35
votes
Positional thinking by Grandmasters
When a GM, or even lesser strong players reach a position that is totally unfamiliar, they have to break it down into components. They evaluate the following for BOTH sides. In general, a lot of this ...
- 32.4k
33
votes
{Landa vs Zhu Chen, Bad Wiessee, 2006} Lichess giving a +4.7 to white. Why?
The material balance is only temporary. After White goes c4, Black will lose a piece. If Qf5, White has f3 trapping the bishop. All alternatives to Qf5 leave a piece unprotected (for instance c4 Nxc4 ...
- 16.3k
31
votes
Accepted
Given a legal chess position, is there an algorithm that generates a series of moves that lead to it?
The task you are considered is usually called a proof game, named such because the task is to prove that the position is legal. As a genre of puzzles, there are various aesthetic constraints, most ...
- 780
24
votes
Wrong ELO calculation
The first thing to note is that FIDE make the rating calculations not Chess Stack Exchange. We can try and explain their calculations but we cannot change them or influence them in any way.
Here is ...
- 94.5k
22
votes
Accepted
What was Anand thinking in the 1994 Armageddon blitz semifinal?
From a YouTube comment section dedicated to the game (I did not find the primary source, so it may be untrue):
Anand was asked about this in the interview after. Smirin did not
play the opening Anand ...
- 3,469
21
votes
Accepted
Do grandmasters think on every move?
I will try to answer this in a different manner, the way I understand this topic.
Do we think on every signal, turn, fork when we drive?
Do we think every time we eat food or walk on the street?
The ...
- 620
15
votes
Accepted
How do players "see" several moves ahead?
The answer is that you only consider the most sensible and most critical options. This prunes the tree down to manageable proportions.
One easy example would be the fact that retreats are usually not ...
- 19.2k
15
votes
Accepted
Lichess puzzle 87510: How much calculation would a strong player do before playing Bg4+ when white has a range of (all losing) responses?
I'm an FM, and my calculation process would be as follows:
See that after 2.Rxg4 Qxh6 2.Rg8 Bf8, I'm clearly winning and White has no follow up.
Look at White's king moves to get out of check. ...
- 19.8k
12
votes
Which methods can be used to prove that a position is illegal?
Easy illegality is easy: not exactly 1 king on both sides, both kings in check, pawns on the final ranks. It's also fairly easy to tally promoted material and subtract the missing pawns. A quick ...
- 15.5k
11
votes
How to quickly calculate two pawns facing two pawns
Since this is happenning so early in the game, the best idea is probably not to get involved in deep calculations, but rather to get some knowledge about the pawn structures that could arise from ...
- 16.3k
10
votes
Accepted
How come it's actually Black with the advantage here?
White's actually quite close to busted in that position after 16...Qd5. Of the two points you bring up, note that White doesn't actually control the e-file because Black is ready to play a rook to e8 ...
- 26.1k
10
votes
Given a legal chess position, is there an algorithm that generates a series of moves that lead to it?
If you are familiar with mathematical induction then it should be clear to you that the answer is trivially "Yes".
Just as for any position (legal or otherwise) it is possible to use the ...
- 94.5k
9
votes
Accepted
Systematic ways to approach more difficult problems
for example this one below,don't even know where to begin.Earlier the
way I solved problems was finding all the checks,captures and threats
and the solution used to come within few seconds but now ...
- 94.5k
8
votes
Accepted
Calculation skills beyond 2000 Elo
As somebody, who's tactical ability is hopefully still above 2000, let me contrast your description with my own thought process:
I only considered 1...Nh4.
2.Qg4 Rf2 I saw basically instantly.
2....
- 19.2k
8
votes
Accepted
Why do GMs look up during calculations?
Expanding on the great comments of @David and @Timothy Chow, GM Nikolai Krogius talks about the role of the residual image in his book Psychology in Chess. This is an image that stays and blurs the ...
- 3,525
8
votes
Suggestions for blindfold exercises
A friend of mine (and a stronger player) suggested one exercise which has helped me in developing my visualization skills.
Take a game, any game and read the first two moves of both sides (ie total ...
- 677
7
votes
Positional thinking by Grandmasters
Depends a lot from player to player and also position to position I think.
The fundamental is that their intuition (built up from studying and playing and solving a lot) will suggest a few moves (or ...
- 641
7
votes
Is calculation the most important aspect of playing chess?
Would the person who calculates better normally win?
If everything else is equal then the answer is obviously "Yes".
However, everything else is rarely equal. Fixating on calculation is ...
- 94.5k
6
votes
Calculation and visualisation exercises - do they work?
My performance rating was four to five hundred points above my actual rating in tournaments where I prepared primarily with calculation/visualization exercises; while tournaments without tactical ...
- 6,111
6
votes
Calculation skills to 2000 and beyond
If you can play three games blind-folded, it is unlikely that your problem is calculation. I dare say that there aren't many 1900 USCF players that can do that.
You say you "lose a lot of games due ...
- 19.2k
6
votes
How can minimax chess engines do alpha-beta pruning without reaching the final positions?
You are confusing several concepts.
Alpha-beta pruning
Alpha-beta pruning is not "where they don't calculate positions that are obviously winning or obviously losing."
It's pruning branches where ...
- 27.8k
6
votes
Accepted
How many different knight's tours are there?
Wikipedia
quotes several sources for a count of 26,534,728,821,064 for the number
of closed directed tours of the 8x8 board. As Brian Towers notes
in his answer, that is equivalent to the count of ...
- 6,524
6
votes
How come it's actually Black with the advantage here?
It seems that, for tactical reasons, White is going to have to give up material to stop Black's attack with best play from both sides. That seems to be why the evaluation is so in favor of Black.
...
- 18.4k
6
votes
Given a legal chess position, is there an algorithm that generates a series of moves that lead to it?
The natural approach to this problem is a tablebase-like approach like outlined by Brian. But doing something similar to that for just 7 pieces (namely, 7 men tablebases) with current algorithms ...
- 3,401
6
votes
Do grandmasters think on every move?
I can also answer this from AlphaGo's perspective because we know fairly precisely how it works. We can then reason by analogy for the human perspective.
From a bird's eye view AlphaGo has 2 ...
- 181
6
votes
Accepted
Do strong players (2400+) really not double-check their calculations?
At shorter time controls, there is little time for conscious double-checking - perhaps there is a kind of parallel awareness of tactical risks and opportunities?
But at longer time controls: there is ...
- 11k
6
votes
Accepted
How to calculate corresponding squares
I think the term 'intersect' is not really intuitive here.
From c2, the white king can go to d2 and c3 in one move.
That means the black king must find a square from which it can reach f3 and e3 in ...
- 24.8k
6
votes
Accepted
Does chess intuition take over when you can't see all of the moves ahead? What does chess intuition look like?
This is a very interesting question. I may be just marginally qualified to answer it. My highest-ever rating was about 2300. I am a successful research mathematician in an applied area. There are ...
- 8,155
5
votes
Would a player or computer with infinite proccessing time be unbeatable?
No, a player who can calculate for infinite time can play a perfect game of chess, but this does not automatically mean that he always wins.
From the game theory perspective, we know that chess is a ...
- 1,149
5
votes
Endgames: How was "maximum moves required" determined before tablebases?
Nothing was calculated. They arrived at their results by trial and error.
Some guy would start with a seemingly disadvantageous position and tried to find the shortest mate. His result remained valid ...
- 61
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible