Questions tagged [analysis]
Questions relating to the objective assessment of a position. The assessment may entail which side has the advantage, or what the best move might be.
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Can a king capture a piece that is protected by another piece even if that piece is pinned to its own king? [duplicate]
I was doing a Chess puzzle that I don't understand. The puzzle starts with pieces at locations as follows:
Black King E1
Black Pawn E2
Black Rook D1
White King E4
White Rook E6
The puzzle then moves ...
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0
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Baroque/Ultima vs. Chess
Baroque a.k.a. Ultima is a chess variant in which all the pieces except the kings have quite different powers than in regulation chess. They all make non-capturing moves like queens (except the "...
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Can previous and continuing research on N-piece tablebases be used toward human theory of chess?
This follows another questions here:
What is the status for EIGHT piece endgame tablebases?
My answer there was appropriately removed as being question in reaction to that question, well in light of ...
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What engine & setup can I use to analyze a Bughouse position from a single board only (one board), taking into account the pieces in hand?
I have looked at the Sjeng and the Bughousechess.wz.cz website and the answers in the other page. This is not quite a Crazyhouse equivalent analysis, due to the capture mechanics. The pages are very ...
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4
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Is this position a draw?
I was playing at my local chess club on Sunday and I had the position below as white. Me and my opponent continued for a while before finally agreeing to a draw. When I play it against bots as white ...
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3
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Most imbalanced (but equal) chess position?
I recently found this beautiful position, Position 11 where White sacrifices a bunch of material and then there are a bunch of crazy variations that all end in draws. For example this variation which ...
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Mate Solving or problem solving software
I have some positions in my games which engine analysis indicates that some lines (not the ones I played) lead to a checkmate in 6 or 7 or 10 moves.
But normal engines are not reliable here so I use ...
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Why is h3 a mistake?
This is the 12th move of this game I played as white: https://lichess.org/b7B16RLF/white#22
[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. Be3 { C65 Ruy Lopez: Berlin Defense, Kaufmann ...
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1
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Why is Ba4 an inaccuracy here? Why is Bd3 the best move?
I played this game recently as white: https://lichess.org/b7B16RLF/white#18
[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. Be3 Bxe3 6. fxe3 d6 7. d4 Bd7 8. Nc3 O-O 9. Qe2 a6 10. Ba4 ...
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How to play Botvinnik-Carl's defence in the Caro-Kann when White responds with 4. c3?
In the Caro-Kann, Botvinnik-Carl's defence, Black typically wants White to take on c5 so Black can play e6, preparing Bxc5 and Nc6. However, I have been seeing the move c3 after c5 a lot.
How can I ...
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1
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What’s my best move here?
I ask regarding for this position below.
[Title "White to move"]
[fen "5r1r/1p6/p1p2p2/2P1bPpk/4R3/6PP/P2B2K1/3R4 w - - 0 1"]
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What's wrong with the way white is playing?
I have played an opening I can't find anywhere online. So I'm guessing it's wrong. Can someone tell me what are the weaknesses in white's strategy? Or is it simply a matter of black not being able to ...
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Why is Nf6 a blunder here?
With Nf6, I'm trying to bring my Knight out. If the Bishop takes it, I can take the Bishop with by g7 pawn. Why is this a blunder?
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Why is Nh6 a mistake here? Why is Nf6 the best move?
I'm analyzing this game between me and Stockfish Level 1 on lichess.org: https://lichess.org/0SvUBEu0/black#4
With Nh6 I was trying to counter a possible Bxf7+. Without Nh6, the King would have to ...
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2
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Why is Qe7 a blunder here?
I'm a chess beginner. I played this game against Stockfish and according to Lichess' analysis, Qe7 was a blunder here, and the best move actually was c6. I can't understand why?
[Title "Why is ...
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Chess Tree Visualization Tool (no engine or database needed)
Looking for a Good Visualization Tool
I am looking for a good tool to use for visualization of the game tree and for exploration of variations during correspondence games.
The tool would need to ...
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1
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Rooks obstructed by pawns; how to give chessmate?
I played Black in 5 minute game, and reached this position with one minute left.
White moved its bishop close to my knight. I played knight takes knight, the white pawn took my knight. However, due ...
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131
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Unique checkmates count analysis
How many unique checkmates are there from this starting position?
I can only see 5 lines on lichess from a game I've played and have tried several different moves.
Mate in 4 is the fastest but I've ...
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Tools to study positions with partial information?
TL;DR Is there a chess engine or other tools to study a "position" where the exact location of certain pieces is not known?
From the following chess position, a plan could be to win the a2 ...
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1
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Why is this the best move?
I was just reviewing my game and was wondering why the AI would think this is the best move. All I see is giving white a free knight.
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What are some good endgame books?
I know some people have asked about general good books or middle game books. But I read someone said that the best way to start learning chess is by studying endgames, so I ask: What are some good ...
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Best Repetoire Building Tools
I want to build an opening repertoire manually.
what are the computer tools to do that?
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Why did I lose -> I thought I can swap king and castle to avoid checkmate? [duplicate]
[FEN "6nN/Bp1k2pp/2n5/p7/Q4R1P/5pP1/P3qN2/4K2R w K - 0 1"]
As you can see my king got checkmated through the enemy's queen and pawn.
My question is, why is this a checkmate? I haven't moved ...
anon
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2
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What is the status for EIGHT piece endgame tablebases?
An earlier question here asked in 2012 about the status of 7-piece tablebases. Today complete 7-piece tables are widely available.
So today, what is the status of 8-piece endgame tablebases?
How ...
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What's the fastest way to detect blunders with an engine?
My main goal is to detect blunders in chess games.
I wrote a python program that loads a large pgn database and then analyses the games. I did it by letting Stockfish go through every game and every ...
