1.I am a chess enthusiast. I am unaware of my rating (FIDE/USCF). I play at about 1700 on FreeChess.org.

Enthusiasm and strong discipline are the only thing required-forget FIDE ELO.

  2.I have three years at hand to play my first serious tournament. In other words, I can refrain from playing online/real tournament for three years.

Online play can be very useful-do not discard it. Use it to quickly test new things you learn. Blitz games can help you a lot in this if you find an opponent of equal strength.

  3.I have 30 minutes every day.

Half an hour a day is way too little, but if you seek to increase your strength to a noticeable level, I think that this can be done. You will need iron discipline and good resources-they must be short, crystal clear examples.

  4.I have access to a Linux computer.

Good. Internet + decent chess engine can help a lot.

  5.I am interested in knowing your thoughts on how I can best utilize the 450 hours (half an hour each day for 300 days a year in 3 years) over the next three years to prepare myself well for chess.

Keep reading, I will explain everything in great detail-so pay attention!

  6.My biggest concern is wasting the (scarce) time I have got in playing mindless games on the Internet. I have realized that the time can be used more productively while getting better at chess.

See the answer to second question.

  7.My modest expectation is an increased understanding of the game and feel for its positions.

This can be done with proper resources, and I will try to recommend some bellow-see third answer.

  8.Questions such as approach to using engines on Linux computer, analyzing games, preparing theory and lines haunt me. I have heard that tournament play helps, but I have also read that since chess is rich in theory, preparing the theory also helps.What are the various approaches to coming up with an optimal plan for the 450 hours (over 3 years) that I have got?

First off, forget about theory learning-you just do not have enough time to learn openings to a such high level. So my goal is to recommend books that are small and describe openings that are solid and not so sharp. Semi-open openings can give you enough solidity to survive and enough counter-play to have a chance to win.

Against 1.e4 I would recommend French Defense, and against everything else King's Indian defense. The reason for this is that nobody can use transpositions to get you out of your opening. This is important-it will reduce your time required for learning the openings for Black. As White, play the King's Indian Attack, since this is the King's Indian defense played with reversed colors. Again, you save your time by practically learning to play only two openings. I recommend Starting Out series, since they explain these openings and their basic middle game very well.

Then, you will need to learn to play middle game well. You can use Andrew Soltis-Pawn Structure Chess(1995) for that, but read only these chapters:

The e5 chain so you can master the French defense-Advance variation
The King's Indian complex-useful for you because you play both King's Indian attack and defense.

With Starting Out series, and with these two chapters, you should be able to hold your own against any player/engine. Your only problem shall be theory, but with the chapters from Soltis' book you could find good moves on your own since you should be able to understand the middle game quite well.

OK, I have covered your opening repertoire and middle game plans, now is the time for tactics/positional play.

Again, for positional principles consult Soltis' book, as for tactics you should utilize Internet to solve puzzles-ChessTempo.com can help.

As for endgame, you will have to get a good book for the beginners, but I just can not recommend one now, if I find a good one I will edit the answer and inform you via comment.

Now, let us create a timetable for you, so you can use your scarce time the best you can:

Get and read books for the openings-you can not progress further if you get smashed in 20 moves. Start with French defense and then move on to Kings Indian defense. Leave Kings Indian Attack for the end.
Once you feel confident that you have learned one opening variation ask someone to play with you 3 blitz games ( five minutes both ) so you can memorize the opening variation-you will be surprised how effective this is. Five-minutes-each blitz game means that you can play 3 games per day. After 12 games of blitz, you should memorize the variation. To increase your learning efficiency play King's Indian Attack with White all the time, and shuffle between French defense and Kings Indian defense ( of course, tell your friend to play 1.e4 or 1.d4/c4..., based on which defense as Black you wish to train ). This way you will learn the openings-forget about the outcome of the game, for now we just want to focus on you not losing in first 20+ moves.
Read the 'Soltis' book now, since you can survive the opening. Those 2 chapters will help you to find a plan in the middle game with speed and easiness. Once you read them and feel confident in your knowledge, ask a friend to do the same as before-play a five-minute-each blitz game, only this time result does matter since you know how to play middle game. This is the good moment for you to also experiment with the games online since we want you to get as much experience in playing these openings and middle games as you can get.
At some point you will feel like you have your opening and middle game "together" but you lack tactical strength to win or save the game. This will be the time to rest from openings and just solve puzzles. You can do that online or by getting newspapers or something. Again, once you are confident in your tactical improvement ask a friend to play again, or play online.
For endgame try to find any beginners book on basic principles and basic endings. You will not need complex study of this, just some basic knowledge. Once you read the book and feel like you have learned something play again against a friend/online.
From that moment on, you just keep playing and refer to the books when you need to remember some variation or a plan.

Now, the tournament play strategy:

Tournament is consisted of players of various strength. Once you go there, forget about winning every game! Just forget it! You will need every ounce of mental strength to deal with other things ( unexpected defeat/unfair referee 's decision/rude behavior of the spectators or your opponent ). Also, by not forcing the win you will not squander drawn games trying to prove a win that does not exist. Half a point is truly BIG if you keep not losing. If you can win do it of course, but tend to play safe-drawing a game is OK. Remember, you are there to have fun since this is your first tournament, and if you win a game that is great, if you lose it is OK too, move on and do not grief-another game will bring new adventure/experience. If you reach around 50% of total points at the end of the tournament consider your result a great success.

To summarize:

This will be your first tournament-try to finish it with a positive result and good experiences to remember. To achieve that do not force a win but just play the game and enjoy it.

Prepare your opening repertoire so you can hold your own against anybody-you can do that by practicing the way described above.

Prepare your middle games, so you can save the time on your clock by finding moves/plans quickly.

Train tactics so you can save the time on your clock and increase your chances to win or save the game.

Learn basic endings so you do not ruin a good game you played previously.

If you have any questions leave a comment and I will reply.

Good luck on your first tournament!

Best regards.


How to measure strength of my own chess engine?

Implement UCI or Winboard protocol (just enough to play games).  Download some engines (e.g. via CCRL) stronger than your estimate and run a Gauntlet tournament in Arena/Winboard/Cutechess etc.  Hundreds of games at least.  Feed the resulting PGN output file into Ordo and it'll give you an ELO (for the time control you used).  Try different time controls etc if needed - depends on your target competitors.

https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/UCI

http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/

http://www.playwitharena.com/

http://hgm.nubati.net/

https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess

https://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/ordo

For an initial quick ELO you could use Ferdinand Mosca's tool that makes an estimate based on your engine's performance with the Strategic Test Suite EPDs.

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56653

https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Strategic+Test+Suite


Why do chess tournaments allow absolutely scandalous draws?

Anish Giri was likely playing a "solved" opening, one in which all lines have been analyzed to a draw. Also, Giri is extremely hard to beat and draws many of his games (his weakness is that he doesn't often win). In this situation, there was likely no room for progress outside of severe blunders, so it's almost a respect issue, where Giri and his opponent respected each other enough to admit that no blunders were likely to be made, especially in this line. This sort of "guaranteed ending" does not occur in games like football or baseball or whatever.


You can see help menu for user manual. Or you can see this link for a more detailed manual, written for Fritz 13, but there is no difference at all. Engines are changing but GUIs are almost the same.


What's the best way for someone to use their time with a chess coach?

The main advantage of a coach is the feedback.  Neither a book nor software can explain where your weaknesses are.  A coach should be able to review your games and explain where your weaknesses are and provide reference material to help your improve.
Once you know your weaknesses, you can use books and software to help yourself improve.  However, some chess concepts are too subtle to be explained to all but the most motivated.


Does SCID allow to draw arrows on the board?

I use Scid 4.2.2, which is quite old, but maybe what works there also works in Scid vs PC.

You can open the Comment Editor window, and besides editing the comment and adding things to squares, you can also click and drag over the board to create arrows.

Make sure to store the comment before you enter the next move, or it will be lost!


Is there any etiquette about how to proceed when a technical problem leads to a misplay in an online game?

That's called a mouse-slip, and it's part of playing online. Watch some of Carlsen's online play (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJlOlufG-JM) and you'll see even he mouse-slips on occasion. Common etiquette seems to be to continue playing out the game and try to be more precise next time.


How do you deal with you losing your concentration

I started writing this before your comment that it is online chess. My answer is geared more toward over-the-board tournament chess. I will add a little blurb specifically about online chess at the bottom, but a lot of this applies to both.

There is a lot to your question. Primarily how you deal with it comes down to experience and practice. The unfortunate part is that everyone gets that experience all too often. The initial key to not getting into that situation as often is to try to stay calm and relaxed when you play, and use your time wisely, and do not get into deep time trouble.

The first question is how bad is the error? If it is bad enough that you lose the game, you have to just put it behind you, and prepare mentally for the next game. I find that while I take the game seriously, because it is not my profession, I do not take it too seriously, and therefore, I can put it behind me easily. Do not beat yourself up over something that you can no longer control.

If it is a mistake during the game, and not so bad that you lose, that is different. It is important to mention that sometimes you will make a losing mistake that is not obvious to your opponent, but you see it. It is important to keep an absolute poker face so you do not clue your opponent in that there is something there. When you make that type of error that you have to get in the habit of buckling down and trying that much harder at the board until the end of the game. Staying as positive as possible is important.

Other ways you can cut down on such “accidents” are making sure that you sleep and eat well. I would be careful of eating a lot of carbohydrates, or you might go into a fog that I call a “carb coma”. I also think that reading short exciting games without a board, but absolutely keeping the position in your head, will help your concentration before you even sit down at the board.

For online chess, you will lose games…a lot of games, but they really do not matter much, so put it behind you, and click rematch, and move on to the next game.

In the end, practice, practice, practice.  Good luck!


Push e and d pawns in semi open openings

So now I am reforming and reconstructing my life.

First of all, calm down. Hey, it's just a game! You sound as if your whole life depends upon whether you win or lose! You might want to read this post about how to deal with losses.

  Why do I push my E and D pawns in openings?

I would caution you against criticizing your opening (or any other aspect of your game) based on the outcome of just one humiliating defeat. Many top players have got crushed and humiliated. Look at Deep Blue vs Gary Kasparov, 1997, Game 6; perhaps the most humiliating defeat of Gary Kasparov's career; yet he still remained number 1 in the world for the rest of his career. Also consider Botvinnik's humiliating defeat against Tal in game 6 of their match in 1960, where Tal played an unsound sacrifice and still beat Botvinnik. Botvinnik lost that match, but came back stronger in the rematch and crushed Tal (+10 -5 = 6).

  Am I a pawn-push addict? Am I better off with the pawns on the 4th and
  5th ranks than on 3rd and 4th?

