid, which is totally free, and comes in Windows, Linux and Mac flavors.


Can Magnus Carlsen force draw (pun-intended) himself to victory?

It depends what you mean by "basically". He cannot actually force a draw in any given game (otherwise he would have started doing it already, as soon as he won one game). However he can play drawish lines; the variation he went into in game 8, for example, is almost never lost by White at top levels.

It's going to be difficult for Carlsen to "force" a draw if Anand plays something sharp like the Dutch or Pirc. His optimal strategy is still pretty much to just continue to play good chess.


How can I punish the "bad" knight on c3?

I'm wondering if anyone has any general tips for how to make white
feel this "bad knight"

The fact that you manage to put "bad" and "bad knight" in scare quotes shows that there is some hope for you. White does not have a bad position. I suspect that this line isn't played much at master level because it isn't the best way to squeeze every last scintilla of advantage out of white's starting advantage of having the first move.
But there is no universe in which you can look at white's position and seriously think that white has a bad position which black must punish. If you think like that as black then you are on the way to losing.
Four moves into the game and white has already -

Staked a claim to the center with a pawn on d4 (black matches this with a pawn on d5)
Developed a piece to a good central square, the knight on c3 (black is behind but it is black's turn so can remedy this on the next move)
Has free development for both bishops (black has free development for only one bishop)

White is not worse. Black is not better. Has black completely equalized? It doesn't look like it.
So, your best approach is to accept that white's first move advantage may have decreased slightly but your job remains the same during the opening - try and equalize via good development. How you develop your pieces will depend to a certain extent on how white develops. Pay attention to all the things you normally do during the opening and aim to reach an even middlegame where you can try and outplay your opponent.
At all costs avoid trying to punish your opponent. This will only lead to bad moves and an early loss.


Is the Spanish opening better than the Italian opening (for white)?

Let us start with the Italian game.

Although it was long long ago since I was playing this opening, there are good reasons why it is not played anymore. The main reason it is not popular anymore is the failure of the Moeller attack*:

[fen ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4 7.Nc3 Nxe4 8.O-O Bxc3 9.d5 Bf6 10.Re1 Ne7 11.Rxe4 d6 12.Bg5 Bxg5 13.Nxg5 h6 ( 13...O-O 14.Nxh7!= ) 14.Qe2 hxg5 15.Re1 Be6 16.dxe6 f6 17.Re3 c6

In the old days people played Moeller attack and in the beginning things were good for White-sacrifice a pawn and get strong initiative-but Black found a way to defend the attack-see the lines above-and the main line was destroyed. White tried with quiet d3 and to prepapre d4 like in the Spanish game ( Ruy Lopez ) but had no success.

People tried with Scotch gambit-mainly Max Lange Attack-but Black did not need much time to find antidote-that line failed White too so it was abandoned.

Same happened with Traxler attack and it was abandoned too.

Evans gambit had the same faith-I think Lasker was the one who proved that Black can at certain point return the pawn and obtain better chances due to better pawn structure.

Nowadays, people seek various ways to improve these old lines but nothing tangible was found-either Black can sidestep the improvements or they give equal play.

Now the good stuff-Ruy Lopez! After the moves:

[fen ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5

we reach the tabia. We notice that there is no symmetry like in the Italian game. Also, an important thing with Ruy Lopez is that White exerts MAXIMUM possible pressure on the center-that is the reason why it is better than Italian game, where center control is divided equally.

Because Black is under pressure he needs to make concessions, usually via a6 and then b5 to chase away the bishop-which leaves him with weak c pawn. Because of advantage in the center and healthier pawn structure White has a long initiative and Black needs to play carefully to free himself. This usually manifests in White having a king side attack, or slight but long lasting positional pressure.

Furthermore, in Spanish game, White can create center formation he likes thanks to his flexible d4+e4 pawn phalanx, something he can not do in the Italian game. This means that White can play with fixed center ( pawn e4 vs e5 ) , semi open center ( pawn e4 vs d6 ) or closed one ( e4+d5 pawns vs d6+e5 ) and that gives him opportunity to try various transpositional tricks to outsmart Black-something that Italian game can not give you since the center is fixed and symmetric.

To summarize:

Ruy Lopez gives you a slight advantage in center, slight initiative, great flexibility in steering the game, healthier pawn structure and great transpositional resources to outsmart your opponent.

If you wish to improve as a player you should play this opening for a while, so you can learn how to play with different center formations and it is good for practicing how to "cash in" the king side attack.

  Futhermore, in the Spanish does black have sharper continuations that he can throw against white?

Yes he does-the variation you seek is Marshall attack. It is very dangerous and being based on positional grounds i doubt a refutation of this gambit can be found-I think the current theoretical standing is unclear. Be warned, you must know theory very well to play against this line.

If you have further questions leave a comment and I will respond.

Sorry for incoherent answer, I wrote thoughts as they came to me. I could write a small book on this topic-there is so much to say about this-so if you need further information feel free to ask.

EDITED ON OPs REQUEST:

  I am trying to understand if it is a lot better or only slightly better.

It is way better than Italian game.

