All Questions

Have there been brilliancy prizes awarded to the losing player? Preferably at a grandmaster level.

Same question as this but now in 2021 and for both computers (no need to answer again for computers, if it's about the same as the answer before, I guess) and humans, and I don't care about sample ...

I want to install stockfish to winBoard 4.4.5. But winBoard 4.4.5 doesn't seem to have the same protocol as stockfish. Is there a way to do it on windows 10? I would like to install the latest version ...

I recently played a game featuring the Old Sicilian with a bit of a branch-off. White played 3. Bc4 after 2. Nf3 Nc6, which I don't deal well with. I ended up playing 12... d4, attacking the White ...

I am wondering if there's a solution to this puzzle anywhere. [FEN "3r4/p4k2/1p2bb1p/2p2pp1/5P2/1NP1B2P/PP4P1/4R1K1 w - - 0 1"] Here's the description of the puzzle in Clive Ke's "How ...

According to lichess, if Black simply goes 3...Nf6 against the Two Knights Variation, then the main line is 4.e5 Nfd7 5.d4. This is the exact same position as White would have reached if they'd played ...

Is the following position [FEN "8/P1R5/K3p3/4k3/B3b3/8/8/1r6 w - - 0 1"] a win ( for White) or a draw? The position above is derived from a variation of Stockfish vs Komodo TCEC Season 19 ...

Inspired by the LiChess "French leave" question: In a standard time-control you can think almost two hours about your move, and even two-and-a half or three if you blitzed beyond the 40 move ...

I was playing a game with someone and they left because they knew they were going to lose. This is a really annoying thing that has happened to me. I would like to know if there is a chess program ...

I want to play online chess with a real chess board. I learned that lichess can read the opponent's moves out loud, so I don't have to stare at the screen, which is a good start. Now I need a way to ...

So from what I understand, a kingside attack can be started as long as the centre is closed. I very recently started looking into the King's Indian Attack as an opening for white against the French ...

I am writing a java program to connect to the Stockfish Engine and get the best move for some FENs. My Connection code is : public class connector { private Process engineProcess; private ...

On analyzing my games, I found that I usually miss tactics in the opening than during middlegame and endgame. To supplement my study by solving tactical problems based on motifs, it would be helpful ...

I am creating a chess GUI for UCI engine as a hobby. I keep the history of moved positions (e.g., (4,6) -> (4,4) for the pawn in front of the white king moving forward 2 squares) and the type of ...

Not sure if this is the right place... I would need no help in compiling a list of chess movies or even chess literature scenes. Comics, though, are a more fleeting medium, and here a list would be ...

I saw this question, but it does not answer my question. I was following a Dvoretsky endgame manual and came across this diagram. Now, I understand why c5 and c7 are corresponding squares and also ...

There are 100 square block-based stone boards that were excavated from a 5500 year old site. There were some pieces and broken stone board recovered. This ancient game it for was called Shadyantra. I ...

I need help to generate structured data from the PGN file as discs into a list in Python, or similar. For example, say that I need to read this PGN file. ###############################################...

Say my opponent puts me in check. If I move my queen to block the check and it also puts my opponent in check, is that legal?

This is a position from an endgame I played that I do not understand. How did I get a checkmate in this game? Is this a glitch? I ask this because I am pretty sure that Black's queen could take my ...

What are Black's plans to play for an advantage in this variation? [FEN ""] 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. h4 h5 5. Bd3 Bxd3 6. Qxd3 e6 The kingside development seems so slow, allowing ...

As much as people fear losing their jobs to machines that can do them better, Chess has seen the exact opposite take shape. There have been extremely strong chess bots since Kasparov's time, and more ...

I was analyzing a game on chess.com and it showed me that, in the below scenario, it is better to promote to a rook instead of promoting to a queen. It also shows that it has a mate in 6 with the ...

Assuming we're playing white and a bank rank mate is being threatened. Which one of the pawns (f, g, or h), in most cases, should be moved? Is there a general rule for this?

Searching for the Mackenzie(?) or Mcallister (?) attack: White King’s pawn opening led to good center control with Bishop and both Rooks at d1 and e1. Can’t the replay on Chess.com because I wasn’t ...