Only you can answer the first part. For the second part, you may or may not be better off with pawns on the 4th and 5th vs pawns on the 3rd and 4th. It depends upon the position and also your playing style. Pawns on the 4th and 5th rank often occur in these type of configurations-

     [FEN "4k3/pp3ppp/3p4/2pP4/4P3/8/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 6"]

Benoni Type Structure (White plans e4-e5 break at some point)

     [FEN "4k3/ppp2ppp/4p3/3pP3/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/4K3 w - - 0 3"]

French Type Structure (White plans kingside attack and maybe even f4-f5 break)

     [FEN "6k1/ppp2p1p/3p2p1/3Pp3/2P1P3/8/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 7"]

King's Indian Type Structure (White plans c4-c5 and queen side attack)

The advantage of such pawn structure is obvious- White has more space whereas Black has less space to move pieces. The disadvantage is that it's often easier for Black to attack White's pawn chain than for White to do the same (except in case of the Benoni). The simple reason is that it is easier for Black to make moves like c5 and f5 to attack the central d4 or e4 pawns which support the pawns on the 5th rank, than for White to try to play f4-f5 or c4-c5 to undermine the e6 or d6 pawns that hold Black's position. Moreover, White has to make additional moves like c3 or f3 to support the pawn chain, whereas Black's pawns often support the chain from their natural squares like c7 or f7.

To determine whether these positions are "good" (suitable to your style of play) for you, you must examine some sample games in these structures to see if they fit your style.

Sample games with these structures - Benoni, French, King's Indian.

If not, you will definitely be better off placing pawns on the 3rd and 4th ranks most of the time. In those cases, you have to note that you will not be able to maintain the pawn center for long. You either have to push your pawns to the 5th rank or exchange pawns when Black attacks.

Some sample structures -

       [FEN "4k3/pp3ppp/4p3/2p5/3P4/2P5/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 5"]

Alapin Sicilian Type Structure (White usually gets isolated pawn on d4 but great piece activity)

       [FEN "4k3/pp3ppp/4p3/3p4/2PP4/8/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 5"]

Panov Attack Type Structure (Might lead to isolated pawn. White plays on the kingside or queenside depending upon how Black continues)

       [FEN "3qk3/ppp2ppp/8/3p4/2PP4/8/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 4"]

Exchange French Type Structure (Might lead to isolated pawn. Black is in no real danger)

       [FEN "4k3/pp3ppp/2p1p3/3p4/2PP4/4P3/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 4"]

Queen's Pawn Opening Type Structure (Flexible. White may play on the kingside or the queenside depending upon how the game proceeds. White may try e3-e4 or cxd5 exd5 and b4-b5 if Black allows)

       [FEN "4k3/ppp2ppp/3p4/4p3/3PP3/2P5/PP3PPP/4K3 w - - 0 3"]

Ruy Lopez Type Structure (White plans d4-d5 at the opportune moment and kingside attack)

You can look up these openings in a similar way. The advantage is that your pawn center is not that easily attacked and your "mobile" pawns can prevent Black pieces from activity in the center. The disadvantage is that your opponent's center is often strong too. Besides, in such positions, White can often acquire an isolated pawn, which may become a disadvantage in the endgame.

The important think to note is, you can't simply win by maintaining pawns on the 3rd and 4th ranks. Your pawns either have to advance or exchange with enemy pawns to create advantages of space, mobility, outposts, backward pawns for opponent, etc. It's knowing when to push to the 5th rank that's important. That comes with experience and studying games with different pawn structures.


Understanding Anand's Bc4 move vs Ivanchuk 1992

In short, the key idea is to prevent white from playing h2-h3!

Bc4 forces the exchange of light square bishops, and thus, sets up Rh3 which blocks the h2 pawn and keeps both the h2 and g4 pawns weak.
Concretely, the only piece currently covering h3 is the light squared bishop on f1, so by trading the bishop with Bc4, which white cannot prevent as Bg2 leaves h2 hanging, white has no immediate means (e.g. a rook on g3 would prepare h3 but it's too slow) of preventing black's imminent Rh3.

Black's bigger idea is to create two connected central passed pawns!

More precisely, the plan is:

to pressure g4, and binding white's rooks to the defense of g4 and h2,
bring the king to e6 to prepare the d5 advance to trade the e4 pawn, then go back to e6 and similarly prepare trading white's g4 pawn with f5,
after which black is left with a passed f and e pawn, that is, two connected passed pawns!

Suppose Bc4 is not played, then white gets to play h3, and thus maintaining their bind on light squares and killing black's prospect of
creating two connected passers.
In the game itself, Ivanchuck decided to trade the g-pawn quickly (by advancing it to g5) in order to get rid of one of his weak pawns, after which Anand still managed to execute his plan as all he had to ensure was trading the e4 pawn by playing d5. Here's the position that transpired in the actual game, where Anand's plan has been executed to perfection:

Quite an exemplary game showing Anand's deep positional understanding: note the move Bc4 a priori undermines a couple of chess principles:
it willingly trades black's only good bishop, after which black is left with a hemmed-in dark squared bishop vs white's active one. Moreover, black allows
their queenside pawns to become shattered into 2 (isolated) islands, and in doing so having less chance of dominating1 2-vs-3 on the queenside.

In spite of all these at-first-glance-unfavourable aspects of the move, Anand beautifully realised controlling the h3 square outweighs them all, since preventing white's h2-h3 pawn advance to support g4 is the only way black can maintain the prospect of active play in the pawn skeleton that had transpired, as we discussed above.

Here's the game itself:

 [title "Continuation after 20...Bc4"]
 [fen ""]
 [startply "40"]

 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2 a6 8. O-O-O h6 9. Be3 Nxd4 10. Bxd4 b5 11. f3 Qa5 12. a3 e5 13. Be3 Be6 14. Kb1 Be7 15. g4 Rb8 16. Nd5 Qxd2 17. Nxf6+ gxf6 18. Rxd2 h5 19. Rg1 hxg4 20. fxg4 Bc4 21. b3 Bxf1 22. Rxf1 Rh3 23. Re2 Kd7 24. g5 Ke6 25. gxf6 Bxf6 26. Bd2 Be7 27. Be1 f6 28. Bg3 d5 29. exd5+ Kxd5 30. Rf5 Kc6 31. Ref2 Rh6 32. Kb2 Kd7 33. Re2 Bd6 34. Rf3 Rc8 35. Be1 Ke6 36. Rd3 Rh7 37. Rg3 Bc5 38. Ka2 Rd7 39. Rc3 Rcc7 40. h4 Rd1 41. Bf2 Bd6 42. Rg3 e4 43. Rxe4+ Be5 44. Rxe5+ fxe5 45. Kb2 Rd2 0-1

1: Domination in this context means: the side with the minority (less pawns) achieving a setup (e.g. a blockade) where neither of the majority pawns of the opponent can (easily) advance. Typical to the Sicilian pawn structure on the queenside, one such setup could be white's pawns being on a2-b3-c2 and black's pawns pinning down on dark squares with a5-b4. For an example see the setup by Caruana (as black) in his candidates game vs Karjakin (e.g. around move 22), where indeed one of his positional mistakes in that game was to give up the domination with 26...a4.


Where can I find a whole bunch of complicated PGN files?

As an author of some PGN-processing software, I would also be interested in having access to a general test suite but I am not aware of any, unfortunately, and all I can offer is some advice based on experience.

I would be wary of throwing a large database of games at an application in order to test it before you have developed reasonable confidence with its fundamentals. In the early stages, at least, I find it most effective to create a lot of small examples, each of which tests an individual feature. That way, errors are relatively easy to spot because they don't get lost in a mass of output. Once I have got rid of the basic errors I would then look at combining a small number of both related and unrelated features in individual tests to make sure that there is no unexpected interference between the associated functionality. Only late on would I switch to large datasets to make sure there are no issues with scaling up.

I also highly recommend re-running all the existing tests each time a new feature is added. I have been amazed how often I have unexpectedly broken something seemingly unrelated as the code has developed.

Apologies if these principles are already well known to you!


Sure, this line of Queen's Indian came up:

[FEN ""]
[White "AlphaZero (Computer)"]
[Black "Stockfish (Computer)"]

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. c4 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O
7. d5 exd5 8. Nh4 c6 9. cxd5 Nxd5 10. Nf5 Nc7 11. e4 d5
12. exd5 Nxd5 13. Nc3 Nxc3 14. Qg4 g6 15. Nh6+ Kg7 16. bxc3
Bc8 17. Qf4 Qd6 18. Qa4 g5 19. Re1 Kxh6 20. h4 f6 21. Be3 Bf5
22. Rad1 Qa3 23. Qc4 b5 24. hxg5+ fxg5 25. Qh4+ Kg6 26. Qh1
Kg7 27. Be4 Bg6 28. Bxg6 hxg6 29. Qh3 Bf6 30. Kg2 Qxa2 31. Rh1
Qg8 32. c4 Re8 33. Bd4 Bxd4 34. Rxd4 Rd8 35. Rxd8 Qxd8 36. Qe6
Nd7 37. Rd1 Nc5 38. Rxd8 Nxe6 39. Rxa8 Kf6 40. cxb5 cxb5
41. Kf3 Nd4+ 42. Ke4 Nc6 43. Rc8 Ne7 44. Rb8 Nf5 45. g4 Nh6
46. f3 Nf7 47. Ra8 Nd6+ 48. Kd5 Nc4 49. Rxa7 Ne3+ 50. Ke4 Nc4
51. Ra6+ Kg7 52. Rc6 Kf7 53. Rc5 Ke6 54. Rxg5 Kf6 55. Rc5 g5
56. Kd4 1-0

I got this game from chessgames.com: game


Why do some (many!) grandmasters play the opening so slowly?

Remember that they've usually spent a few hours before the game to prepare against this particular opponent: reviewed which openings the opponent plays and what his weaknesses are, chose what kind of opening to play today, made a guess which variations are likely to occur and made a plan based on that, et cetera. He always plays the same against 1.e4 and I have a nice idea against that line, maybe play that today even though it's not my main move? In that other line, he recently won spectacularly against a strong opponent but I have an improvement early on, he probably hasn't looked at it too closely...

Of course, the opponent has done the same.

If everything goes exactly as expected, the moves go very fast. But usually at least one side goes for a surprise, and then the exact preparation is out of the window, and they have to rely on the general preparation. He suddenly goes 1.e4, maybe I should go for a secondary defense? But I know my main one so well... Or: he suddenly goes for the French! What have I played against this recently, should I avoid those lines? What other lines are there that he probably isn't that good at? Why is he playing this?

The moves and variations themselves are very familiar at that point, but there's still the metagame of choosing the right opening against this opponent.