Black defends statically in Ruy Lopez, there are no counter-attacks ( except Marshall attack of course ) so he needs to suffer a little in order to get counter-play.

Since you have ideal center-d4+e4 pawn formation-you have slight space advantage. You also decide what type of game shall be played-open or closed-depending on your decision to close or open the center.

You get king-side attack and Black needs to defend himself-his counter-play on the queen-side is not sufficient. Be warned-Ruy Lopez is highly complicated to play for both sides but that is the reason people play it with both colors-because both sides must play accurate.

The reason I would not recommend it for Black is because Black lacks active counter-play so he needs to defend for a long time, before he generates chances and that is just too much for me.

Generally speaking, White has easier play in the Ruy Lopez, he "calls all the shots" most of the time and Black needs to repel White's threats first, and only then try to generate counter-play.

This is one of the main reasons why Black often answers to 1.e4 with Sicilian or French defense.

This was my opinion, supported by my current knowledge and experience in the Ruy Lopez and Italian game.

I must say that I have stopped playing 1.e4 long ago and that many things might have changed today but to test my claims it would be best to obtain good repertoire books on Ruy Lopez ( although I strongly believe that conclusions from those book will mainly support my conclusions ).

Hopefully this answer sheds some light.

Best regards.


If you play more aggressively and choose sharper lines, your draw rate will go down - though not necessarily the way you want it to.

Generally gambit lines are sharp, whether you are giving or taking the pawn. So you could play the King's Gambit instead of the Ruy Lopez.

Another possibility is to play the Italian Game and choose the Evans Gambit against 3…Bc5 and 4.Ng5 against 3.Nf6.

But although the Ruy Lopez is a rather strategic opening, a high draw rate in your games is more likely connected to your style of play. If you keep the tension, i.e. not going for exchanges, and try to build a strong kingside attack, you should get a lot of decisive games even in the Ruy.


Are there any illegal positions that are difficult to spot?

Yes - the less a position looks like a real chess game, the harder it is to spot if it is illegal or not. Sometimes, retrograde analysis is needed to prove a position can be reached in a legal way. For an example, see the starting position of the Horse Concoction by Harry Goldsteen, which can be proven to be legal.
[FEN "8/7P/1P5B/2B1Q1n1/3nn2P/1PRnk1nR/3nnnK1/2B1nQBn w - - 0 1"]

However, as White's pawns have to have captured at least five black pieces, the same position with an additional black piece is illegal:
[FEN "8/1b5P/1P5B/2B1Q1n1/3nn2P/1PRnk1nR/3nnnK1/2B1nQBn w - - 0 1"]


It's certainly not just you. While you describe a particular blind spot involving your queen, the more general phenomenon of throwing away sizable advantages is a very common one in chess, and it can be tough to kick. Here's a well-known saying that seems to be due to longtime U.S. champion Frank Marshall (and I'm paraphrasing):

  The hardest thing in chess is to win a won game.

I've read folks like Vladimir Kramnik echo this very point as well (as have thousands of others, I'm sure). So this kind of thing is something that affects the very best out there, not just you. There can be many reasons behind this kind of difficulty (e.g. stubborn, defiant resistance from the player on the losing end), but the primary factor that the winning player can remedy himself is simply to avoid "relaxing" too soon. After all, as your experiences show, even a huge material advantage can disappear if you let your guard down even a little bit and blunder away a queen.

Something I noticed long ago in my own games is that if I allow myself during the game even just to briefly imagine a future in which I've already won (e.g. hypothetical thoughts of who I'll be playing in the next round of a tournament once I've won), then things often become much harder the rest of the way, even if I immediately catch myself after the fact and refocus on the game. Is that real, or all in my head? It doesn't matter, because if it's in my head that's enough to affect my chess play.

Refusal to consider any game won until it's actually over, coupled with constant tactical vigilance, will go a long way to avoiding the pitfall you've described. Exactly how to arrange for that in your own head will vary from person to person, of course, but that general approach is important. Basically, what I'm saying here goes hand in hand with the nice point Wes makes in his answer (slow down, take a breather before moving); take every move in the game just as seriously as any other, whether it's the first move of the game, or you're up three pieces, because the cruel truth of chess is that an entire game's worth of brilliant moves can be ruined with a single bad one.


Which chess players are/were best at the endgame? Can you refer me to their exemplary games?

Here are a few candidates for great endgame players, where I give a feeling of their playing style and recommended sources:

Capablanca

Capablanca is considered to be a balanced player, but one who excelled particularly in the endgame.

  The game might be divided into three parts, the opening, the middle-game and the end-game. There is one thing you must strive for, to be equally efficient in the three parts.

Recommended sources:

Capablanca's Best Chess Endings: 60 Complete Games by Irving Chernov
Capablanca: Move by Move by Cyrus Lakdawala

Smyslov

Smyslov is best known for the simplicity of his play. He adopted an intuitive approach to most moves.

  [By studying 'simple' endgames,] I was able to gain a deep feeling for what each piece was capable of, to sense their peculiarities, their strength and impotence in various different situations on the board, the limits of their capabilities, what they 'like' and what they 'don't like' and how they behave.

