72
votes
Accepted
Can you solve this unique chess problem of white's two queens vs black's six rooks?
It's checkmate in 20 moves. White's queens circle around the board giving checks, and Black interposes horizontally/vertically moving pieces. Black only has one choice because the other piece is ...
- 24.8k
62
votes
Demystifying Seirawan-Kasparov 1983 king and pawn endgame
In this game Kasparov is showing a perfect demonstration of the triangulation technique in order to Zugzwang the white king.
To be in a Zugzwang means, any move loses or more generally, worsens your ...
- 12k
55
votes
Accepted
Is it rude to ask my opponent to resign an online game when they have a lost endgame?
Is it rude to ask my opponent to resign an online game when they have
a lost endgame?
Yes, it is rude, although you are in good company. In one Olympiad Victor Korchnoi is alleged to have asked his ...
- 94.5k
51
votes
Accepted
Where can I find this game with a sacrifice followed by a long series of checks leading to a discovered mate?
I believe that the game you speak of is the extremely famous Lasker-Thomas match in which Lasker forces Black to accept his queen "sacrifice" on move 11. It is followed by a king hunt in ...
- 17.1k
46
votes
Why underpromote in this KNNP-KR endgame?
If you promote to a queen with 1. b8Q, black has:
1...Re2+ 2. Kd1 Rb2
attacking the queen and hinting at mate with Rb1++. If white takes the rook 3. Qxb2 it is stalemate.
Because of the mate ...
- 20.7k
46
votes
Accepted
Are resignations by expert players naive?
By the time an expert resigns the decision tree may still be large but its evaluation has become simple. Players usually resign because continuing would be miserable to them and boring to their ...
- 8,155
45
votes
Accepted
How do I handle drawn positions in zero time increment games?
K+R vs. K+R is a draw, but K+R+10 sec vs. K+R+20 sec is not a draw. Your opponent won because they had an advantage brought on by having better time management. Nothing to complain about -- time is an ...
- 2,491
42
votes
Endgame problem: How to avoid stalemate and win?
It's quite a fun problem to think about, before getting to the
calculation of long variations, try to first spot the key idea needed to crack the problem.
Here are the first observations that come to ...
- 12k
39
votes
Please help solve this endgame problem posed by a friend
White is one tempo short of catching the pawn - if White could make two moves immediately it would be a draw as white would just take the black pawn. But they can't, so white has to find a threat ...
- 4,357
39
votes
Accepted
Is there a mathematical theorem that you can use to win a chess endgame?
Unfortunately the (original) question was a bit ambiguous and arguably still is. I try to sort the different interpretations out:
Chess fulfils all requirements of "standard" game theory (...
- 15.5k
37
votes
Is it rude to ask my opponent to resign an online game when they have a lost endgame?
Brian Towers answered the question, but to help you understand why people don't resign, I recommend you watch this lecture by GM Finegold Blunders, with GM Ben Finegold. The gist of it is:
Never ...
- 6,506
34
votes
I'm new to chess-what should be done here to win the game?
This position is a draw, the game is over. It is not possible for either side to checkmate the other from this position, not even if the side with the bare king would try to help.
The same is true for ...
- 27.8k
31
votes
Is it rude to ask my opponent to resign an online game when they have a lost endgame?
It's always rude to ask your opponent to resign. They should resign of their own accord once they're convinced that you're overwhelmingly likely to win the game. In my case, that always meant you'd ...
- 2,807
31
votes
Accepted
Does a KQQ vs KQ endgame position with perpetual check exist?
The position given by Akavall is indeed a draw by perpetual, but it's a bit difficult to see because White has many different options at some moves. They can even choose to sacrifice the h2 queen, ...
- 24.8k
31
votes
Accepted
Why does chess.com consider this promotion a blunder?
50 points sounds huge, but there actually is no meaningful difference between -6.4 and -62 in such an endgame.*
6.4 is more or less "Black has a queen for a bishop (but I haven't found a way to ...