A "big pawn" bishop is kind of an informal term. In general it can be thought of as a bad bishop with especially limited movement. In the game you posted, that bishop could be considered a big pawn - there are pawns on its same colour, and they clearly restrict its movement.

However, whether it's technically a bad bishop is debatable, since the b3- and d3-pawns are fixed by White's pieces (not pawns). If the king or bishop moved away, perhaps these pawns would have advanced while the bishop was still on the board, allowing it to escape and not be considered bad or trapped.

To summarize, a big pawn is essentially a bishop which is both technically bad (pawns on its colour) and clearly inactive (lacking sufficient mobility on useful squares).


Given that you are a piece up with a dominating position, exchanging the bishops isn't a problem at all. Note, that it is just an exchange, not a sacrifice.

You could have played 19.Bc7 instead, in that case black has to react 19…Ra8 or he will lose even more material (for example 19…Rb7 20.Rxc8 Kd7 21. Rxf8 with three pieces for a rook, which is a bit much …).

Concerning your weaknesses:

Only 10.b4 strikes me as truly bad, blundering a pawn and misplacing your knight. And 15.Nc3 would have prevented your second pawn blunder.

So you won this game because your opponent blunders pieces whereas you only blunder pawns. Stop blundering pawns and you'll start beating those players that blunder pawns. And then we'll talk about why 2…f6 is a bad move and how to punish it.


Move orders in the 6.Qc2 Anti-Meran Semi-Slav

A lot of opening play is about what you are trying to avoid. While sharp, black does quite well against 7.g4. In reality, the quieter lines seem to have much more venom if the figures in Mega 2020 are to believed.

In addition, with the move order you mention, white can get e4 in very early, or can play the Karpov line among other choices. The main line I am giving scores at 73.4% compared to only 56.2% for Shirov's g4. I think that g4 was a great surprise weapon, but now, it has been analyzed sufficiently with computers, and it no longer the great threat it once was. Black can respond with the best move, h6 instead of taking on g4.

 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Bd6 (5... Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 {The Shirov Gambit.} h6!) 6. Bd3 (6. Qc2 O-O 7. Be2 Nbd7 8. O-O {Karpov's favorite line.}) 6... O-O 7. e4 dxe4 8. Nxe4 Nxe4 9. Bxe4 Nd7 10. O-O Nf6 11. Bc2


What is the correct resignation procedure?

You can resign at any point, as long as the game is still ongoing. You can resign during your opponent's move, for instance. In fact I'd say it's unusual to make a move before resigning -- most people resign because they don't see a good move anymore.

If it's already ended some other way, you can't resign any more. Some people don't want to win on time in a clearly lost position, for instance, but then they should resign before a flag fall is noticed. And if you resigned but later find out that you actually checkmated your opponent earlier in the game (but didn't notice at the time), then you actually won because checkmate ends the game immediately. Yes that happens, mostly in youth tournaments. (Edit: that's FIDE rules. This sort of thing may well be different under USCF rules, I don't know).

There is nothing about the exact procedure in the rules, probably because resigning ends the game and usually makes the opponent happy regardless, so there's never been a need to regulate it. A good way is to stop the clock, say you resign, and shake hands. Write down the result on your score sheet. The important thing is to make sure that the opponent understands your intention.

Official tournaments usually need a signature somewhere (on the score sheet, or on separate little result forms). Make sure the result is recorded correctly on it, that both players sign, and that the arbiter gets the signed form.


In correspondence games, is it considered cheating to get an engine evaluation of the current position?

From Wikipedia's article on Correspondence Chess: "However, the influence of computer assistance remains controversial in both official and casual play, and consensus on the issue of whether to allow computer aid is still lacking" It depends on the organization. Although I think looking at just the evaluation is fine, there is no definite rule on engine use, as in correspondence it can be extremely hard to detect who's using an engine when the players are given so much time to analyze their games. In casual games between your friends it should be perfectly fine, but on a website or through an organization, you should ask them.


I think you should stop being afraid of your theory book, and concentrate on fighting your opponent in a game of chess. Especially rated at 1400, you need to experience interesting tactical battles, attacking chess, and basic strategic ideas.

Edmar Mednis wrote "A number of students have told me that they like to play 1.e4 except against the Sicilian. Such a 'complaint' makes no chess sense to me. I mean, 1.e4 is for those who like active, attacking play. Because the Sicilian delays black's kingside development while ignoring white's active development, attacking players should jump for joy when they see Black play 1...c5." (Practical Opening Tips)

He then goes over some lines involving: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 ... 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 ... 5.Nc3 ... 6.Bc4 against the main Black systems. Some of these Fischer used to play. The 2.c3 variation is also a good one.

Don't be afraid of main lines. Get an interesting position on the board (that's all a main line is - a position so interesting lots of people have played it) and fight it out. You will learn loads. Develop your tactics, and start to see the strategic ideas by playing the opening. Seek inspiration from your own games and those played by other people - not theory books.

(I had the same problem myself. I'm around FIDE 2050 now, and a 1.d4 player. All my life I've been afraid of the Slav. I got a book a few years ago advocating to play the main lines. So I plunged in with minimal preparation - my opponents never challenge me in a book line! But we get some interesting games, much better than the exchange Slav I relied on all this time.)


In the Delayed Open Catalan, after 1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 c5 8. dxc5 Bxc5, which move should I play?

It is a well deserved doubt that you have in this position. As a Catalan player, I like both continuations (i.e. Qxd8 or Nc3) for well defined reasons. First one important note on Catalan openings or similar positions:

White's play evolves around the positional play of minor pieces.

Meaning in any position resulting from a Catalan, you should reason by continuously evaluating your minor pieces development progress versus that of your opponent (less focus on pawn structure as the center is already simplified.). Added to which there's white extremely solid and flexible pawn structure, which means any early end-game transitions should be favored for white.

Now regarding your engine suggestions vs Wojo's version:

The engine of course looks for maximum edge in any position, in this particular one, the immediate endgame transition right after a queen exchange is favored for white, because of the slight edge in development, and there are no tempos to be gained by black, hence the slight + score you see in all evaluations after Qxd8. To showcase one of them:

[Title "Qxd8 example line"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn2/2b1N3/2p5/6P1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1"]

1.Qxd8 Rxd8 2.Nc3 Be7 3.Bf4 Nd5 4.Rad1 g5 5.Bc1

It goes without saying that white has the more comfortable position, with all pieces actively in play, better control on d-file, c4, g5 under pressure, and no pawn structure worries for white, whereas black needs to find the right tempos to activate the 3 remaining pieces and all the time cover the weaknesses.

[Title "Qxd8 2nd example"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn2/2b1N3/2p5/6P1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1"]

1.Qxd8 Rxd8 2.Nc3 Nbd7 3.Rd1 Be7 4.Nxc4

One example showing black can't just easily activate the pieces after the queen-exchange, after Nxc4, Bg5 coming, constant pressure on b7, better control on d-file...all shows how better (or just more comfortable white is).

Conclusion for Qxd8: If you're comfortable playing this type of middle-game endgame positions, you should definitely try playing the Qxd8 line, a good experience in these lines will greatly improve your minor pieces positional play (finding right squares, covering the right ones, keeping pressure, coordination, etc.). Note that these are not necessarily easy to play positions if you don't have experience in such positions. Often one gets confused where to place the pieces (knight on c4, or e5, or e3 etc... or maneuvers like Nb5 to Nd4 sometimes very handy, point being white can also easily mess up.)

Now regarding Wojo's suggestion: there's a simple reason behind: white intends to keep the queens on, and play for the slight activity edge, without forcing an endgame right off. After Nc3 there are many different lines that can be played, I will show two of them. In the calm ones, white's plan relies on black cramped white bishop, caged rook on a8, and the rather exposed queen of black after Qc7 or  Qb6 etc. Here you have to be good at keeping your slight edge and slow by slow poking at black's weaknesses, and most importantly finding the right time to exchange and simplify the position to leverage the advantage in an endgame.

Before I show the lines, note that after Nc3 black cannot just exchange the queens, because the resulting position after Rxd1 is just a much better version of what white had after Qxd8, since the d-file is completely in white's hands.

[Title "Nc3 example line"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn2/2b1N3/2p5/6P1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1"]

1.Nc3 Qc7 2.Nxc4 Nc6 3.Bg5 Be7 4.Nb5 Qb8 5.Qc2

With Rfd1, Rac1 and Nd4 coming up, black is under great positional pressure and will have a very hard time to finish development for a while.

Now one fancy line, where probably white has a great attack with very positive chances (doesn't necessarily mean black is hopeless).

[Title "Nc3 fancy continuation"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn2/2b1N3/2p5/6P1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 1"]

1.Nc3 Qc7 2.Nxc4 Bxf2+ 3.Rxf2 Qxc4 4.Rxf6 gxf6 5.Bh6 Nd7 6.Bxf8 Kxf8 7.Qd2

Where again white has the initiative with better chances, just look at the activity of each piece...(and the rook coming on f or d-file). This is a fancy and rather complicated line which you can avoid of course if you don't like.

So you see after both Qxd8 and Nc3, it's just a relatively equal game where white has the comfortable play, with easy to find squares for all his pieces, whereas black not necessarily lost, has to keep struggling to finish development without ending up with less pawns eventually. I personally like Nc3 because I usually play these lines with the queens on, and for you, you just have to see which type of lines you prefer to play (or better to say : more comfortable in), this should be your main reasoning when in doubts like "what opening variations to play".

By no means an eval of +0.50 or +0.20 by the engine means winning for white, no one is able to keep such slight edge from the opening, not even the engines, you see these evaluations because they suggest who has the easier play, the initiative and the quicker development, but chess is way too dynamic to allow for such slight edges to suffice in winning a position. I certainly recommend the Catalan opening, and you should try all these lines for yourself at least a couple of times, so that all the ideas discussed above become clear to you.

Let me know if you have any further questions, and if you want to discuss a specific line.

EDIT: I would certainly recommend studying some of the games of Kramnik, Ivanchuk and Carlsen, all playing the white side of this opening. They will be very resourceful to you.


How to reply to an early c5 in the London System?

How you respond depends on your tastes.

If you like tactical play then 3. e4 is the Morris Gambit. This is basically the Albin Counter Gambit with colours reversed and an extra tempo. It can lead to very exciting play.

If you are more conservative and prefer a quiet life then 3. e3 is the normal move when play can quickly return to more normal lines.


A standard piece of advice that used to be given to inexperienced players was to always write your move down before playing it and in the gap between writing it down and playing it to have one last quick check to make sure it was sound. The new (post July 2014) rules no longer allow this but the thinking behind the advice still applies.