Recommended sources:

Vasily Smyslov: Endgame Virtuoso by Vasily Smyslov
The Legend: Vasily Smyslov - GM Ben Finegold on YouTube

Karpov

Karpov is best known for reducing the options his opponent had, even in the endgame. Zugzwang and prophylaxis was his forte.

  I still remember Botvinnik's reaction to each of my games, right from the opening moves. At first he would express amazement, then annoyance, and, finally irritation.

Recommended sources:

Karpov: Move by Move by Sam Collins
Karpov's Endgame Mastery for Beginners on YouTube


A position with a choice between checkmate and perpetual check

Here is one game which should match your request (Swiderski, Rudolf vs. Nimzowitsch, Aaron):
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.c4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Nbd7 5.e3 c6 6.Nf3 Be7 7.Qc2 O-O 8.Rd1 Re8 9.Bd3 dxc4 10.Bxc4 Nd5 11.Bxe7 Qxe7 12.O-O b5 13.Bxd5 cxd5 14.Nxb5 Ba6 15. Qa4 Bxb5 16.Qxb5 Reb8 17.Qe2 a5 18.Rc1 Qd8 19.Rc3 a4 20.Rfc1 Qa5 21.Rc7 Nb6 22.R1c5 Qb4 23.a3 Qb3 24.Ng5 Qa2 25.h3 Rf8 26.Kh2 h6 27.Nxe6 Rfc8 28. Qf3 Rf8 29.Qg3 g6 30.Qxg6+ fxg6 31.Rg7+ Kh8 32.Rcc7

In the ending position white has a forced mate, e.g.:
[FEN "r4r1k/2R3R1/1n2N1pp/3p4/p2P4/P3P2P/qP3PPK/8 b - - 3 1"]

1... Nd7 2. Rcxd7 Rf7 3. Rdxf7 Qxb2 4. Rh7+ Kg8 5. Rfg7#

Alternatively, he can force a draw, e.g:
[FEN "r4r1k/2R3R1/1n2N1pp/3p4/p2P4/P3P2P/qP3PPK/8 b - - 3 1"]

1... Nd7 2. Rcxd7 Rf7 3. Rdxf7 Qxb2 4. Rh7+ Kg8 5. Rhg7 Kh8 6. Rh7+ Kg8 7. Rhg7 Kh8

Probably any game ending in a Blind Swine Mate would work.


If you are reading the code to become a better player, you won't have much luck. The tricks used are only useful when you have the memory and computational power of a machine.

If instead you are reading it to learn about chess programming, the following wiki is a great resource https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com


Where the knights go depends on your pawn structure.

One option is to do the following, at some point

e7-e6
Nb8-d7
Ng8-e7
c6-c5
Ne7-c6

You get a French defence pawn structure with corresponding ideas.

You could go for the same pawn structure with a different knight setup.

e7-e6
c6-c5
Nb8-c6
Ng8-e7
Ne7-f5

Putting pressure on the d4 square.


Arbiter ignored cheating, and I signed the scoresheet. Did I lose my right to object?

According to the 2017 version of the Laws of Chess, rule 11.10 says:

  Unless the regulations of an event specify otherwise, a player may
  appeal against any decision of the arbiter, even if the player has
  signed the scoresheet (see Article 8.7).


How much time should be spent playing versus studying?

I think you are already on the right track.  Obviously the more you play the more you learn, so even though you may think you are not learning when playing, you are in fact learning something new with every game.  Finding the right balance is subjective, but what I would do is I would learn small things and try to apply them in as many games as possible, basically lather-rinse-repeat.  For example, if you study checkmating pattern(s), you can try to apply some of the patterns you learned to some games.  I would not try to study too much and then apply everything you learned.  In a nutshell, learn a little bit, try to understand it, if you have trouble, just ask here for more clarification and play some games and try to apply what you have learned.  I did this with the Scotch Game, basically applying what I had studied over and over again until I basically became one with the Scotch and comfortable with it.  I was later able to come back and answer a question on here pertaining to the Scotch due to playing, learning, and understanding the opening that I would not have been able to answer before.


Evaluation of this alternative to French exchange lines

This gambit looks extremely dubious since you give a central pawn, White has played only developing moves and she has no weakness.

Besides the unassuming 4.Nf3, insisting on an exchange French, you could be worried about:

4.Nc3, transposing into the rare Marshall French (3.Nc3 c5?! 4.ed5). It is considered to favour White. The very slight plus side for you is that since White has played 3.ed5, he might not be too familiar with this line.
4.c4, when after 4...ed5 the very open position means that the extra tempo will probably be valuable.
4.de6, grabing the pawn in exchange for a single developing tempo. After 4...Be6 5.Nf3 there is no doubt that Black's compensation is unsufficient.
4.Bb5+, probably the most critical, accepting the challenge. After 4...Bd7, any of 5.Nc3, 5.a4 a6?! 6.Bc4 and 5.Qe2 make sense.

All in all, you can use this line in online blitz in you like to (but I wouldn't). However I consider it totally unsuitable for 'serious' chess with rapid or classical time controls.


