All Questions

While browsing the Chess Stack Exchange and Puzzling Stack Exchange sites, I've come across several instances where people have found loopholes in the rules of chess, causing these loopholes to be ...

I'm working on a chess AI for a school project and I am looking into ways to identify the current phase of a board, meaning the opening, middlegame, and endgame. I have seen an article explaining ...

How do Grandmasters think in an unknown position and make the best move?

I have heard the Bongcloud opening mentioned on Chess.com, but I have never heard of that. Is this a real opening? What is this opening?

I hope this is the right place to post this question. So I like to implement things myself without using libraries and one of my first projects was a chess engine and I would like to improve this one. ...

I have a DGT 2010 Limited Edition chess clock (red version from 2013) and I want to know the market value. I can't find any listings for it on ebay or chess shop websites, other than old pages from ...

I'm new to chess. In the position below, lichess analysis says that Nxd5 is the best move for white. But can't black just capture the knight afterwards with his pawn and threaten white's pawn and rook ...

I play correspondence daily. My reason to do it is I am weak in openings and I can survive to the middlegame because I have access to databases; and I want to learn how to survive the opening and to ...

I want to ask about whether using and adopting a rarely used opening makes you a stronger player. I just started playing online chess (Lichess) a year ago, and as a beginner, I used to play the ...

I was watching this video on Youtube of an Armageddon game between Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov which happened in 1995. It can be seen that Kasparov is using both of his hands for some moves. (...

I would like to know what is the reason why g5 is a necessary move for Black. I now see that what I played Bd7 is horrible as it hangs a pawn on d6 after Qb4. I cannot see why I should weaken the f5 ...

I'm new to stack exchange, and I was wondering: how do I insert a PGN? I want to use them to show different openings, review moves, etc.

I came across Anderssen's 'immortal game': [FEN ""] 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Bc4 Qh4+ 4. Kf1 b5 5. Bxb5 Nf6 6. Nf3 Qh6 7. d3 Nh5 8. Nh4 Qg5 9. Nf5 c6 10. g4 Nf6 11. Rg1 cxb5 12. h4 Qg6 13. h5 Qg5 14. ...

After watching a series of ChessBase India videos on YouTube, it is clear that GM's can easily remember 100s (possibly 1000's) of positions. Look at this one example by Vidit Gujrathi: https://www....

From here: What is the best age to learn chess? it seems that consensus is that that kids can start learning chess at almost any age. From around 5 years old they are big enough to learn the names ...

Knowing nothing but the rules of chess, I'd like to start learning a bit more. Some kind of tutorial app for my Android smartphone would be perfect as I can use it anywhere. The app should give ...

Wikipedia page for GM Granda from Peru says: Julio Granda does not study opening theory. He has said that he has only read a chess book, the third volume of the General Chess Treaty of Roberto ...

What is the most amazing chess position you have seen? I have been wanting to ask this question for a while, but feared it would be closed. Since the "Uniquely Satisfying Puzzle" and "What is the ...

Here is a fun puzzle I found some time ago. It was created by Karl Fabel in 1952 and published in Rätselstunde. Goal [title "White to move and NOT checkmate in one!"] [fen "B5KR/1r5B/6R1/2b1p1p1/...

I started playing chess long before the Internet or even computers were tools that could help you learn chess. Trainer GM Arthur Yusupov believes that you should set up every position on a board, and ...

Vladimir Kramnik has proposed on chess.com that castling be banned for the good of the game. What are the kinds of objective points that might be made for & against this idea? Based on these, do ...

I'm solving mate-in-2 puzzles from the Polgar 5334 problems book. Many of these are composed problems, and are hard (for me) to solve. Often I have to spend 10-15 minutes before finding the solution....

Two days ago, I played, a game as Black and after the analysis I was quite surprised to see that the computer suggested, in several moves throughtout the game, the move d5. In this position I think ...

I would like to know the reason behind the very weakening move g4 recommended by Stockfish in this position:

I'm a hobbyist chess programmer. I've built a few engines from scratch, had lots of fun, and am generally pretty proud of what I've made (I estimate ~1400-1500 though it's hard to tell). I was very ...