Your computer is always consistent, unlike you. The reason is that it is inanimate silicon whereas you are a human being. You are driven by emotion. When you make a bad move you do that because your emotions temporarily take control. You need a routine to reduce the emotional disturbance to your thinking.

The first step is to try and never make an immediate response to your opponent's move. Try and always write his move down first. Try and have a checklist of questions you go through before making a move. Things like:

Why did he make that move?

What is he threatening?

Do my plans have to change to take account of what he just did?

There are probably more questions like this that you or your coach can come up with.

You must also try and not be affected by how strong (or weak) your opponent is or how strong you think he is. Once you have calculated what you think is the best move then play it. Don't change your mind and play a tricky but possibly bad move because your opponent isn't so strong and you hope to trick him. If you've calculated that the best move is a difficult, tricky move but your opponent is much stronger don't chicken out and play a weaker "safe" move.

I know from my own experience how difficult this can be especially when I am playing a much stronger player. The fear can be very strong but always try and play the position on the board not the other player or the other player's rating.

This way you will reduce your bad moves and become a better player.


Is a Caro-Kann game still advisable after 1. e4 c6 2. g4?

The g4  line is called the Spike Variation of the Caro-Kannn(B10). Commonly played line is 2...d5 with e5 there after. White gives up development of pieces for more spatial control.


Why an analyser labels this move as a blunder?

Your move 1...Na5 is a blunder because there was an opportunity to win material.

The suggestion 1...Nd4 is best because you win a rook, e.g. 1...Nd4 2.Qxb7 Nxc2+ 3.Kf1 Nxa1


Rossolimo 3.Bb5 vs open Sicilian against c5-Nc6 sicilian

Please note that the ...e5 push Black does on your line is not forced and there are plenty of other variations Black can opt for (like 4...e6, or 4...g6, or 4...Nf6 5.Nc3 d6, or even 4...e5)

Each of this alternatives requires White to be prepared as Black will probably know a lot of theory about those (and have a good understanding of the resulting middlegame positions, for instance, no d5 weak square in many of those) With the Rossolimo, White can opt for a quieter game where knowledge of precise lines is less relevant


What if you messed up your notation a lot?

Is there any rule regarding having a lot of mistakes? Furthermore,
what if you deliberately make mistakes such as writing in a random
move every turn?

There is no obvious rule against this. The obvious place to start for FIDE is article 8.1.1:

Article 8: The recording of the moves
8.1.1 In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as clearly and legibly as possible, in the algebraic notation (Appendix C), on the ‘scoresheet’ prescribed for the competition.

You must write the moves down but there is no obvious penalty for mistakes, deliberate or otherwise. Which begs the question - Why bother? Why bother writing the moves down at all let alone why try and not make mistakes?
Well, that is answered obliquely in Appendix C:

Appendix C. Algebraic notation
FIDE recognises for its own tournaments and matches only one system of notation, the Algebraic System, and recommends the use of this uniform chess notation also for chess literature and periodicals. Scoresheets using a notation system other than algebraic may not be used as evidence in cases where normally the scoresheet of a player is used for that purpose. An arbiter who observes that a player is using a notation system other than the algebraic should warn the player of this requirement.

Makes sense. If your scoresheet is needed to settle a dispute or make a claim and it isn't suitable (either because you used the wrong notation or it can't be read) then your claim is likely to fail.
Two examples:

9.2.1 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):
9.2.1.1   is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move

and

9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if:
9.3.1 he writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move which will result in the last 50 moves by each player having been made without the movement of any pawn and without any capture

If you don't have a legible, correct scoresheet then you can't demonstrate a 3 fold repetition or 50 moves without a capture or pawn move for a 50 move draw claim.


The engine considers Qc2+ a blunder because it's a draw by repetition. (I think the position is probably a draw anyway, but Black could at least try for a win.) The problem is that you have already reached this position twice before. If this was the first time you had reached this position, there would be no problem: Qc2+ is actually a good move in itself. But since you have kept repeating the position instead of making progress, you now need to play something different, such as Qh3.


Since there is no single comprehensive publication this is based on the probing code, the generator and various explanations from Ronald de Man (the author of the generator).

When probing pretty much any tablebase (aka huge compressed hash map):

The position is normalized ...
... mapped to an integer index.
The index is looked up in a table that identifies which "block" it belongs to.
The block is decompressed until the information for the index can be retrieved.

Then there usually is some code "outside" of probing, at least to resolve en passant captures.

Starting with the outside code for WDL. Syzygy tables use an optimization based on the following observation: If a position has a capture that achieves a particular value (e.g. is winning), then the position itself has at least that value (e.g. is winning). In this case the table can store an arbitrary lower value, whichever is best for compression, and this can be easily corrected by checking the subtables for captures.

To get a DTZ, a WDL probe needs to be done first. If the position is drawn, then DTZ is 0 and the table can store anything, whichever is best for compression. If the best move was a capture (which we can remember from the WDL probe), then the DTZ is +/-1 or +/-101 depending on the WDL, and the table can again store anything, whichever is best for compression.

Pawnful tables contain 4 subtables, one for each file of the "leading pawn" (after normalization).

WDL (sub)tables are two-sided, i.e. they essentially contain two seperate tables for each side of the endgame (unless the material is symmetric).

DTZ tables store only one side to move. So a brief 1-ply search may be required to compute the DTZ for the other side.

(1) About the normalization: There are multiple ways this could be done and it is not easy to tell in advance which one will lead to the best compression. The generator just tries different permutations. The final order of the pieces is stored in the header of the table file.

(2) Some combinatorics. The challenge is not to have large gaps for impossible positions. Although it is quite tricky, I don't think Syzygy does anything special here. Conceptually, pieces or groups of pieces are placed on the board in the order specified in the header.

(3) Compressed values are stored in blocks. The block size is specified in the table header. The table mapping indexes to blocks is sparse, so it allows jumping very close to the correct block and then requires a brief forward or backward scan to find the exact block. A block can store values for at most 65536 positions.

(4) Syzygy tables use custom compression based on RE-PAIR. An important feature is that it actually allows taking advantage of the opportunities to store arbitrary values that were identified above. Decompression is very fast and can stop as soon as the value for the desired index is available.

Optionally, DTZ tables can require another step f(wdl, stored value) = real value. This extra DTZ map is referenced in the table header and is itself a table with 8-bit entries. (Intrestingly this turned out to be insufficient for 7-piece endgames, even with pawns, so there is now another flag that enables 16-bit entries).

For DTZ values, if the generator determined that all values for a table are less than 100, precise half-move counts are not required to guarantee perfect play. Instead it sets a flag in the table header and rounds half-moves to full-moves to save space.

Also clearly there is no need to store the sign, or an additional offset of +/-100 for cursed endgames because this can be inferred from the WDL value.

Since decompression is very fast, there is no need for a cache. Instead engines can rely on the operating systems page cache to store (still compressed) blocks.

The 6 piece tables contain WDL and DTZ information for 3,787,154,440,416 unique positions in 150 Gigabytes, so ~0.3 bits per position.

All in all Syzygy tables improved upon previous tablebase formats in at least 3 of these areas, making it a very compact and fast format. Amazingly the generator is quite fast as well.

And of course using DTZ50 is a pragmatic choice, because this is just enough information to reliably make progress and allows perfect play (wrt. outcome) both with and without the 50-move rule. However based on the changes to Cfish that are published so far (RdM is now working on DTM tables), many of the techniques will apply to DTM as well.


Comparing ELO ratings between different countries

When you say 'comparable non-international ratings' do you mean USCF ratings?  Or perhaps Israeli ratings? There is no valid way to compare the ratings of players if they don't use the same rating system.  Even if they use the same system things can get odd when groups of players are isolated from one another.

While ELO isn't perfect (what is?), players' ELO ratings can be (and are) compared directly.  There is still the 'pool' problem especially at the lower levels but at least the system is the same.

Edit - my answer makes the assumption the entire ratings lists of both countries aren't available.  If they are available, a mathematical approximation can be made.  It will not be very accurate for the ends of the bell curve.  For example, I would not use this to compare the strongest GMs in each country.


Elo rating software with automatic random matchups

Dont know elorater but there is likely a way through the opsys to randomly pick (that part is easy) players to match and then insert them automatically into elorater instead of typing them in.  If they have a way to import tournament results you might be able to automate it even easier.  Just create all the random matchups you want and then submit it for rating.


Chesspad allows for deleting and adding new lines.
To delete, right click on move in movelist and select delete.
To add new variation, move back to move you want to add variation to, by either clicking or left arrow, and enter new move.
Right clicking any variation will give you the option to make this the main line.


It's probably helpful to ask oneself why a move such as f3/f6 (moving forward, I will only consider f3, but it should work from black's perspective as well) would be useful in general. Why would I ever even consider making such a move? The very obvious reasons should be clear to most: if I want to reinforce/control/attack the squares e4 and/or g4, then of course the pawn move to f3 could be very useful. Another very obvious reason for making the move is of course the pawn being attacked.

For reasons a bit more subtle, the move could also prove useful if I for some reason wish to vacate the f2 square (for instance, to clear the h4-e1 diagonal for my dark-squared bishop if it were pushed back by a black pawn mass). Another subtle reason is that the move could be used in a pawn endgame in favour of the immediate f4 push for tempo-related reasons, or more generally to induce zugzwang.

I've now listed all good reasons for making the move that I've been able come up with. If you can think of another general scenario where specifically f3 is called for, feel free to suggest it; I'm having a difficult time coming up with any other good general reason to play the move.

Now for the fun part: Why would I not wish to play f3? This question is equally important to the first one if you want a good heuristic for when to play f3. The reasons for not playing the move that I can think of are the following:

It blocks the f3 square for the g1 knight. This is a major drawback of opening systems that make an early f3 push in the opening, see for instance the Sämisch system against the KID.
It begins opening up the a7-g1 diagonal. This is generally not great since white's king is often on g1, just waiting to be harrassed if this diagonal opens.
It weakens the control over the e3 square. This means that White's dark-squared bishop doesn't really have a safe haven on e3 anymore. This is a common way to lose as White in, say, the open Sicilian.
It blocks the d1-h5 diagonal for White's queen/light-squared bishop.
It creates a so-called "hook" for Black's pawns/pieces to attack in a potential kingside attack by Black.
It can be a waste of time if I'm in a pawn race (either literal pawn race in an endgame or a "pawn storm" race). Sometimes you can go ahead with the pawn push g2-g4 without even defending the square first; after all, if I'm aiming to use a pawn storm to soften up black's king on the kingside, removing the g pawn opens up the g-file for my rook. This last point is highlighted in many games in the open Sicilian, where White attacks Black's king on g8 while Black attacks White's king on b1; in these races, every tempo counts.

