35
I believe your question essentially boils down to the topic of whether it is possible to completely "solve" chess. Wikipedia has an excellent article on the topic which should give you a good overview.
To summarise, the number of possible game variations in chess is estimated to be 10^120. This is a staggeringly huge number, for comparison, consider that ...
25
There are two key things you need to do.
The first is to know how to win a won endgame. You do that by studying endgames. That will do two important things for you. Apart from teaching you how to win a won endgame, it will also teach you to recognise which endgame positions are won, and which are drawn, despite your material advantage. That way when you are ...
24
It is a blunder White can win a piece instead. Black's queen is trapped in a molasses of its own pieces, so to speak, and White has a very good chance of trapping it. Capturing the bishop loses this large possibility, and is thus a grave mistake.
Here is White's best line of play that quickly plants Black a firm loss.
[FEN "r2n1rk1/pp1bppbp/1n4p1/q1N5/...
21
The short answer is: white's making it difficult for black to challenge the center with their central pawns. But that's not really revealing much, so let us dig deeper into this beautiful middlegame.
The rook doubling is in fact part of a grander scheme that Kramnik has in mind. Once black commits to d6, Kramnik targets a very concrete objective:
To ...
18
I remember reading about this from one of GM Yasser Seirawan's books. What you want to do is:
Pick a target
Figure out how to attack it
In this case the obvious target is the White pawn on a3. Why this pawn? Because it cannot move (a4 bxa4 wins the pawn). It stands to reason it's easier to attack something that cannot move. The a3-pawn is also not easy to ...
17
Now is this really the way to play chess?
Well, it is certainly a way to play chess. It's the way Aryan Tari chose to play Magnus Carlsen in the Altibox Norway tournament a couple of days ago. Swap as many pieces off as you can, get to a more or less equal endgame, maybe have to survive a bit of pressure then shake hands for a draw. It didn't work out that ...
17
Because black can play 12...Nd4 instead. The threat is to catch the bishop b5 with ...a6 and ...b5 and eventually ...c4. I do not see how white can prevent this. White loses a piece.
16
Here's a position from one of my games. I'm playing White versus a master:
[FEN "r2qk1nr/pp2bp2/2p1p2p/3pPnp1/1P6/P1N2N2/2P2PPP/R1BQR1K1 b kq - 0 11"]
[White "D M"]
1... g4
This position isn't great for me, but his pawn storm really isn't all that strong. But imagine if I had a pawn on h3 instead of h2.
[FEN "r2qk1nr/pp2bp2/2p1p2p/...
14
Is there something wrong with my approach?
Yes.
This is how I am playing nowadays and can beat ~1500 player 50% of time( rest is due to tactical errors)
I mean i do wanna improve my tactical skill but my decision is that once i am able to beat a 1500 player 100% of the time,I will start playing tactical chess.
If I am reading this correctly, against 1500 ...
14
[FEN "r4rk1/2p1qppp/1p3n2/p7/2B4B/4P3/PPQN1Pbb/2KRR3 w - - 0 1"]
1. f3 {traps the bishop} Rad8 2. Re2 Bxf3 (2...Bd6 Rxg2 Kh8 Rh1 {the Black king is not safe at all}) 3. Bxf6 Qxf6 (3...gxf6 Rxh2 {checkmate on h7 will follow}) 4. Rxh2 {threatening mate on h7} h6
5. Rf1 {the bishop is now pinned against the queen and will be won shortly} b5 6. Be2
...
13
I think there are number of reasons why these are so popular:
It is easy to start learning openings. You can read about ideas and memorize some lines. It is not so easy to learn middle game or end game in similar fashion.
A lot of players want to get an edge from the start- hence the focus on openings.
People enjoy reading them
They are easier to write than ...
12
No, it would not be possible for such a database to exist. Calculating it would require an infeasibly large computer and the calculation would take so long that your computer wouldn't exist for long enough to complete the task.
Claude Shannon estimated that there are around 1043 possible positions in chess and your database would need to store the outcome ...
11
First consider the difference between a 'truly' won position vs a 'theoretically winning' position. By that I mean - a position that is within your own abilities to convert to a win, in a way you can already see, vs a position that seems like it 'should be winning'. You see that stockfish says the position was -3.1, but at your rating level, -3.1 isn't '...
10
As was stated in the answer to this post made by D M, one idea of capturing in this manner is to open up the g-file for white's rooks to attack black's king. In the game this proved to be a very potent idea, and in general it's a good idea to open up lines for one's rooks against the enemy king if one intends to attack it.