Blindfold game records of chess and xiangqi

It could be as simple as the relative popularity of playing blindfolded. In chess playing blindfolded goes very far back. There are reports of islamic scholars playing blindfolded chess of three games simultaneously more than a thousand years ago. In modern times blindfold exhibitions have been a staple of chess events. As records tend to be improved in small steps, maybe xiangqi just didn't have enough events of this type yet, to get to a similar number of games.


Not knowing what moves to make and feeling lost all the time

What you describe is a lack of strategic intuition. Fortunately that can be learnt. All of the following quotes come from Studying chess made easy by GM Soltis.

You need to learn how to spot strategic patterns

  "I only see things quickly if I have seen the position before," GM Yasser Seirawan once said in explaining how he found strong moves so easily.

According to this, developing strategic intuition rests on pattern recognition. When learning tactics, you had:

Theory: e.g. the abstract idea of a pin
Practice: e.g. solving tactics puzzles

This brings me onto...

Learning patterns is about theory and practice

The same thing that was said about tactics can be said for strategic patterns. For example, one pattern might be the exchange sacrifice. It has theory, you can find puzzles, and you can apply it to your games.

Remember that:

  Theory + Practice = Success

Learning patterns is often subliminal

This begs the question, how do I learn these patterns? Well, this is a life-long process.

  Some researchers concluded that the typical grandmaster knows 10,000 patterns (!). Don't worry.

  You can become a pretty good player, perhaps even a master, with a much smaller number of positions in your mental 'pattern bank'.

GM Soltis suggests analysing master games, and gave this specific advice:

  Take note of each middlegame move that is awarded an exclamation point. Try to figure out why it's a good move. If you think you understand why, try explaining it in your own words, as if you were teaching a fellow student.


The Caro-Kann: Move by Move is a good resource for the Caro-Kann. The repertoire covered has winning chances but is very solid. (Just make sure your rating is at least 1500; below that, learning opening is not ideal.)


If there is a winning strategy, is it for White?

If there is such a proof, no one has found it, and I doubt very much that such a proof exists (it is hard to imagine a mathematically provable "guaranteed-draw" strategy as White). One would certainly expect White to have an advantage if anybody did, but there are some downsides to going first as well (you have to disclose information before your opponent), so it is theoretically possible that the downsides outweigh the upsides. That said, the probability of that being the case seems to be infinitesimal.


Is analysing moves on separate board in correspondence chess ethical?

Your question is a bit paradox: analyzing is the whole point of correspondence chess (and since strong engines exist, it is sort of a zombie). It is very unfortunate (and not your fault) that Lichess called it that way in the first place: e.g. ICCF explicitely allows engines. Better would be calling it "very long time chess". Consequently, you may analyze per hand. Of course, you again must distinguish from, how shall I call it, postal chess - a friendly game between strangers just for the sake that it's possible (today much faster and easier, of course), and you tacitly agree not to analyze.


Why grandmasters play giuoco pianissimo less often than the ruy lopez?

In italian game black put his bishop easily to c5 while not making too many concessions. In Ruy-Lopez prospects of that piece are usually worse. Berlin is not the main choice for black in the first place and it isn't horrible to play with white either. Many black players just stop thinking about Berlin the first time they see Re1 line. No fun at all. Endgame, while interesting, also not to everyone's taste. And white can settle for d3 systems. Black positions seem perfect by machine eyes, but still people prefer a6. The more people play a6, the less you worry about Berlin. And you can still make your opponent suffer in Berlin.


Looking for a simple GUI for variants of chess

The chessboard editor at https://www.apronus.com/chess/pgnviewer/ has two modes selected by radio buttons: "position setup" and "legal moves only". In position setup you can do anything on the board including adding or removing chessmen.


What is the technique to win and endgame R vs B + B?

As a complement to previous answers, notice that although this endgame should be a theoretical win for the bishops, it is not as straightforward a technical task as one might think.

Even at the highest level, in a World Championship Match, Black has been able to save his skin. The stakes were very high, since this rapid game was played during the tiebreak when the players were still tied.

 [FEN ""]
 [Event "Carlsen - Karjakin World Championship Match"]
 [Site "New York, NY USA"]
 [Date "2016.11.30"]
 [EventDate "2016.11.11"]
 [Round "13.2"]
 [Result "1/2-1/2"]
 [White "Magnus Carlsen"]
 [Black "Sergey Karjakin"]
 [ECO "C50"]
 [WhiteElo "?"]
 [BlackElo "?"]
 [PlyCount "167"]