Again, if you can think of another good reason not to play f2-f3, then feel free to add it to the list. Know these reasons well, because some of them are not that immediately obvious why they are a big deal. For instance, giving up control over the e3 square may seem innocent enough, but in many cases it can be surprisingly detrimental to your position, especially if the position is not closed. Therefore you shouldn't make weakening moves such as f3 without a clear intention in mind.

While I haven't really heard the rule-of-thumb to "never play f3/f6", the above list of reasons not to play it seems like a good explanation as to why someone gave you that advice; most of the points I listed above are not easy for a beginner to fully appreciate, so it's simpler to just remember "don't play f3/f6" when you're still new to the game. After all, before you can break the rules, you have to understand them first.

Therefore, as you're now no longer a beginner (as indicated by your rating), I would propose this new and improved heuristic for the f3/f6 move:

Never play f3/f6 if the good reasons for playing it do not outweigh the negative side-effects of playing it.

As you can see, this advice would be pointless to give to a beginner, but for a player who is starting to learn things beyond the bare basics of positional chess it is much more suitable - after all, as you get stronger you will notice that every decision you make is a tradeoff between pros and cons of that decision. Even the obvious moves are decisions which are made easy by the fact that it's very clear what part of the pro/con list outweighs the other, but more difficult positional decisions may sometimes seem like a coin toss. In general, your chess ability is directly tied to how well you manage to accurately make up the list of pros and cons for given moves, and in the more difficult cases you will not be able to use the crutches that are commonly given to novice players to evaluate a decision with accuracy.


According to the pawn structure, one of the white bishop must be a promoted one. The knights have switched place, the other pieces can easily make three movements.
The only ones that can make a single one are the rooks, either by

Castling
Taking the other rook's square
By coming from a promoted pawn on a8 or h8

All possibilities seems doable as white can promote two pawns, and can use a captured piece to capture all black pieces.
Here is an example:
[fen "rnbqrnbq/ppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - -"]

1. d3 a5 2. e3 h5 3. Bd2 b6 4. Be2 g6 5. Bxa5 Bb7 6. Bxh5 Bg7 7. Bxb6 Qc8 8. Bxg6 Kf8 9. Bxc7 Nc6 10. Bxf7 Nf6 11. a4 Nd8 12. h4 Ne8 13. Bxd8 Qxd8 14. Bxe8 Kxe8 15. a5 Qc7 16. h5 Kf7 17. a6 Qd8 18. h6 Ke8 19. axb7 Qc7 20. hxg7 Kf7 21. bxa8=B Qd8 22. gxh8=B Ke8 23. Nc3 Qc7 24. Nf3 Kf7 25. Qd2 Qd8 26. Ke2 Ke8 27. Ra5 Qc7 28. Rha1 Kf7 29. Rh5 Qd8 30. Rhh1 Ke8 31. Qe1 Qc7 32. Kd2 Kf7 33. Qd1 Qd8 34. Ke1 Ke8 35. Ne2 Qc7 36. Nd2 Kf7 37. Nb1 Qd8 38. Ng1 Ke8 39. Bf3 Qc7 40. Bc3 Kf7 41. Bd2 Qc8 42. Be2 Kf8 43. Bc1 Qd8 44. Bf1 Ke8

In this example rook h1 makes a single move while other white pieces on the first row make three moves.


I believe James Damore lied about his resume, and not just about chess.

  https://www.businessinsider.com.au/james-damore-removes-phd-studies-linkedin-2017-8?r=US&IR=T

If he had the courage to lie about PhD in his profile (that's a very serious misconduct), why wouldn't he lie about being an FM master?

I can't think of a reason why his FIDE profile is not available, and his USCF rating is just a little over 1800. Hard to imagine we can't find a single FIDE-rated tournament crosstable with his name (he's a young guy and he had to play serious chess games to get an FM title).

James Damore is not an FM. He had cheated the media and Google.

PS: Note that the media simply downloaded the resume like we did. They had no idea this guy played well below the FM 2300+ rating. Journalists aren't chess players. They didn't have the experience verifying a chess player, but they did quickly send an enquiry to Harvard for his PhD (something they understood).


Possible reasons

Strictly speaking to content oneself drawing a much higher ranked player in tournaments, when not having a clear understanding of what the exact counterpart for aggression might be, is not a bad idea at all. This said, I would look at two main sources for this to happen:

Playing style: not all chess players encourage attack: there are many examples of ultimate GM who are notorious for their positional solid play who dismantle the opponent only one bit at a time, very often just going into endgames where they convert tiny positional advantages into wins (promoting that f pawn after 30 moves preparation). Above all I would mention Karpov and Kramnik, not ultimately known for their attacking fantasies but for sure almost impossible to win against exactly due to the hard discipline and strong knowledge of theoretical positions.
Knowledge of enough lines, variations and continuations: it is by all means true that one is more comfortable attacking in positions where one knows already many (if not all) the standard outcomes, because "well, the worst that can happen is that I will be left with a doubled pawn on the g file..."

Possible exercises

I myself am part of the above category and generally dislike attacking only for the sake of it; since it is however true though that this characteristic has sometimes held me back from better results, I tried to address the problem in two ways, so far:

chess puzzles: looking and solving chess puzzles helps giving you the "feel" of a given position, showing how tactics can help winning a piece on the short run or combining together bishop and knight for a vortex attack (or the like).
better preparation of openings and position: preparing all (well, not all, but many) possible outcomes of a given opening helps minimising the "risk" of a blunder attack; it can be helpful to practice only one-two openings and defenses to be more secure about the continuations.


FIDE has 2 senior age categories - over 50 and over 65. Most national federations will follow FIDE's lead.

Note that over 50 means that you will be at least 50 years old on the 31st December of that year. So, for over 50 tournaments this year you need to have been born in 1968 or earlier. The reason FIDE do it this way is that they publish your year of birth but not your exact date of birth (for privacy reasons). This information allows organizers to establish whether or not you are eligible.


What book should I refer to to begin learning chess?

Learn Chess by John Nunn. A highly respected chess author. Do not be put off by the title!

Silman's Complete Endgame Course by Jeremy Silman. A modern classic, improvement in the endgame will improve your whole game, I should recommend studying up to the Part Five then saving the rest for later.

Tactics Time! by Tim Brennan and Anthea Carson. Tactics is an essential part of chess improvement.

How to Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman. A challenging book but a good study of it will leave a permanent mark on you.

I believe that intense study of these four books will yield very good results for you. I recommend studying them in the order

Learn Chess
Tactics Time!
Silman's Endgame Course
How to Reassess Your Chess

The most important thing to do is to keep playing, once you have studied these books and feel that your level of play is better, check out Dan Heisman's Book Recommendations for further reference

Edit: Post RemcoGerlich's comment I have decided to change Build up Your Chess 1: The Fundamentals to How to Reassess your Chess as I realized that the Yusupov book is actually quite challenging and less approachable than Silman's. Although it should still be recommended for when your level of play is higher.


Repertoire book on the Ruy Lopez exchange variation?

Larry Kaufman's The Chess Advantage in Black and White is a well-regarded (though old, by opening book standards) repertoire book that uses the Ruy Lopez exchange.


At what level does being very aggressive stop being useful?

Whether aggresive or not, good chess works against all players. Bad chess does not "work" against anyone, but you can still beat a weak opponent in spite of it.
There are positions that require aggression, others that don't. After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3, aggressive play is the only way you can beat a GM. After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5, you should expect to be in a quieter game.
There's also a trend towards aggressive play requiring more opening theory to rely on (as mistakes will pay a higher price)


Are there rules for categorising all pawn-only endgames into won/drawn/lost?

Generally speaking, the side with the most pawns will win. The tempo provided by the extra pawn is usually enough to gain opposition and access to the key squares. Doubled pawns don't matter for this, unless they're blocked. The extra pawn can also limit the movement of the opponent's king, resulting in the possibility of a triangulation maneuver.

Another recurring theme/rule is the breakthrough. Grandmasters know the patterns for which a breakthrough is possible by heart.

But generally, multi-pawn endgames are just as complicated as other endgames. There is a Russian endgame study composer, Nikolai Grigoriev, who is famous for his pawn endgame studies. They truly show the rich possibilities of chess with just kings and pawns. With so many beautiful studies available, you know that there can be no general rule to determine the outcome.


Browser based FICS client: exists or may I build one?

Mobialia is a decent modern FICS client that works on the browser.


How to win against queen with queen+rook, avoiding the draw with multiple checks

In general, if you are materially superior, you should try to trade down into a winning ending. Your extra rook in this situation against your opponent's queen and two unconnected pawns should normally have been enough for you to win.  Unfortunately, in your game the queen was too far away to help support your rook, and you had to permit a draw on moves 52 through 55 by triple repetition. Giving up your rook instead at that point should have ultimately led to a lost king and pawn ending for you after you allowed the queen trade.  You were fortunate to get the draw then.  Your taking the "g" pawn on move 47 led to that particular situation.


What are the downsides of fast tie-breaks after drawn games?

For at least some of us, the sort of scheme you propose is an unsatisfactory way to break a tie/settle a draw. If the tournament is being played under classical time controls, but then every draw is turned into a win/loss by having the opponents play a blitz game, the nature of the game is different. While a patzer like me is never going to defeat a grandmaster (or even national master) at any time control, different players excel at different types of events, and it's not fair to someone who's good at classic time control chess to suddenly decide the winner of a game via rapid chess. As an observer, I might want to watch a rapid time control tournament sometimes, but when I'm following a classic time control event, I don't want to see it decided in a short time control tie breaker. (Yes, I know other people will have differing opinions.)

Also, why is a draw so bothersome? Is it necessary for every game to have a winner for you? Personally, I'm accustomed to the nature of chess involving lots of draws at the highest levels. Admittedly, I don't like pre-arranged and quick draws, but there other ways to handle that.

Of course, for a tournament, eliminating draws does not eliminate ties (although it may make them less frequent) at the end of events. While players' final scores may be more scattered, it will still be possible for two or more players to finish with the same total.

Addressing something you said in the last paragraph: While it was a match, not a tournament game, a famous example of using rapid games to decide a winner was the 2016 World Championship, which was decided by a series of rapid games after being tied at the end of the scheduled 12 games.

As for comments from top players, the Wikipedia article linked to above notes that former World Champion Anatoly Karpov didn't like using rapid games to decide the (classical) World Champion. Former candidate Yasser Seirawan also disliked it. Carlsen himself expressed a desire for a different format, but it wasn't clear whether he dislikes the rapid tie breaker.


I think there are a few things here.