But there is another point to ...
10
First, I don't think that there is any doubt that black has significant compensation, but clearly, black is still trying to hold this, not win it when talking two computers playing each other. I believe that between two humans, I would probably prefer black.
If you have an eval that says +.63 for white, but black is down two pawns, you have to realize that ...
9
In order to make progress, one or both of you need to break through that wall. Each of you seem to have the best chances on the side near the opponent's King--you have a passer on the kingside; your opponent has a lot of pressure on your queenside.
First, look at his threats. ...b5-b4 seems to force the issue on the queenside by kicking your Knight and ...
9
The only opening move I really didn't like is 6…Nc6. Usually you don't want to put something in front of your c-pawn in these d-pawn openings. And incidentally it also seems to lose a piece (because of 8.cxd5 with Bb5 to follow). It also leads to all your positional problems: The pressure on d5, the slightly weakening move f6, the inability to free yourself ...
9
I'm not familiar with the book itself, but for learning pawn structures it isn't important to memorize every single thing. The key is to understand the general ideas behind each structure. E.g.: what are the main plans, which pawns are weaknesses, what squares work well as outposts for pieces, can the structure be changed as the game goes on, etc.
Knowing ...
8
Winning Chess Strategy for Kids by Coakley is EXACTLY what you want.
Barely a few pages explaining basics. Then tons of practical content that even adults will find useful. Wastes no time in getting intermediate lessons in strategy/tactics presented in an astonishingly kid-friendly way. :)
8
According to the classic old book of Romanovski (which was one of the cornerstones of the Russian/Soviet school of chess) the endgame starts when the King assumes an active role.
8
White cannot break this Great Wall of China in this position. In fact, White is slightly worse and here's why -
1. Pawn chain
Black's pawn structure is better than White's. The pawn on e6 is the base of Black's pawn chain and it is almost impossible for White to have any attack on that. True, White could possibly bring a knight to f4, but that's not ...
8
For computer engines it is much harder to simulate a "human" style than just playing good. If you want to improve your play against humans, play against humans. Use the engines to analyze your games. As already commented, fast or blitz games (but please not faster that ~5 min, as the "quality" of the games decreases rapidly at this point) are a good way to ...
8
Given that you are a piece up with a dominating position, exchanging the bishops isn't a problem at all. Note, that it is just an exchange, not a sacrifice.
You could have played 19.Bc7 instead, in that case black has to react 19…Ra8 or he will lose even more material (for example 19…Rb7 20.Rxc8 Kd7 21. Rxf8 with three pieces for a rook, which is a bit much ...
8
This is a very long question. And you can use Stockfish to check tactical solutions.
Solutions of all positions except the 5th ends with mate or huge material gain. In position 5, Black plays a positional sacrifice, to turn that cramped position into a nice attacking one.
Position 1 - Black to play, why Rh2?
[FEN "1r2k2r/p4pp1/2n1p3/q2pP1N1/3P1PB1/1Pb5/...
8
There are quite a lot of basic principles. Whole books have been written on the principles of strategic play, for example. Basis rules are useful and will get you on your way. For more advanced players it is actually more important to understand when to break the rules.
A couple of rules 'off the top of my head':
A knight on the rim is dim, meaning that it'...
8
The solution is: play better chess. Train your tactical skills so you can better anticipate the opponent's knight's threats (and also make a better use of your own knights). Avoid creating weak squares in dangerous spots of the board where an enemy knight can dominate the position. Pay attention to how stronger opponents play and try to imitate them in the ...
7
Although your question is quite broad, the general ideas in the middlegame are the following-
1) Improve the position of your pieces- knights on outposts,
bishops on open diagonals, rooks on open files, etc.
2) If a piece is badly placed and cannot be improved, see if you can
exchange it for one of your opponent's better placed pieces.
3) ...
7
Since a game with all 14 pieces, as kings are excluded, hanging has probably not happened yet, and will not for a long time, I will answer as best as I can. Under these circumstances, I think that the best that can be done is to locate the highest number possible.
The highest that I have found so far is
6 hanging pieces. I found the full score on chessgames....
7
After axb4 the a2-pawn is a fixed weakness that can easily be further attacked with Ra8. Defending this pawn will force whites heavy pieces into passive positions.
Taking with the queen or the rook on b4 will allow Rb1 with a rook exchange. Even if this rook exchange happens on b4 and therefore creates the same pawn structure as after an immediate axb4, ...
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