 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.O-O Nf6 5.d3 O-O 6.a4 a6 7.c3 d6
 8.Re1 Ba7 9.h3 Ne7 10.d4 Ng6 11.Nbd2 c6 12.Bf1 a5 13.dxe5 dxe5
 14.Qc2 Be6 15.Nc4 Qc7 16.b4 axb4 17.cxb4 b5 18.Ne3 bxa4
 19.Rxa4 Bxe3 20.Bxe3 Rxa4 21.Qxa4 Nxe4 22.Rc1 Bd5 23.b5 cxb5
 24.Qxe4 Qxc1 25.Qxd5 Qc7 26.Qxb5 Rb8 27.Qd5 Rd8 28.Qb3 Rb8
 29.Qa2 h6 30.Qd5 Qe7 31.Qe4 Qf6 32.g3 Rc8 33.Bd3 Qc6 34.Qf5
 Re8 35.Be4 Qe6 36.Qh5 Ne7 37.Qxe5 Qxe5 38.Nxe5 Ng6 39.Bxg6
 Rxe5 40.Bd3 f6 41.Kg2 Kh8 42.Kf3 Rd5 43.Bg6 Ra5 44.Ke4 Rb5
 45.h4 Re5+ 46.Kd4 Ra5 47.Kc4 Re5 48.Bd4 Ra5 49.Bc5 Kg8 50.Kd5
 Rb5 51.Kd6 Ra5 52.Be3 Re5 53.Bf4 Ra5 54.Bd3 Ra7 55.Ke6 Rb7
 56.Kf5 Rd7 57.Bc2 Rb7 58.Kg6 Rb2 59.Bf5 Rxf2 60.Be6+ Kh8
 61.Bd6 Re2 62.Bg4 Re8 63.Bf5 Kg8 64.Bc2 Re3 65.Bb1 Kh8 66.Kf7
 Rb3 67.Be4 Re3 68.Bf5 Rc3 69.g4 Rc6 70.Bf8 Rc7+ 71.Kg6 Kg8
 72.Bb4 Rb7 73.Bd6 Kh8 74.Bf8 Kg8 75.Ba3 Kh8 76.Be6 Rb6 77.Kf7
 Rb7+ 78.Be7 h5 79.gxh5 f5 80.Bxf5 Rxe7+ 81.Kxe7 Kg8 82.Bd3 Kh8
 83.Kf8 g5 84.hxg6 1/2-1/2

White pieces were played by a grandmaster who is considered as one of the very best endgame players in History.


Do Chess Engines hold their Search Tree in Memory?

A traditional engine does not hold its entire tree in memory. E.g. Stockfish on a 6 core machine can search maybe ten million positions per second. Even if you could store a tree node in just 8 Bytes, that would take 80 MB per second searched. So an hour long search would need hundreds of gigabytes. Instead one uses so called transposition table where the evaluations for certain positions can be stored. Then if a research at a higher depth hits that position again one may already have a sufficiently deep evaluation.
Obviously the same problem applies, a transposition table won't be big enough to store all positions. Because of that, a new transposition table entry may overwrite an existing entry if no memory is free anymore. That loses the old information, however that is not avoidable one way or another.
Note that an engine like Leela has a much lower node per second speed. Because of that for it storing the entire tree is possible (and in fact necessary for the PUCT based search that it uses). Even then you can still eventually run out of memory, one way to combat that in practice is the use of a swap file to store a tree larger than your memory. But if that file fills up to then you can't search further.
As for move generation, for engines that don't store the tree, like Stockfish, one indeed has to re-do the move generation at each point. However that's not much of a problem as a good move generator is very fast so it won't take a lot of time.


Why don't we play different openings in chess?

There are thematic tournaments.  For example, I recall a GM tournament where they had to play an open Sicilian.


Black's queen is the only defender for the mate on f7 (the knight on e5 is pinned). This makes Bxg5 a very attractive move, as the black queen has nowhere to go (the only safe spot, Qf8, is met with Qxd8 and mate).

[FEN "3rk2r/p1Q5/3p1qn1/4npp1/7p/1B6/PP1B1PPP/R3R1K1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Bxg5!

Black can chase the white queen for a couple of moves but his position will collapse very soon.


I refused to sign the scoresheet but the arbiter signed with my initials. What should I do?

If the arbiter really signed with your signature, instead of his, then he just committed a crime (forgery of documents). He could have signed with his signature as proof that he confirmed the result of the game and everything on the scoresheet.
If the arbiter really forged your signature, then as a first step you should lodge a complaint against the arbiter with the tournament organizer. Next, if necessary, do the same with the federation that organizes the tournament. Depending on how serious the matters are, the police may be involved, but most likely you can solve it peacefully.
Obviously in parallel, you still put your initial claim about the game on appeals committee desk.


The best practice would be to thoroughly analyze the game and also your thought process before, during and after the game. Besides, if after sincere hard efforts you still lose, it's important to have an attitude like this -

  “I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work” - Thomas
  Edison

In chess, that would mean -

  I haven't failed, I have discovered that this
  strategy/opening/tactic/etc. doesn't work.

In my personal experience, you often learn more from the games you lose than from the games you win. So use that to your advantage. Analyze the game thoroughly (of course with the help of an engine) and see where you went wrong. Also, identify faulty patterns of thinking during the game. For example -

  "this position was objectively equal, but during the game I thought I
  was worse and so I got demotivated and played badly".

Gary Kasparov suggested the following after winning (but I suppose it applies all the more after losing) -

  "Even the game we won always contained mistakes; inaccuracies. It's
  inevitable. I can hardly find one brilliant game with no mistakes."

  "If we won, it is most likely because our opponent made the last
  mistake. But, he made the last mistake and he is definitely analyzing
  the game; he'll find what we did wrong in the previous stage of the
  game. So what is important is to find it first."