When playing a gambit line that maybe you do not know, the first thing I would recommend is not necessarily taking it. Either 3.Ne5 or even 3.d4 look safer.
On move four, you had the choice of taking two pawns, one that developed his N, and the other, which took a center pawn. The center P was easily the right way to go since you could then support it with d4.
After that, you totally neglected your king's safety. 5.Bb5 followed by a quick 0-0 was in order.
9.d4 letting him keep your king in the center with Ba6 was close to the fatal mistake practically. Your position according the computer is still OK, and might even have a small plus, but as a human, it is all but impossible to play accurately there. You need to keep that idea in mind: Is a position easy or difficult to play? Tal made a living giving the other guy a position that was tough to play, even if Tal's sacrifices were not always sound.
I liked that you played Rb1 instead of b3 weakening the dark squares. That was very good as that additional weakness might have been fatal.
When under attack, you should always be looking for ways to trade down, especially trading queens, thus missing the obvious 14.Qc6 hurt. You were virtually winning there.

The rest was really just tactical miss after tactical miss by both sides.

Lastly, after going through that with my computer and Stockfish compared to the lichess engine, I would say that you need to take some of the evals with a grain of salt.

  [FEN ""]
  1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 c6 4. dxc6 (4. Nxe5) 4... Nxc6 5. Nc3 (5. Bb5) Nf6 6. Bb5 e4 7. Bxc6+ bxc6 8. Ne5 (8. Qe2) 8... Qd6 (8... Qd4 9. Nxc6 Qc5) 9. d4 (9. Nc4) Ba6 10. Be3 Rb8 11. Rb1 Be7 12. f3 exf3 13. Qxf3 c5 14. Ne2 (14. Qc6+) cxd4 15. Bf4 (15. Qc6+) 15... Qb4+ 16. Kd1 (16. Bd2) 16... O-O Nc6 Bb7 18. Bxb8 (18. Nxb4 Bxf3 19. Bxb8 Bxg2 20. Rg1 Rxb8 21. Na6 Rb6 22. Rxg2 Rxa6 23. Nxd4) 18... Bxc6 19. Qxc6 Qxb8 20. Nxd4 Rd8 (20... Qf4 21. c3 Ne4 22. Nf3 Rd8+ 23. Kc2 Qf5) 21. c3 Qf4 22. Qf3 Qg5 (22... Rxd4+ 23. cxd4 Qxd4+ 24. Kc2 Qc4+) 23. Rf1 Bc5 24. Ke1 Ng4 25. Qxf7+ Kh8 26. Rf5 Qe3+ 27. Kd1 h6 28. Kc2 (28. Rxc5) 28... Bxd4 29. cxd4 Qe4+ 30. Kd2 Rxd4+ 31. Kc3 0-1


Is there an Android viewer that understands international language comments in PGN?

PGN files need to be converted to UTF-8 as pointed out by @Artem Mostyaev, then most apps would support this.


Have there been brilliancy prizes awarded to the losing player?

Not exactly a prize, but answers your question in spirit: Immortal Losing Game Wikipedia's summary of the game is:

The Immortal Losing Game is a chess game between the Soviet grandmaster David Bronstein and the Polish International Master Bogdan Śliwa played in 1957 in Gotha. The name is an allusion to the more famous Immortal Game between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. The game acquired its name because Bronstein, in a completely lost position, set a series of elegant traps in an attempt to swindle a victory from a lost game, although Śliwa deftly avoided the traps and won.


Best programable chess game on the market

More or less every chess program is able to load games, replay them and even  sometimes analyze them. Personally I use SCID for replaying PGN games. It is free and works very well.


Can I place my rooks upside down at the beginning of the game?

The FIDE laws of chess say nothing about upside-down rooks. However, starting with upside-down rooks is silly and if your opponent complains that it is annoying, I would expect the claim to be upheld.

  11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever.

https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018

The proper way of dealing with a missing queen (or any other piece) needed for promotion is to stop the clock and call the arbiter for assistance. However, the upside-down rook tradition comes from less formal settings, or maybe lower-budget situations where no arbiters with spare pieces in their pockets are close at hand.

It is interesting to note that the USCF rules explicitly allow the use of upside-down rooks for promotion:

  8F7. Promoted piece not available. If the desired piece is not available to replace a promoted pawn, the player may stop both clocks in order to locate that piece and place it on the board. A player who cannot quickly find such a piece may request the assistance of the director. It is common practice, however, to play using an upside-down rook for a second queen. In the absence of the player’s announcement to the contrary, an upside-down rook shall be considered a queen.

Just, Tim. US Chess Federation’s: Official Rules of Chess, 7th Edition.


Can white recover?

White is just fine. Sure, Black stands slightly better due to his better coordinated minor pieces, but the position is roughly equal.

  If someone could put a picture of the layout in that'd be great, I've
  looked (clicked edit) on posts with them and I cannot work out the
  format, also this is a setup, I didn't write down how I got there.

This thread covers the topic pretty good in my opinion.

  I really think black has the stronger position by far, but the midgame can very easily turn.

I believe that opening went something like this:

[fen ""]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 cxd5 5.Bf4 Bf5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.g3 e6 8.Qb3 Bb4 9.Bg2 O-O 10.O-O Qa5 11.Rac1 Ne4 12.Rfd1!?

Here, White's last move fortifies  the d4 pawn, leaving e2 pawn free which might be useful in some lines.

Sure, Black has aggressively posted minor pieces, but White finished development and is now ready to push them back. This means that Black will have to make exchanges which will reduce his pressure, or will have to fall back giving the initiative to White.

Therefore, I believe that the resulting position after Rfd1!? is unclear, with chances for both sides.

Since we look at this from White's perspective, it would be good if Black exchanged on c3 and if White could then get Black's lightsquared bishop for f3 knight. With a fortified d4 pawn he could launch e4 in appropriate moment in order to open his position for his bishops. In such position Nc6 would be badly posted since d4 pawn is fortified with c3 pawn.

Just for an example, I provide a sample line:

[fen ""]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 cxd5 5.Bf4 Bf5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.g3 e6 8.Qb3 Bb4 9.Bg2 O-O 10.O-O Qa5 11.Rac1 Ne4 12.Rfd1!? Rac8!? 13.Nh4 Nxc3 14.bxc3 Ba3 15.Ra1 Bg6 16.Nxg6 hxg6 17.e4+/=

Best regards.


What is the etiquette (or tournament rule) for the act of capturing a piece?

Seeing how Super Grandmasters capture pieces can be instructive:
Garry Kasparov
Capturing an adjacent piece:

Capturing a distant piece:

Source: YouTube
Carlsen (white) vs Caruana

Source: YouTube
Aronian (white) vs Morozevich

Source: YouTube
Hikaru Nakamura (white) vs Vladimir Kramnik

Source: YouTube
Summary:
With the exception of Kramnik, captures proceed as follows:

Lift the opponent's piece and palm it.
With the same hand, move your piece.
Stop the clock using the hand holding the captured piece.
Table the piece.

It's worth noting that it's OK to table the piece in your opponent's time; you do not have to table it before you stop the clock.
Kramnik (playing black in the final image) lifts his own piece before transposing it with Nakamura's pawn in one quick snap. Kasparov also does this with the pawn capture in the first gif. This isn't wrong, it's just a different – and perhaps more aggressive – style. It does not matter if you lift your piece or your opponent's piece first, but all high-level players touch both pieces and the clock with the same hand. (Note that Magnus as white tables the piece on his right even though the clock is on his left.)
It's probably safer not to use two hands for captures or castling, as tournament rules vary on the use of two hands, and it's been a source of controversy in the past. e.g. Giri vs Epishin, Supercube Blitz Utrect, 2009 (scroll down to "The Incident").


This is a great question and a fun problem to mull over. Indeed the way it's written on wikipedia one gets the impression that amazon-vs-empress fortresses are trivial and easily attainable for the weaker side, where in fact it's very difficult to even come up with dummy examples where the empress stands any chance of holding (so not surprising not to see a example diagram there). In other word, most amazon vs empress (also known as chancellor) endgames are in fact winning for the side with the amazon (intuitively, the amazon has diagonal routes towards the weak points in the empress' safezone), not even requiring the assistance of the king in order to dominate the empress+king duo.

Some intuition: You want to have the king of the side with the amazon to be well cornered by both the empress and the king, or at least for it to be in a different quadrant of the board compared to the amazon and near the opponent king (so all cases where the amazon and the king are somewhat central is highly likely to be winning already). The reason for this setup is that it allows you to defend certain checks with an empress-fork thus forcing the draw, while covering some key squares with the empress that otherwise would be exploited by the amazon to push the king towards the center and reach a winning situation again. One of the better scenarios for the amazon side would be: to pin the empress while having spare waiting moves with their king.

Note that in the diagram editor here the rook and queen will denote the empress and amazon respectively. Additionally, certain moves that would be illegal in standard chess thus disallowed by the diagram editor here, as we're using rook and queen instead of fairy pieces, would be mentioned in the annotations.

It's funny, if you just try to randomly set up any amazon vs empress ending, they're almost always losing for the empress-side. Now even though it is still possible to find some clear setups where the empress holds, it's important to note that fortresses of this kind constitute a minute fraction of the state-space of all legal amazon vs empress endgames. This observation is well corroborated by the statistics provided here for KA vs KC (C for Chancellor/empress): If you look at the third row in that table with the percentage breakdown, only 0.001052 % of all legal KA vs KC configurations comprise fortresses, with most other draws being by perpetual. The latter types of examples are simpler to showcase specially if it's the empress' side to move, whereas fortresses with the amazon side to move are highly non-trivial. Below some examples for both types of draws are showcased (annotated):

Fortress and perpetual examples:

 [title "empress+king fortress example#1 - black to move"]
 [fen "k7/8/K7/6q1/R7/8/8/8 b - - 0 1"]
 [StartFlipped "0"]

 1...Kb8 {the only amazon moves either force the draw immediately or lose on the spot because of the Rb6# threat. So only attempt is to move the king and try to escape but 2.Rb6+ Kc7 3.Rb5+ forces the draw with a fork. Thus, white is holding here.}

Another example:

 [title "empress+king fortress example #2 - black to move"]
 [fen "k7/6q1/K7/1R6/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1"]
 [StartFlipped "0"]

 1...Qa1+ {Again all key squares c7-b7-a7 are well covered, and any check on the 6th row loses immediately, so black's only other attempt is Qa1+} 2.Ra5 Qf6+ (2...Qf1+ 3.Kb6+ Kb8 {and black even gets mated here: 4.Rc6+ Ka8 5.Rc8#}) 3.Kb5+ Kb8 {and 4.Rc6+ forking and forcing the draw}

Now to show you how sensitive these fortresses are, let's take example#2 again with the added difference that the amazon is now in a position to pin the empress on the f1-a6 diagonal, and that suffices to break the fortress and win:

