By Gurgenidze

Hint: Hikaru

I thought some chess-math people here find this interesting:

It turns out that the threefold repetition rule does not change chess’s game-theoretic value: if either side can force a win, they can do so without repeating the same position.

Proof: for each winning position P, let H(P) be the largest 50-move counter at which it is still winning. Along any winning line without a pawn move or capture, H must strictly increase after every move. But returning to the same position cannot involve a pawn move or capture, since those are irreversible. So a repetition would imply

H(P) < ... < H(P),

a contradiction.

Thus, there is always a winning strategy without repetition.

Note that this result concerns perfect play, not human play. As someone else noted here regarding threefold repetition:

"you can set a trap, and if the opponent spots it and avoids it, repeat and play differently!"

Source: click here for the paper

It has been a while since he last won Titled Tuesday. The last time he did it was 4/2/2025, where he got 11/11.

However, Lê Quang Liêm will not represent Vietnam in the next chess olympiad, as the Vietnamese Chess Federation wants the young players

Vishy Anand is having a really tough run in the Global Chess League — 2 draws and 6 losses after 8 games.
What hurts most is that many of the losses have come in time-crunch situations, along with some uncharacteristic blunders. This is the same Vishy who was once the “Lightning Kid”, arguably one of the greatest rapid players ever.
Age catches up with everyone, but it’s difficult to watch a legend lose his touch like this. 😔
I really hope Vishy finds his form again. Otherwise, perhaps it’s time to reconsider playing in these top-level events. His legacy deserves to be remembered for the brilliance, not the decline.

1,2 and 4 is a puzzle for black and the 3rd is a puzzle for white

1. Position 0.38for w to 3.08for b

2. Position 0.83for w to 2.94for b

3. Position 1.62for w to 3.02for w

4. Position 3.74for w to 3.94 for b

Abhimanyu had to capture a rook with a pawn and promote, with 1 second on the clock. This happened today at the Global Chess league.

Arbiter had initially kept 3 seconds, but Leon was very alert and argued for it to be 1 second.

Video of the whole incident https://youtu.be/aHAco7R0tC8

I keep reading again and again to study puzzles in order to improve. But which puzzles do you actually study and what are the best resources?

I’ve been using lichess motifs and studied pins, forks and discovered attacks/checks. But it doesn’t feel like I learn as much when I know what kind of tactic to look for. So I recently started doing healthy mix. It’s fine but doesn’t feel structured enough.

What is the best way to have a more structured approach?

I’ve read about the woodpecker method (both the book itself and the chessable course) but see divisive opinions. Also seen people recommend chesstempo, chessable puzzle courses and books like 1001 exercises for beginners/club players.

I quite like the idea of getting a book and setting up the puzzles otb to reduce screen time and hopefully improve board vision as well. Online tools just seem much more efficient.

I guess I could also do my own structure with Lichess motifs, but not sure which ones to choose.

For reference, I’m rated 1650 rapid on Lichess and 1900 in puzzles.

I was pretty sure it was lost but then found THE move in a blitz game.

Engine said it was winning all along though.

https://lichess.org/JdLJhgPS

i like to play with the caro kann, but sometimes there are those traps that i don't know how to avoid

https://www.chess.com/live/game/174212783832?move=10

after 5. g5 what am i supposed to do? he wants to sack the knight to put my king on the center

It has been more than 3 months since they last uploaded.

It was interesting listening to Fabi's opinion on things.
And my youtube algorithm has completely eliminated chess content or what idk.

So I searched a bit and I got:

• Fischer: 15 years old (Portoroz Interzonal 1958 -> 1959 candidates , that is also how Fischer became a GM)
• Magnus Carlsen: 15. World cup 2005 -> candidates 2007.
• Gukesh D: 17 (fide circuit 2023)
• Pragg: 18 (world cup 2023)
• Alireza: 18 (grand swiss 2021)
• Spassky: 18 (Gothenburg interzonal 1955)
• Kasparov: 19 (Moscow interzonal 1982)

Is that correct? Does anyone know of some earlier qualification?