I found some other interesting quotes on this page. Some of the more interesting quotes are -

  Losing can persuade you to change what doesn't need to be changed, and
  winning can convince you everything is fine even if you are on the
  brink of disaster.  -  Garry Kasparov

  Don't be afraid of losing, be afraid of playing a game and not
  learning something. - Dan Heisman

  I prefer to lose a really good game than to win a bad one.  -  David
  Levy

  Setbacks and losses are both inevitable and essential if you're going
  to improve and become a good, even great, competitor. The art is in
  avoiding catastrophic losses in the key battles.  -  Garry Kasparov

  You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win.
  You will have to lose hundreds of games before becoming a good player.
  -  Jose Capablanca

  Most players ... do not like losing, and consider defeat as something
  shameful. This is a wrong attitude. Those who wish to perfect
  themselves must regard their losses as lessons and learn from them
  what sorts of things to avoid in the future.  -  Jose Capablanca


Why 1. Nd2?

Silman is suggesting to improve the worst placed piece with Nd2-b3-c5. This makes sense because:

White will have a good knight vs. bad bishop
The position is closed so White has the time to improve the worst piece

Why not 1. f4?

Black's ...f4 and ...Bf5 plan isn't that strong, because:

When black's bishop gets to f5, it doesn't threaten anything
White doesn't have to open files with gxf4. White should continue with the Nd2-b3-c5 plan as before

Having said this, 1. f4 isn't a bad move, i.e. it deprives the bishop of another target.


There are no FIDE laws governing these items for very obvious reasons.

FIDE does not legislate the size of the board, the squares or the pieces for ordinary play, nor the colour of the board nor the pieces. Since the pernickety days of Bobby Fischer these kind of things can be legislated for in something like the World Championship according to the demands of the players but it is unusual.

If you don't legislate for the size of the board, squares and pieces then it is nonsensical to start legislating for how pieces must be positioned within their squares. Obviously if you happen to be playing with kings whose diameter matches the width of a square then the king is going to be touching at least 2 sides of the square.

The FIDE laws of chess do give the following relevant guidance in the Preface:

  The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise
  during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions.
  Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it
  should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous
  situations which are discussed in the Laws. The Laws assume that
  arbiters have the necessary competence, sound judgement and absolute
  objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his
  freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding a solution to a
  problem dictated by fairness, logic and special factors. FIDE appeals
  to all chess players and federations to accept this view.

The one line summary of that is not too hard to understand -

"Use your common sense!"

On your turn you are allowed to say "j'adoube" and adjust as many of the pieces as you like as may your opponent when it is his turn. However if you continue to do this repeatedly you may find that the arbiter comes and first warns you for disturbing other players and then starts penalizing you.

EDIT: For a real world example of pieces touching and crossing edges check out this Youtube video of a game between IM Basman and GM Fodor played in a FIDE rated rapid competition in August 2016 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYTy7xAT6uU .

The game starts just after the 3 minute mark on the video so start watching from about 2:45. Note the black c pawn which is 2/3 on c7 and 1/3 on c6. This doesn't disturb white who makes his first move without adjusting black's wayward pawn. It does mildly disturb black, though, who adjusts the pawn without saying j'adoube. His first move is b5 and the c pawn is adjusted en passant, as it were, with a backward nudge from his middle finger. Adjusting like this makes it clear that there is no intention to move the piece.

Now scroll forward to about 34:50 when white plays exd7. Note the white pawn on d7 is fractionally over the line into d8. Black plays Qxd7 and again the black queen is partially in d8. Both white and black players are unconcerned. Black plays Qb7 and again the queen is over the line and just edging into a7.

Scroll forward to the 40 minute mark and watch white play BxRc8. Note the bishop is just fractionally over the edge of the board. The black queen is still 90% in b7 and 10% in a7.

Both players, internationals in their own right, have no problems with this.

Note that the Youtube channel belongs to Adam Raoof who runs these monthly FIDE rapid tournaments. He is a FIDE international arbiter who has officiated at World Candidate match level and is a qualified FIDE international organizer who makes a living running and organizing FIDE rated chess competitions.


An artificial move is one that does not fit in with what would be typical of the plan. It means "unnatural" given the position.

In the game above, Bg4 is unusual, and only played 5.5% of the time in that position. Typically, 10...cxd4 is played there in an overwhelming majority of games, and the Bc8 often ends up on the d7 square as more suitable.


Here's a sample PGN header (player names are skipped to protect the innocent):

[WhiteElo "2027"]
[BlackElo "2370"]
[BlackIsComp "Yes"]
[TimeControl "180+0"]
[Date "1999.12.31"]
[Time "23:02:00"]
[WhiteClock "0:03:00.000"]
[BlackClock "0:03:00.000"]
[ECO "D00"]
[PlyCount "100"]
[Result "0-1"]

There's no consensus, which fields are supposed to be included, but as a safe bet, I'd recommend to look for "WhiteClock/BlackClock" as well as for "TimeControl" -- at least one of them is usually present, if not both at the same time.

"TimeControl" is basically easier to parse, but since it might be not included, you might want to process White/BlackClock as well, just to be safe.


You appear to be referring ("series of hits") to an instructional concept in chess tactics called Counting.