I am looking for software preferably local interface on windows, to play human+engine against engine with access to search parameters such as depth and "greed" or dismissal factor (controlling ...

Garry Kasparov has been an unsuccessful politician and there have been several successful politicians who have also been quite good chess players, but have any of them achieved the IM or GM title? ...

I am currently working on a small side project and want to write a chess tournament manager in Haskell. To properly set up the data structures I am wondering what the possible results of a chess game ...

If I took a legal chess position, to what extent could an engine work out the previous moves? [in some other board games such as Othello such game reconstruction is done easily with an engine.]

How do you meet d4-d6 when your opponent doesn’t play the Old Indian, and the setup is d6-Nbd7-e5, which is Pirc territory? [fen ""] 1. d4 d6 2. null Nd7 3. null e5 When this happens, can I play ...

I am looking for open-source/free chess apps with basic 2D design, which can essentially be used as board editors offline, having features of the type: Importing PGN games, or setting up a position ...

A long time ago I used to play OTB blitz chess at a chess club. We had club blitz tournaments [5 mins each with no increment because the clocks were old-school chess clocks]. I was new to blitz. I ...

In a reply to another question, I made an explicit presumption that under FIDE Laws, a player can move as soon as the opponent’s move has been made. But someone wondered if this was this really ...

The FIDE Handbook has a section called Regulations on Seminars & Title Award for Organizers where it describes what you need to do to get the FIDE International Organizer title. It says: Scope /...

Motivation: I am trying to make a basic AI agent that can play chess against an opponent. The goal is to see how good it can become through the use of machine learning later on and also learn the ...

There are some situations in chess where a pawn push in the center is the most played move, and also the one suggested by engines. However this is not done for winning material, but just for trading ...

I have played chess since a very young age and my tactics are very developed in my opinion. However, I never bothered to read chess related books about opening or related theory. This often leads to ...

Does anyone have any suggestions for intermediate chess books? Tactics or endgames would be the topic that I'd mainly like to focus on!

Who is the oldest person to become a GM via norms and hitting 2500 in rating? In other words, the standard way that most GMs achieve the title. This would rule out any of the old masters pre-FIDE, ...

I searched this online and couldn't find sufficient answers. Is there a topic in chess that includes machine learning and would be sufficient for a PhD thesis? I was thinking of utilizing a CNN that ...

I was playing a game on Lichess the other day and all the sudden the system ended the game, awarded me the victory, and said "Cheating by White detected". How in the world could you cheat on the ...

The longest possible normal game of chess has been calculated, but I want to know what the longest possible game of Horde Chess is. What makes this an interesting case is the crazy amount of pawn ...

I downloaded a bunch of games from Kingbase which included the below game. [Event "FSIM November 2018"] [Site "Budapest HUN"] [Date "2018.11.06"] [Round "4.4"] [White "Farago, Sandor"] [Black "Li, ...

I want to learn more about rook and pawn endgames because they are very common. But it’s such a broad subject - where should I even begin? For example, I do know of the Philidor and Lucena positions, ...

I like to play the Caro-Kann as black, and in response to the advance variation play 3... c5!? This works really well for me (~1800 USCF), but as I've gotten better I'm being forced to deal with the ...

I once had 1800 chess books before I sold off about 600 of the least-good ones and doubles (I used to buy entire collections from people, so you get some stuff you do not want). I know an IM friend ...

I have heard about "chronological order" in chess. But I don't know what it is exactly. Can someone tell me what this is?

Games with two knight promotions are extremely rare, but a few have existed. In an article of his, Tim Krabbe stated that, about the game Zurakhov - Koblentz, "This is one in only 5 games with two ...

I have faced this fairly often in quite a few openings, but there seems to be a theme with players putting their Bishop on a square like h6, supported by a queen and attacking the fianchettoed Bishop ...

I was White in this position, and Black had just played f6. [FEN "r1bqkb1r/ppppn1pp/2n2p2/1B2p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQ1RK1 w kq - 0 1"] I played c3 to prepare a push of d4 and strike the center. ...