 [title "Losing variation of example#2: Amazon pins can be deadly!"]
 [fen "k7/8/K7/1R6/8/8/7q/8 b - - 0 1"]
 [StartFlipped "0"]

 1...Qe2 {pinning and the Zugzwang's set: both remaining king moves are losing} 2.Ka5 (2.Kb6 Qc4+ 3.Ka6 Qa4+ 4.Ra5 Qb4#) Qc4+ 3.Ka6 Qa4+ 4.Ra5 Qb4# (1...Qa2+ 2.Ra5 {setting up a discovery on the king while covering c4} Qe6+ (2...Qe2+ 3.Kb6+ Kb8 {4.Rc6+ Kb8 5. Rc8# mate.}) 3.Kb5+ Kb8 {and the 4.Rc6+ fork forces the draw.})

Finally, here's one trivial perpetual example:

 [title "Example#3 - perpertual, empress-side to move:"]
 [fen "7q/8/6k1/8/4K3/5R2/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

 1.Rf4+ Kg7 (1...Kg5 {leads to similar perpetuals}) 2.Rf5+ Kg6 {black can avoid the repetition but only at the cost of trading the remaining pieces.} (2...Kg8 {is followed by 3.Re7+ Kf8 4.Rc8+ winning the amazon}) 3.Rf4+

Other variations that look tempting:

Here's one that resembles a fortress but it probably isn't. The ideal scenario for the empress side would be something like 1...Qf8 after which the empress would try to check the king endlessly as it cannot hide behind the amazon anymore. But white doesn't have to play 1...Qf8, instead, staying on the long diagonal with a waiting move probably wins, e.g., 1...Qf6.

 [title "Example#4: other attempts worth considering"]
 [fen "8/8/8/5q2/8/2k5/1R6/K7 b - - 0 1"]
 [StartFlipped "0"]

 1...Qf8 {Any amazon check results in a fork forcing a draw, so we have to either make king moves or waiting amazon moves.} (1...Qf6 2.Kb1 {any rook move also loses on the spot, e.g. 2.Rb1+ Kc2+ 3.Ka2 Qe6+ 4.Ka1 Qa6+} Qf1+ 3.Ka2 Qc1+ 4.Ka3 Qxb2#)

Notice that any such pin with the king stuck in the corner is always losing, for instance:

 [title "Example#5: Pin exploitation to dominate the empress"]
 [fen "8/8/8/3k4/3q4/8/1R6/K7 b - - 0 1"]
 [StartFlipped "0"]

 1...Qg1+ 2.Ka2 (2.Rb1 Qa7+ 3.Kb2 Qa4+ 4.Kc1 Qa2+ {winning the empress}) Qc1+ 3.Ka3 Qa1+ 4.Ra2 Qb1+ {winning the empress}


Which is better in the Rossolimo Sicilian, 3... e6 or 3... g6?

It's really a matter of taste and style. One option may suit more your style than the other. But if you believe in a "moneyball approach", 3...e6 appears to be the "best" move for black based on a search on the 365chess.com website.
Regarding the number of games, I guess that the difference in black's winning chances (30.2% for 3...e6) versus (26% for 3...g6) should be statistically significant.

When you control for the level of players by focusing on the Master Database, the statistics also appear to favor 3...e6 over 3...g6.


TL;DR: a solution!
[FEN "rnbq1bn1/p2pp1p1/1p2r1Nk/2p4p/6PN/1BPP1p1P/PP2PP2/R1BQK2R w - - 0 1"]

32 pieces, no squares.
According to OEIS sequence A240443 and this particular pair of examples, 34 is the maximum possible number of square-free points on an 8x8 grid. As long as each file has at least two points in ranks 2-6, this is likely to give us a solution, if we just drop a couple of the points. (I picked two from the more crowded files.)
This is not intended to be optimal in number of moves - it just shows that a capture-free solution is possible, and is a starting-point for the search for the shortest (non-unique) proof game (which we now know lies somewhere between 4.5 & 7.5 moves).
The rest of this post gives more details.
Generalization to abstract math problem
Overall, I make it 336 possible “squares” on the chessboard, of which 140 are  non-tilted and 196 tilted. Since about 60% are tilted, avoiding the tilted squares in a general position is the harder challenge, although there were only 2 tilted squares to avoid in the game array.
Following an exploration into positions where ranks 3-6 were empty, I think the best general approach may be to forget about the chess for a while. We've got 64 nodes, and 336 "quartets", each of 4 nodes. What's the smallest subset of 64 which contains a member of each quartet? There is no a priori reason why that smallest subset should be greater than 32. (I.e. we might be able to have more than 32 pieces on a square-free board!) Anyway, after that smallest subset is determined, we can see how we can arrange chess pieces to avoid those squares on the board.
Having got a solution, the next thing might be to determine all maximal arrangements of 32-34 square-free points which allow for 2 pawns/file. (It’s the 34-pointers which are most interesting, although it’s possible that some position with 32 or 33 point might not be extensible to 34, so would be missed in any trawl of 34-pointers.) Can then look at the smallest number of moves to reach positions which have 32 pieces. In such open capture-free positions, it seems very unlikely that a unique proof game exists.
If anyone does get a list of these maximal 32-34 point diagrams, I would be grateful if they can be posted in GitHub. There is some python code in OEIS, I saw.
Bounds for shortest (non-unique) proof games
An earlier reconnaissance to look at homebase positions (i.e. where all surviving units are on their apparent starting squares) proved that a maximum of 23 units can remain on the board. A valid implication for the general problem is that any (non-unique or unique) proof game to a square-free position must have at least 4.5 moves (i.e. White moves at least 5 times). This bound is unlikely to be attainable.
Elsewhere in this thread, there is a solution in 7.5 moves. Any faster solution must therefore have at least 9 units on ranks 1 & 2, and at least 9 units on ranks 7 & 8. This constrains somewhat the search for interesting 32-34-pointers.


In engines vs engine game, both think "optimistically": that they are in better shape than what their opponent thinks the evaluation score is

It doesn't really matter what the absolute scores are, they really only serve to compare moves internally so only their relative values matter.

With one exception: positions that are evaluated at a draw get 0.0 by all these engines.

So this "optimism" factor is tuned to create a difference between a position that is merely equal and one that is a draw; if it's set to +0.1 for an equal position, then a position must be worse than -0.1 before taking a draw becomes preferable.

The usual name for this is the "contempt" setting. The current TCEC Rules say that the engine's default setting is used, so it can be set by the programmers before the tournament, and updated versions of the program can be entered for later stages of the tournament.

I think that in stage 1, an engine that has too many draws won't qualify for stage 2, so I'd expect some slightly higher than normal contempt, and this effect should be clearly lower in later rounds. But I'm a complete layman and this may be wrong.


How should one play as Black vs. the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation?

Do not exchange pieces, since this will bring White close to a winning endgame.

Use your two bishops and open up the board, so that you get a better middlegame.

Put your doubled pawns into action.


Try setting Options -> Windows -> Dock Windows.  If I understand your problem correctly, that may fix it.


Why does Black play 10...a6 in the A39 variation of the English opening?

This position is discussed in many books, the consensus being that 10... a6 is the best and most flexible move. As you say, black waits for white to reveal their hand, and a6 is generally useful. Play could continue 10... a6 11. Be3 Bf5 or 10... a6 11. Bd2 Rb8.

The move 10... Bf5 is a serious alternative since it provokes 11. e4, blocking the diagonal for white's bishop. In this variation white would ideally like to hold back e4 to keep the diagonal open. Still, white can keep an advantage in various ways. Marin in Grandmaster Repertoire 5 says that white should try to emulate Smyslov-Timman, Moscow 1981.

White often chooses a set-up with Bd2, b3 and Rac1, leaving black's Bg7 bishop with nothing to attack. In such a position black needs the b5 break to create active play. Therefore playing a5 is usually not a good idea.


Openings:

Questions of Modern Chess Theory by Isaac Lipnitsky - a Soviet classic. Gets into the ideas behind opening theory in general.

For specific opening lines - the Grandmaster Repertoire series tends to be quite good.

Middlegame:

Dvoretksy's Analytical Manual - I didn't get too far through it but it is an incredible workout.

Endgame:

Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, of course. If you learn everything in this book you will have endgame knowledge that far surpasses most masters.

Practical Rook Endings - Korchnoi. Quite expensive in this listing but I found one for $15 a few years ago.

Most books by John Nunn.

General:

Any well-regarded selection of annotated games from a GM is immensely helpful. Keres, Tal and Shirov's collections are great, to name a few.


One of the very best opening book series is Grandmaster Repertoire of Quality Chess. Also Chess Stars Publishing is known for publishing high-level opening books.

There is a new chess publisher that looks promising: Thinkers Publishing. Currently, they have an opening book on the Richter-Rauzer and this year they'll publish books discussing the Grünfeld, Taimanov and King's Indian.

You can also take a look at the ChessPub Forum. They have topics on practically every opening line.


From the start of the game what is the longest possible series of consecutive white moves where white can do those moves no matter what black does?

Three moves.

On move 3, Black can crash through with his queen on f2 or d2 via several different squares, forcing White to respond. There is no series of White moves that can prevent all such checks.

[FEN ""]

1. Nf3 (1. e3 e5 2. c3 Qf6 3. g3 Qxf2+) 1... c6 (1... e5 2. c3 Qh4 3. e3 Qxf2+) 2. g3 Qa5 (2... Qb6 3. c3 Qxf2+) 3. e3 Qxd2+ *


Is there any transposition available in between QGA and other openings?

One transposition white can try is from the French Exchange variation (if you know your opponent plays the French).

[FEN ""]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. c4 dxc4 (4... Nf6) 5. Bxc4

It transposes to the variation 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 e5 4. Bxc4 exd4 5. exd4 from this question.

In the French move order, clever black players won't take the pawn on c4 already on move 4, but will wait until white plays Be2. If white then later regains a pawn with Bxc4, the bishop will have lost a tempo.


What is the difference between a brilliant move and the best move?

Just my opinion.
The best move is the one with the best evaluation, with the exception of the "computer moves" which only delay the real threat for a move.
A brilliant move is not only good but has a surprise value.  A correct sacrifice easily qualifies, but a move with an unusual (and correct plan do tend to be brilliant.  There are two examples:  a computer played Re1 in it's match against Kramnik with the plan to get the rook to g3 and a game (I think) by Fischer where he played a4 followed by Ra1-a3-b3 just to make black slightly more passive by having to defend the b6 pawn.  (Normally every contributor would try to find these examples, but. right now, I don't have the energy.)
BTW, this question is really a matter of opinion and shouldn't be asked.  When/If this question gets closed, try to learn from the experience.