NM Dan Heisman's famous Novice Nook articles includes a multi-part series dedicated to Counting which you can read (preferably in order) at:

Counting Primer: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman15.pdf
The Most Important Tactic: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman35.pdf
Is it Safe: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman65.pdf
Two types of Counting Problems: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman75.pdf
The Safety Table: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman92.pdf

Article #2 (Most Important Tactic) even contains positions similar to what you posted above.

When do you stop counting? If you were to expand on counting and instead ask "when do you stop calculating forcing lines?" I'd refer you to another one of Dan's articles regarding Quiescence Errors.


Difference between a grandmaster and an international master?

What are the criteria that differentiate a chess grandmaster from a
chess international master?

The current FIDE rules regarding the awarding of international titles are described in FIDE Title Regulations effective from 1 July 2017. Basically there are two ways to achieve a title - via norms or directly via achieving a given result in a world or continental championship or in an Olympiad.
The level of achievement required to be awarded a direct title are described in Table for Direct Titles effective from 1 July 2017.
For instance the GM title is awarded to the top 16 players in the World Cup, the winner of the Women's World Championship, the outright winner of the World S65, S50 and U20 Championships, the outright winner of Continental Championships and the Continental S65, S50 and U20 Championships.
The IM title is awarded to the losing finalist in the Women's World Championship, the silver and bronze winners in the World S65, S50 and U20 Championships, the winners of the World U18 and U16 Championships, the silver and bronze winners in the Continental Championships, the winners of the Continental S65, S50 and U20 Championships, the winners of the Continental U18 Championships.
Qualification via norms requires 3 (or 2 for very long tournaments) "norm" level performances in high level tournaments combined with reaching a certain rating. These rules are complicated and you should refer to sections 1.4 and 1.5 of the document on the the FIDE website.


How can one claim 50 move rule draw under time pressure?

According to clause 8.5a of the FIDE Laws of Chess (the URL keeps changing so I won't link to it, but you can search), if a player has under five minutes left and the increment is less than 30 seconds per move (or nonexistent), an arbiter or assistant should keep score if possible. This is one reason that a 30-second increment is used these days; both players are required to keep score for the whole game so this situation never comes up.

If the game is played by USCF rules, then according to rule 14F4, if a player has under than five minutes left, he can ask the tournament director to keep track of the number of moves in order to verify a claim that the player makes. (The player is still responsible for making the claim.)


Very fast chess games-tournaments between engines

At those timescales, communication between computers becomes a problem. For instance, it takes more than a millisecond (10-3 s) for me to ping my router. Even if you install a sort of timekeeper program on the computer itself, CPU clocks aren't reliable on such small timescales.

Instead, it might be more interesting to run them on slower hardware.


Scid vs PC: how to visualize engine line on the board?

You need to bring up the separate "Analysis board" by clicking on the icon in the strip


How to save black's position in this Game?

What could be possible plans for black after 6th move to get
  advantage?

None. 1...gxh5 is a huge mistake, after which Black is definitely losing.

   [Date "2014.07.05"]
   [White "ahesham"]
   [Black "myking64"]
   [WhiteElo "1455"]
   [BlackElo "1398"]
   [FEN "r1q2r2/1pp2pk1/p1n1bNp1/2b1P1Pp/4PQ1P/8/PPP1BP2/2KR3R w - - 0 1"]

   1. Bxh5 gxh5 2. Nxh5+ Kg6 3. Ng3 Be7 4. h5+ Kg7 5. Nf5+ Bxf5 6. exf5 Rd8 (6...
   Rg8 7. f6+ Kh8 8. fxe7 Qe6 9. g6 Rg7 10. Qf6 Qxe7 11. h6 Qxf6 12. hxg7+ Kxg7
   13. exf6+ Kxg6 14. Rh3) 7. f6+ Kg8 8. g6 Qe6 9. Qh6 Bxf6 10. exf6 Qxf6 11.
   Rxd8+ Rxd8 12. Rg1 Nd4 13. Qh7+ Kf8 14. g7+ Ke7 15. Qe4+ Ne6 16. Qb4+ Kd7 17.
   g8=Q Rxg8 18. Rxg8 Qxf2 19. Qd2+ Qxd2+ 20. Kxd2

  Without capturing bishop at 1st move how can i proceed as black ?

1...Bd4 is an excellent move, immediately threatening the pawn on e5. The positions that arise after 1...Bd4 are extremely complex. I have attempted to analyze a few with the help of the Houdini 1.5 and Stockfish 4.2 engines. Black is able to hold the position after 1...Bd4 and make a draw.