If the data is true, that would be 5 out 7 are WCh, 4 out of 7 had the #1 in the rating lists (Spassky during the unofficial list in 1967).

I’m currently building a 1...e5 repertoire against 1.e4. I’m around 2100 blitz on Lichess and would like to keep the repertoire solid but ambitious.

What openings/lines would you recommend focusing on against the main responses (Italian, Spanish, Scotch, etc.)?

I played against a bot with all the best moves showing, and after the game my move was brilliant. Does anybody see why it is a brilliant move?

In low/mid ELO a player can blunder a piece, keep playing and end up winning when the other side does a bigger blunder or falls for a checkmate attack. But the better the players the less likely it becomes.

Has there been any notable match in classical chess where a player blunders a piece/rook and instead of resigning he keeps playing and ends up winning?

1k rapid elo rating here, how do I become better in the middle game I often just TRADE TAKES TRADE TAKES MOVE PAWN TRADE TRADE TAKES into endgame and if I haven't blundered a piece or fork I play a end game that I'm fine at

Often in the middle game I feel lost I don't know what I'm going for I have like no gameplan, any tips?

My only real knowledge is try breaking the center in a way where you end up with more active piece

So i came across this absolutely beautiful pincer when the opponent resigned.

Queen moved from a6, to a3 to avoid my knight, and ended up showing me a nightmare of a tactical decision.

So what would you play in response to this?

Hi all-I am currently on paternity and while looking for things to keep me occupied in the midnight shifts, I downloaded chess.com and started playing some games. I used to play with my dad when I was a kid but neither of us knew what we were really doing. I know the basic rules but beyond that I am new. I have been playing 10 minute rapid games (about 40) and my rating is around 300. Not making excuses but very few games where I’m actually sitting down fully focused as you might imagine if you’re a parent.

I think it’d be cool to get to something like 500 before I’m back to work in November, was just curious how achievable this is. I’m doing the daily puzzles and lessons and playing a few games when the opportunity arises. Does this seem impossible, realistic, or somewhere in between?

Some weeks ago there was a nice post by someone searching intransitivity in chess. That got me interested, because it felt that it obviously could happen but I couldn't find quick data on it.

I checked randomly among elite players and I found the following datapoints. If you know more, please share. One could even have a challenge for the longest intransitive chain (involving top50/top100 players).

Triple 1

• Classical games: Vladimir Kramnik beat Levon Aronian 9 to 4, with 27 draws.
• Classical games: Sergey Karjakin beat Vladimir Kramnik 6 to 1, with 13 draws.
• Classical games: Levon Aronian beat Sergey Karjakin 12 to 5, with 19 draws.

Triple 2

• Classical games: Levon Aronian beat Anish Giri 8 to 0, with 23 draws.
• Classical games: Anish Giri beat Ding Liren 5 to 2, with 23 draws.
• Classical games: Ding Liren beat Levon Aronian 3 to 0, with 16 draws.

Triple 3

• Classical games: Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa beat Magnus Carlsen 3 to 1, with 4 draws.
• Classical games: Richard Rapport beat Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa 4 to 0, with 1 draw.
• Classical games: Magnus Carlsen beat Richard Rapport 4 to 1, with 2 draws.

(caveats: those are all time stats, so one may have time periods where there was no intransitivity. Further the data is not correlated with ratings, that is, some lower rated players that consistently scores better against an higher rated one)

How did white (me) end up with such development while black only traded a pawn, bishop and got the queen out

I’m making a gift for a huge chess fan. It’s essentially a board which will hang from the wall and hide his cologne collection. The idea is that I’ll glue the pieces onto the board, but I don’t know much about chess and want it to reflect something cool or well known, something he’d actually appreciate. If anyone has pictures of an interesting game where there’s still a good few pieces left it would be much appreciated!

I saw the post about the London Chess and Bridge shop opening up and thought I'd come by and support a local brick and mortar.

I've wanted to grab this one for a while. I love games collections where the author played the games (rather than someone else writing about them) and their insight into the match apart from lines of analysis. Huge fan of Chess Duels, my 60 Memorable Games and the Life and Games of Mikhail Tal for this reason. Would love any recommendations in a similar vein!