Ubisoft's Chessmaster: Grandmaster edition allows you to set games between artificial players. One is the engine itself and there are simulated top players, e.g. Anand. You can set the games from the starting position or from a set position.

Please see my answer to Looking for a good chess program with a couple of features for relevant screenshots.


Can computer software that doesn't use databases still beat best in world?

In the recent Nakamura - Stockfish match, Stockfish played with a one pawn handicap.

Additionally "According to match conditions, Stockfish was not allowed to access either an opening book or an endgame tablebase.".

Without opening database and with a one pawn handicap, Stockfish still beat Nakamura quite handily 3-1.


I don't know about the practical reasons that you suggest, but I imagine retirement is a way to tell your fans and the world "stop bugging me!". :-) Super-GMs probably retire when they feel they are past their peak and would rather retire at the top of their game than have the world see them decline.

That said, retirement is not irreversible! For example look at Kasparov, who "retired" in 2005 and yet has reappeared in tournaments from time to time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov#Retirement_from_chess.


What is the quickest way to reach a mutual, symmetrical stalemate?

The fastest known is in 37 plies. I found this in Journal Entry #361 on Tim Krabbe's website, which in turn pulled it from the 2007 5th issue of the chess magazine "Best Problems."
[Title "Evgeny Ghik, Shakhmatyi i Matematika 1983, Non-Unique Proof Game In 18.5 Moves"]
[FEN ""]

1. e4 d5 2. e5 d4 3. c3 f6 4. Qf3 Kf7 5. Qxb7 Qd5 6. Kd1 Qxg2 7. Kc2 Qxf1 8. Qxc8 Qxg1 9. Qxb8 Rxb8 10. Rxg1 Rb3 11. Rg6 Ra3 12. Rh6 gxh6 13. bxa3 Kg7 14. Kb2 d3 15. e6 a5 16. h4 a4 17. h5 c5 18. f4 c4 19. f5

In case the PDF link goes cold, here are the relevant sections.


The blatantly obvious answer would be Magnus Carlsen who is also the No.1 player in the world, his ability to squeeze out wins from drawn endings is unsurpassed (with a few exceptions, e.g Andersson and Smyslov). Other than that I would naturally consider Vladimir Kramnik, although it is very hard to draw the lines between the various stages of the game nowadays as most of the top players nowadays are extremely versatile and have a universal style of play.


The White Queen was captured on h6 by the Black Pawn.

The reasoning is as follows:

 * It is impossible for both White bishops to move from their start squares, so they were both captured by Black knights.

 * White's other two missing pieces are a knight and the queen. Black has two displaced pawns that are there as the result of captures (pawn on e6 and h6), So both of those pawns captured White pieces.

* Essentially the White queen developed from it's d1 start square to b1-a2 and then outside of White's pawn chain

* Which means the question is how did White's pawn get from a2 to b3. Black has no pawns missing. The Black queen and both knights are on the board, which means White's pawn capture of a2 to b3 was capturing the Black light-squared bishop (which started on c8).

* But, how did Black's bishop get from c8 to b3? Via the d7-square, which is unblocked by the black pawn capture d7xe6. That capture must have been of the missing White knight, because the White queen couldn't get to e6 to unblock the black dark-squared bishop.

So the time series of key events:

* Black's knights marauded around the board capturing both White bishops on their start squares, and returned to g8 and c6

* White's knight got to e6 and was captured by the black pawn on d7, thus allowing the Black light-squared bishop to develop. The other knight stayed on the queenside. One of White's knights captured the black dark-squared bishop on f8.

* Black's now freed bishop landed on b3, and was captured by the a2 pawn. This freed the White Queen

* The White queen developed via b1 and a2, reached h6 and was captured by the Black pawn on g7.


How do I register for a tournament that appears in the FIDE website but not on chess-results?

FIDE used to publish contact details for arbiters but they no longer do so. However if you can look up any of the three mentioned arbiters and find contact details locally that would be your quickest route.

Failing that your next best bet would be to contact the Sudan Chess Federation. There the email address is given as sudanchessfed@yahoo.com and the phone number as +249916177000. Additional (different) phone numbers are given for the president and two vice presidents. You could also try these.


Any tricks to defeat artificial intelligences?

Five ideas in my head to win against AI's chess:

trying to play unusual openings
better knowing theory than AI for several openings
trying to play avant-gardist positions (sacrifices and planning move in advance)
analyzing games of AI to determine the way it plays
trying to know how AI has been programmed

You have tips here and interesting information there.


r1bqr1k1/pp5p/2nb1p2/2p5/Q1Pp2pN/1P4B1/P3BPPP/4RRK1 b - - 0 1

1... d3
2. Bxd3 (2. Bd1 Bxg3 3. hxg3 d2 4. Rxe8+ Qxe8 5. Qb5 Qe5) Rxe1
3. Rxe1 Bxg3
4. Bxh7+ Kxh7
5. hxg3

And Black wins the Bishop for two pawns.

Edit - I ran this position through Stockfish and was surprised to learn that Black is already about 2.5 pawns "up" while material is even.

The initial variation is inferior to the one that follows from Seth's suggestion below. My suggested move makes it much easier for Black. After Seth's "1. Bd1", there are no fireworks but it looks like Black improves his position with a dominating Queen in the center and a pawn on d2. Both players remained jammed up. If Black can activate his Rook and Bishop he's going to have a great game.


Why don't chess tournament organisers use top-down camera angles?

I see a couple of reasons not to do this:

It's a lot harder to distinguish the pieces. For example, bishops and pawns look really similar, and the black queen and king look similar too.

When you watch a game as an on-site spectator, you don't view it top-down either. Even better: the players themselves don't view the board top-down, but from an angle.

Video streams are often accompanied by a live analysis board, which is top-down and offers much more (the remaining time for both players, the evaluation of the current position and the best lines according to a strong engine). A top-down video stream would basically duplicate this.
They can, as you say, be a little out-of-sync with the video (on a slow connection, the live board can be even faster because of buffering) but that seems (to me) like a better problem to tackle. Maybe the next generation of livestreams will be able to do this?

The lamp standard in your picture would rather annoy me as a player, but hanging from the ceiling (like some other lamps) would bypass that particular problem.


What is the best chess magazine in the world? And what makes a great chess magazine today?

Chess Informant and Chess Life are targeting very different strata; it is not possible to compare them.

When I was growing up in 60s and 70s - in Soviet Union - we the amateurs were reading "Shakhmaty v SSSR" and "64". I didn't bother reading the Bulletin until I reached a Kandidate Master level. The Informant was of use for professional only.

Books were much more important than magazines. Every serious tournament (such as USSR championship, Chigorin, the Interzonal, etc) was followed up with the corpus of heavily analyzed games. There was also an unspoken rule (attributed to and driven by Botvinnik) that each Grandmaster must publish at least one book.

Sorry for ranting.


Take the following factors into account:

roughly how many moves you can memorize (if you can't memorize 5 moves or so, at least avoid stuff like the Ruy Lopez)
style (don't play the King's Gambit if you are a positional player)
your ability to gauge whether an opening fits or doesn't fit any of the above (this is kind of an abstract concept)


GM Nigel Davies has a training DVD on opening tricks&traps, I'm sure you will like it.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/nigel-davies-tricks-traps-vol-1

Also, in lichess.org, there are quizzes for finding good development moves in openings, I recommend you to take a look.

By the way, lichess.org can be used by it's Android application, if you don't want to use it from website.


First, let's make a difference between knowing how to play in the opening and opening theory.

You need to know how to play the opening. At first this means you need to know what your goal is in the opening (development, king safety, center control, preventing your opponent from reaching the same) and what that translates to in actual positions. Then you need to have some plan of which openings you want to play, and you must know what the strategic goals of each are, how to play them. Otherwise it's going to be hard to find good moves. After any serious game you should analyze it and figure out what went right and what to do differently next time, and that is true for the opening just as much as for the rest of the game.

On the other hand, opening theory is the almost scientific search for a White advantage. It is about specific lines and once it has been demonstrated that black can equalize in a certain line, opening theory stops being interested. Until the day that someone tries a move that hadn't been considered before and that does lead to a White advantage, until Black's answer to it is found... There are mountains of theory and it's impossible to know it all. If you know a lot of it, and you get it on the board, and it happens to be a line that Black hasn't equalized in yet, you might get an advantage. Which will be useless unless you are strong enough to convert that advantage into a win.

It can be fun to follow opening theory, and if you learn it you can play the first moves like the top GMs do and that is fun, but I don't think knowing a lot of it helps your chess results at all.

For instance, take this position:

[FEN ""]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Be7 5.cxd5 exd5

Theory is not interested in this position, as it is a version of the QGD Exchange in which Black has it relatively easy, as he will soon be able to play ...Bf5 and equalize. Books on opening theory will tell you that if White wants to play the Exchange Variation, he should play 4.cxd5 and hold back the king's knight for now.

Sadler in his book on the QGD however notes that it is extremely important to understand positions like this really well, because he used to be beaten in these equal positions as Black again and again "as a young IM". Understanding normal positions is the key to understanding an opening. But they're not interesting to theory.

Let's follow Magnus Carlsen. He played 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3 a few days ago, the Ponziani. It is generally ignored by theory since Black has many ways to equalize. Then he just played chess, and eventually beat the #5 in the world. That's a lot of hours of studying theory saved.

Work to understand the normal positions in your chosen openings, by playing through instructive games, playing them and analyzing them a lot. Don't memorize theory.


Failing to understand a pin from a tactics book

To me one move was clear -

  Nxd5

But after 1...cxd5 2.Rc7, although the knight is pinned for a move, Black can easily unpin it by moving the queen to d6, d8, e6, or e8.  In fact, the knight is not even fully pinned - Black could move it to c5 and force a queen trade.  You've sacrificed the knight for a pawn, and get no lasting pin.

  Why 1. ...Rfc8 and not Rfb8, attacking the queen?

Well, after 2.Qxc6 Black has lost a pawn.  And after that move the d5 pawn is threatened twice and not defended, so Black must play 2...Nxc3 if he wants to have a shot at saving it. But now he's traded off a well-placed knight, and after 3.Rxc3, d5 is isolated and still needs a defender, and White will gain solid control of the c-file and will be up a pawn.

Rfc8 is shown here, not necessarily because it's Black's best move, but because in order to figure out how to proceed against it (and that Qb7 is a good move in the first place), you need to see the pin that Nxd5 exploits.  (And if this is based off an actual game, it might be the move actually played in the game.)

  Why does black resign after Rxc6!!?

Because he's down two pawns, and White will control the only open file.  There's a threat of Ne7+ which limits Black's options in the coming moves.