 [Date "2014.07.05"]
 [White "ahesham"]
 [Black "myking64"]
 [WhiteElo "1455"]
 [BlackElo "1398"]
 [FEN "r1q2r2/1pp2pk1/p1n1bNp1/2b1P1Pp/4PQ1P/8/PPP1BP2/2KR3R w - - 0 1"]

 1. Bxh5 Bd4! 2. Be2 (2. Rxd4 Nxd4 3. Bd1 Rh8 4. c3 Nc6 5. h5 Qd8 6. h6+ Kf8 7.
 Bc2 Qe7 8. h7 Rd8 9. Qh4 Qc5 10. Qh6+ Ke7 11. Qg7 Qxe5 12. Ng8+ (12. Kb1 Rxh7
 13. Qxh7 Qxg5 14. Nd5+ Bxd5 15. exd5 Rxd5) 12... Ke8 13. Nf6+ Ke7 14. Ng8+ Ke8
 15. Nf6+ Ke7) 2... Bxe5 3. Qe3 Qb8!! 4. f4 Qa7 5. Qg3 Bd4 6. Kb1 Qb6 7. c3 Bf2 8.
 Qg2 Rfd8 9. h5 Qe3 10. Bf3 Ne7 11. hxg6 Nxg6 12. Rh7+ Kf8 13. f5 Rxd1+ 14. Bxd1
 Bc4 15. Qh1 Rd8 16. fxg6 Bg1 17. g7+ Ke7 18. g8=N+ Kd6 19. b4 Bd3+ 20. Bc2
 Bxc2+ 21. Kxc2 Qe2+ 22. Kb3 Qd1+ 23. Kb2 Qd2+ 24. Kb1 Qd1+ 25. Kb2 Qd2+


Chess coaching and coaches training different players

Well first lets start with the most simple answer... Chess is not such a simple sport that if taught to multiple people will result in the same thing. Even if what you learned was exactly the same.

If you are interested in getting into more detail then please read on :)

Chess coaching in a sense is just you sharing what you know... That's all there is to it, you tell your students how to think as chess players but that does not necessarily mean they WILL think like that.

Chess coaches simply hone, and help their students master their skills, they give them the knowledge needed (and of course more) but that doesn't mean it will always result in the same thing.

If I were to give a real life example, this would be the most simple and true to chess.

You can have a machine that takes metal as a material and it constructs a bike, however if you go to another machine and give it the exact same material that doesn't mean it will also produce a bike, it might give you a car! Who knows...

-----------------------------------------

^ That was the answer, here is some extra stuff if you are interested in more.

Over time in the history of chess, many players like Mikhail Tal, Boby Fischer, Alekhine and so on... All of them had their own unique play style that is remembered until today. However no one can deny the fact that ALL of them had a lot of shared knowledge, they knew the same things yet even so, they played differently.

Chess is simply a beautiful war on a small 64 square battlefield... Even if you both know the same things and same tactics, you still have your own unique plans.

And now I am done :P Sorry for the long post, but hopefully I helped.


How can I analyze and annotate multiple (500) games with stockfish?

If you are using Android, Analyze This (Free) is the way to go, just use the 'Auto Analysis' feature.
If you are using windows, Arena Chess is the way to go (you need to install Stockfish, and load the games in a single PGN, and turn on Auto Analysis ...)

Hope this helped, ~CSS


Could you show me some very easy mate in 20?

There are many:

     [Title "Mate in 20"]
 [FEN "3K1B2/1p6/pp6/rk2N3/b1p5/1pP5/1P2P3/8 w - - 0 1"]

You should search puzzles from the 1900. It was a golden era for chess puzzles. I found a mate in 63 some days ago.

Chessmaster also has a nice collection of interesting(and long) puzzles. There are many sites where you can sort puzzles according to difficulty and turns to mate, but I can't remember any atm.


Stockfish has been ported to Javascript:

https://github.com/exoticorn/stockfish-js


How do I determine the bye player in a given round of a round-robin tournament?

It means that in the pairings given in the tables, if there are an odd number of players (so not an 8-person round-robin for instance), the player playing against the highest number receives a bye.

For instance, for 5 players (use the 5-6 player table):

Round 1: #1 gets a bye
Round 2: #4 gets a bye
Round 3: #2 gets a bye
Round 4: #5 gets a bye
Round 5: #3 gets a bye


Consistently playing moves below my potential

I don't know that I have any good answers for your question, but I wanted to commiserate with you.  One can learn a new opening variation or master an unfamiliar endgame, but such improvement is only incremental as this new knowledge gets applied only once in a while.

What you are asking for is to improve something that is central to defining your playing strength.  If we could all have perfect tactical vision, we would be as strong as computer engines.

I'm also relatively weak in this area, but recently I was able to go from uscf 2200 to 2300+.  One thing I tried to do was consider additional candidate moves in my thought process to better avoid tactical blunders, but I didn't find that helped much.

What did help though a bit was me focusing on bringing harmony to my pieces and position with every move.  What I mean by this is that I made it a priority to make sure that my pieces protected each other instead of being potentially hanging on a limb unprotected.  As GM John Nunn has said, loose pieces drop off.  If you have harmony in your position among your pieces, then there are many fewer opportunities to blunder material because even if you miss something the tactics will tend to work out in your favor more often.


I have a sequence of four gambits. Starting with Bird's Opening: 1. f4:

1... e5 offers the From's Gambit
2. e4 offers the King's Gambit
2... d5 offers the Falkbeer Counter-gambit
3. d4 offers the Hinrichsen Gambit

And Black declines the last gambit with 3... Nf6.
[FEN ""]

1. f4 e5 2. e4 d5 3. d4 Nf6