4
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4
answers
380
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Is 2. c3 the best response against the Caro-Kann?
On chess.com, I was playing as White and my opponent played the Caro-Kann. I personally like the accelerated Panov Attack, 2. c4, but my mouse slipped and I played 2. c3. I was very mad when I did ...
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Why does GM Larry claim that this sacrifice is brilliant?
On this webpage GM Larry Kaufman claimed (at least up to 2012) that the following move was brilliant:
[Title "Kasparov vs Shirov (Horgen 1994)"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/...
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Where does the queen go in the Ponziani with 5 ..?
Consider this line
[Title "Ponziani"]
[fen ""]
[Startply "14"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3 Nf6 4. d4 Nxe4 5. d5 Bc5 6. dxc6 Bxf2 7. Ke2 Bb6 8. Qd5 (8. Qc2) Nf2 9. Rg1 ...
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Is there a list of chess openings online without names
I have been searching for a list of eco (Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings) chess openings online by moves rather than by name so that I don't have to sort through thousands of names but I can not find ...
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"Unclear" becoming outdated?
It was the Chess Informant who gave us "∞ - position unclear" (as we all know, a position can only be won, lost or drawn ;-). Now that we have super-strong computers, I expect that ∞ will ...
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Black to play and win but why was the move played a blunder?
In the position below Minic just had to play one move to reach the time control and, in those days, the adjournment which would have given his team a chance to find the win. Unfortunately he blundered ...
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Two different "accuracies"...why?
Ok, I know it's probably not impressive to most, but I'm on my way to a 1000 rating on chess.com. I'm guessing it's because of different engine strengths or something.
I recently played the following ...
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Why did white sacrifice knight in this Nimzowitsch's 1905 game?
Saw this image in a WhatsApp group. Initially it looks attractive with a possibility of a "smothered mate", but I am unable to find out if white can really survive for several variations.
[...
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How to run lichess stockfish analysis locally?
I am working on a research project where we need to run stockfish on hundreds of thousands of pgns we have collected. We need to extract all information generated from stockfish like centipawns, ...
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Why is this a “Brilliant Move”?
I don’t understand why chess.com says this is a “Brilliant Move”? Can someone explain please?
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What is the reasoning behind the suggested move?
In this game, my actual move was Qg6, leaving the knight on f3.
Why does chess.com suggest Ne1+ ?
I figure it would just be taken by the rook, but the engine suggested white would have played Kf1.
The ...
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Why was this castling move so "brilliant"?
[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. Ng5 Nh6 5. O-O
Why did chess.com mark this move as a brilliant move? It was quite surprising to see a simple king-side castle getting a (!!) ...
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What are the cases in which is good to take Qb3 in "London System'sSH" setups and why
I know that the main idea against London System is to play Qb6 to attack the b2 pawn which is unprotected due to the early Bf4 white plays (generally) at move 2. Normally white reacts to the threat ...
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Winning position after move one?
Question: There are 400 possible two-ply openings; that is, positions that can arise after each player has made one move. Which of these positions, if any, are winning (either for white or for black)...
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Panov-Botvinnik Attack: position analysis
I am a beginner in chess (1313 lichess, 1177 chess.com rapid) and am in the process of learning the basics of the Panov attack from the Hanging Pawns Youtube channel. In this video, at 15:00,
[FEN &...
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Why is Qf3 losing in this position?
[FEN ""]
[startply "16"]
[StartFlipped "1"]
1. e4 d6 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. d3 Bg7 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. O-O e5 7. Ng5 O-O 8. Bxf7+ Rxf7 9. Qf3
Why does the engine go from -1....
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How to improve at chess by analyzing one's own games?
Analyzing one's own games can be a useful tool for improving at chess, as it allows players to identify their mistakes and learn from them. However, it can be challenging to accurately assess one's ...
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Why is this position -6.2 without a big material difference?
In one of my recent games, I got to the following position, Black to play:
[FEN "2rr2k1/1q2bppp/p3pn2/np1p4/4PQ2/P1N2P1P/BP1R2P1/2R1B1K1 b - - 1 21"]
While playing the game, I analyzed d4 ...
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Why is the chess.com analysis of this position -5?
I'm looking at the analysis of a recent daily game I played on chess.com, and have come to this position with black to play. Chess.com suggests white's last move (Nc5) was a blunder, and the analysis ...
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Is it the case that in practice making moves only decreases your positional score according to computers?
It occurred to me that presumably every chess engine's score is based on the best available continuation move, and thus every other move must be worse (or at least no better).
i.e. if there were a ...
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A complex eight pieces opposite color Bishop endgame
The position, derivated by a variation of the Alechkine Defense, Four Pawns Attack, is the following:
[FEN "3b4/8/1k2B3/6pK/P7/8/6PP/8 b - - 0 1"]
Black to move. Stockfish 14.1 NNUE gives ...
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1
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243
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Why does Stockfish evaluate this position as completely lost?
After thinking for a minute my copy of Stockfish evaluates the position below as +4.7 for white. Why does the computer hate black's position so much?
I know that all things being equal, black should ...
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3
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Adding "summary" comments to an analysis
When I analyze my chess games for studying, I like to write a high level summary or action items.
For example, a summary of a game might include some positive feedback for myself, as well as ...
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162
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Are these depth-41 Stockfish evals the result of a horizon effect?
I was using lichess's analysis board for Stockfish's analysis of this line in the French:
[Title "French Defence, Steinitz Variation"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen ""]
1. e4 ...
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Why does Stockfish evaluates the trade of a B vs N that bad, while the trade has the King in the open and doubles pawns?
In this position (White to play)
(Picture credits to the chess compass extension that analyzes a chess.com game after it ended)
The current Stockfish evaluation (before White plays) is ~0.0.
But SF ...
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