You know, both for entertainment and to analyze what moves he made were blunders/sub-optimal? Like, the handicap thing is not a real game, and also humiliating for the grandmaster. Like how would a ...

The context I am not into chess, but The Queen’s Gambit revealed its interesting world, and something got stuck into my mind. As shown by this article the movie had to make compromises, especially ...

Are there any tools that can find weaknesses in your games based on your Lichess history (eg, you often play a particularly bad line in a certain opening, or often fall for a certain trap), and then ...

I noticed on lichess.org that the shorter the time control, the higher the world-leading elo is. Is there a simple explanation for that? I also noticed that, in the meantime, the shorter the time ...

Stockfish uses a GPLv3 license, which requires you to release your source code if you use it. This then makes your own code GPLv3. However, chess.com, chessable and decodechess all use Stockfish. So, ...

I bet I would play already 200 ELO better if I'd only check if my move isn't a complete tactical blunder. This obviously begs the question if engine cheating can be as easily detected if I'd only use ...

I want to find a sequence of knight moves that has a given origin and destination squares, preferably with the minimum number of moves. I can iterate over knight moves and collect visited squares, ...

A long time ago, someone told me about the negative thinking method. There is a saying that in every position there is a move that will not worsen it. The method goes as follows. You chose n candidate ...

I am a beginner. Recently I have looked at the computer-generated analysis of one of my games and I found a surprising recommendation. Why is it best to sacrifice my Queen in this situation, as the ...

I am not a native English speaker and I'm learning to play online chess. I often find a sentence with this pattern. White is down a rook for a pawn. What does it mean? Could you elaborate on this ...

For example, take this famous position from Kramnik vs. Deep Fritz, 2005: [FEN "5N1k/6p1/7p/4P3/pp2Q3/4q3/1P4PP/2b4K w - - 0 1"] Obviously White wins with Qh7#, and equally obviously, there ...

I've been writing my chess engine for 2 months now, and I've come across this bug that I can't manage to solve. Basically, when I disable my transposition table, the engine plays fine and the minimax ...

I have a lot of questions about ratings, which are sort of connected, but I think I better split them. This is pair 1. I googled a bit: By definition, ELO>100, and someone said (chess.com) he ...

A quaint question I had lately; what is the earliest known appearance to "Fool's Mate"? I refer to both the name and/or the move sequence. A quick search with Google Books revealed a ...

A family friend wants to teach her grandchild how to play chess. The problem is that, due to the pandemic, they live apart from each other, so she has to do this online. Is there some website where ...

The game analysis tool of chess.com tells me I should have done a move which looks impossible to me. Obviously my move, e1, was very stupid. But what the game tells me seems impossible. Is it a bug? ...

Chess ratings are a relative thing at a particular time, just like boxing. It is not absolute, compared to weightlifting for example, in which the records keep getting broken. How would say a 1700 ...

I am learning chess and came across this position. Stockfish 11+ HCE (Depth 32/99) and Stockfish 13 (Depth 31/47) both says ...d5 is the best move for Black. But the next move is exd6 e.p., leaving ...

I'm sending a request to the chess.com API to https://api.chess.com/pub/player/hikaru/games/2021/03 It will return all the games played by Hikaru in March of 2021, the interesting data is in the PGN ...

Kramnik vs Topalov 1996 King Indian Bayonet Attack. After a ferocious Attack Kramnik did gain a pawn indeed on move 29, but failed to increase his advantage further and only drew the game. According ...

There are different game duration on chess.com. What do options 1|1, 2|1 etc. mean?

What is the number of distinct checkmate positions in each of the following categories given the following conditions? We are not interested in whether the position can be forced or not or even what ...

Here is the position: What would you do if you only had 5 seconds on the clock?

In the good old days when I saw a chess diagram I didn't have to guess which way the pawns were going; there was a convention that the white pawns moved up the board. When and why did upside down ...

In the common literature, it appears as truth that Karpov missed the winning a6! instead of Rxd1 on move 33, Game 41, in the first Karpov vs Kasparov match. But is the following position, derivate ...