- 5,918
29
votes
Accepted
Stockfish blunders away a piece
This is not a blunder, expected behaviour from the engine. Everything worked as intended. Try to copy the FEN string out, and you'll know.
Although the position looked winning, White didn't have ...
- 22.4k
29
votes
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.
...
- 12k
29
votes
Accepted
Why do high rated players still take so much time to calculate a pawn endgame position close to a game that they (likely) had before?
But I thought at that level this position must have already occurred, or, more likely, be somewhat close enough to a previous one, that the players would play in a more automatic fashion.
Not true. ...
- 5,713
28
votes
Is this a draw despite the Stockfish evaluation of −5?
This is a fortress and a draw.
The black king can't advance as the rook, shuffling between h3 and f3, prevents it. The only way to break the fortress is to trade the queen for the rook and pawn, but ...
- 5,159
27
votes
Accepted
How many pawns make up for a missing queen in the endgame?
The simple and obvious answer is that it all depends on the position of black's pawns and king. In general the further up the board the pawns the better for black provided the king is in contact with ...
- 94.5k
27
votes
How difficult is it to win a winning endgame against an engine?
An interesting question! I set up the position, gave myself 10 minutes of time and tried playing against the most difficult engine on lichess. I failed to win even though I used one takeback as well. ...
- 958
26
votes
Why is there no rule allowing a player to claim a draw in lonely king endgames?
Why is there no rule allowing a player to claim a draw in lonely king
endgames?
For the simple reason that there is no need. If you are the player with the extra material you can offer a draw and be ...
- 94.5k
25
votes
Accepted
How is Kasparov vs Shirov 1992 a victory?
Shirov resigned: the thinking was that despite both sides left with pawns and a knight, the advantage went to Black.
Black has an extra pawn and Black's pawn chain is mutually supporting. White is ...
- 1,255
25
votes
Accepted
Can you solve this queen + 3 pawns vs bishop + 3 pawns chess problem?
If White can get the Black king to the first rank, then it will not be fast enough to catch the g-pawn from promoting. White starts by playing 1. Qg5, and after 1...Kh7 2. Qf6 Kg8 3. Qh6, the White ...
- 863
24
votes
Is this endgame (sort-of Q vs K) a draw?
According to the Lomonosov tablebases, it's mate in 40 for black. While the queen can't force mate by herself, she can force a zugzwang. In this case, when the bishop is forced to move to e8. Then, it'...
- 4,187
24
votes
Accepted
Can you solve this chess problem of a lone knight against numerous opposing pieces?
OK
The check must come from the knight (D'uh!)
The black king must be on c5 for the mate
The white king must be used to cover any empty squares to the right of the black king - thus the white king ...
- 4,357
23
votes
Would there be more decisive games if we began to see stalemates as checkmates? And hence more "interesting" chess?
Absolutely not. Making stalemate a win would be a sure way to make for less interesting chess. Any rule change which makes it easier to convert a small material advantage to a win, will ipso facto ...
- 3,762
23
votes
Why does chess.com consider this promotion a blunder?
This sounds like a bug. Using Lichess's analysis engine, it takes Stockfish 14 less than ten seconds to find a mate in 11 moves. Both 1...Kg3 and 1...g1=Q lead to mate in 11.
So there should be no ...
- 26.1k
22
votes
Accepted
Is three knights versus knight really winning?
It is winning for white. You can enter all positions of six pieces into a tablebase, like this online one.
It's mate in at most 39 moves, for example:
[FEN "4N1K1/5P2/6k1/8/6n1/8/N7/8 w - - 0 1&...
- 27.8k
22
votes
Is it rude to ask my opponent to resign an online game when they have a lost endgame?
Honestly it's rude to ask your opponent to resign in any position. The one exception may be them deliberately letting their clock run to 0 in a completely lost position, but in this case they're being ...
- 19.8k
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