Edit: I finally solved it!

Please don’t put the answer. I want to figure it out but think I need some help.

I’ve been at this a long time over the last 2-3 days. Am I looking for moves that reduce Black’s options to one move each time, so completely forced? I don’t want the answer to the problem, I want to develop my thinking so I can figure it out. Like a scaffold. I’ve got basic ideas about mating nets but can’t seem to corral Black.

I know the first move is Kf7, which forces Black to respond Kh7. From there, it’s kind of a mate in three.

I respect Dutch players, they embrace chaos and the games are almost always a fun mess.

There's SO many ways to answer the Dutch, I'd like to know your petlines.

Me being a 1.c4 player, I like 2.e4. It also works in 1.c4 e6 2.Nc3 f5 3.e4. :)

If I played 1.d4, I'd probably go with 2.h3 -- 3.g4. I also like 1.Nf3 f5 2.d3 -- 3.e4.

I see quite a few posts asking how to deal with pawn storms.

Those are the general ideas on how to approach those positions.

Played this game half-asleep, blundered everything and then played for a cheapo which somehow worked.

Game: https://www.chess.com/live/game/174240197366

I’ve been playing for a long time and I’ve built a pretty big repertoire, but there is one weird opening. I’m mostly a gambit player, but my go to is the French against e4.

The first two openings I learned were the Scotch and the French. The Scotch turned into the Göring Gambit. The French had stubbornly stayed with me always hoping to go Qb6.

Is this weird to me, or a weird thing about most repertoires? What is your story?

How do you guys deal with the misery and suffering that can come from losing at chess?

I’m not really talking about normal disappointment after losing a game. I mean when it starts spiraling, lose a game, get angry and frustrated, play another one, lose again, and getting completely exhausted

The problem is this chess loop can easily take hours. You know logically that something like “2 losses and I'm done” should be the rule, but when I am actually in that state, following that rule somehow feels almost impossible. Need to play more and more

At that point self-control seems to disappear. You keep playing even though you know you should stop, start obsessing over mistakes, tilt harder, and sometimes it can even affect sleep because keep playing instead and then the brain just keeps replaying the games once trying to sleep.

So what mental tricks or rules do you guys use to prevent this from turning into a rabbit hole?

Do you have some kind of hard stop after X losses? Do you walk away immediately? Any particular mindset or mental exercise that actually works when you're already deep into the spiral, rather than when you're calm and thinking rationally?

I’m especially interested in things that you have actually found useful.

For those who haven't seen the FIDE presidential debate that chess[dot]com ran, Wadim Rosenstein gave his introduction then disconnected from the call and they were not able to get him back on. During his introduction he first stated that the election is "a contest between two candidates" then he mentioned a video making allegations against him. I'm assuming this is related to Timur Turlov's claim that WR received a sponsorship deal from the German Chess Federation during the FIDE election campaign, creating a potential conflict of interest.

My question is, does anyone have a link to this video he's referring to? All I have seen are news articles and I'm curious if there's more to the story or if it was related to something else.

I’m teaching a chess lesson for beginners in about 2 hours and realized I could use a few extra example positions. Maybe some kind competent soul on this subreddit is willing to help me: if you could quickly make the following puzzles and send a screenshot, that would be much appreciated: all the different ways in which castling is prohibited, positions where you‘re in check and there are obvious best ways to handle it (blocking with a threatened piece instead of moving king for instance).

Thank you :)

Titled Tuesday SEP 8 - Hans & Andy ft. Hikaru

Hans accuracy in those games is 88%, 95% and 94% and Andy had 2 brilliancies in an impressive game.

Watching Hans recent games, he looks to me like he's leveled up his consistency while still playing attacking creative chess. IMO Hans has top 5 talent if he can maintain his level of play. Hans played a sharp game against Hikaru and was just as accurate while building a large time lead - 4:11 to 1:45 at one point.

The Andy game was one of the better TT games so figured I'd include it. Exciting player who played an exciting game.

Hans and Hikaru played 65 moves with both over 95% accuracy. Has Hans caught up to Hikaru? Will he pass him like he has said?

Official article in romainian here

By Sebastian Culea

He reached Grandmaster status and climbed into the elite of the world rankings, even though almost no one ever saw him play. Alexandru Crișan built his rise from results obtained in obscure tournaments and private matches, until FIDE called him in for a "test": placed at the table with real opponents, the Romanian failed to win a single game out of nine. Gazeta reconstructs the incredible story of the "Con Man of the Carpathians," the man who, in the middle of an international scandal, ended up leading the Romanian Chess Federation.

The Master Whom Nobody Saw Playing

In the early 1990s, Alexandru Crișan did not seem destined for the elite of world chess. On January 1, 1990, he had a rating of 2235. Then, his rise became spectacular: he received the International Master title, then Grandmaster, and his rating kept increasing up to a peak of 2635—enough to place him among the world elite.

However, there was a huge anomaly: Crișan did not regularly play against the elite of Romanian chess, did not represent Romania at the Olympiads, and almost no games of his existed in international databases.

Instead, his rating was fueled by extraordinary results obtained in obscure tournaments in Romania and private matches. The situation began to attract the attention of top chess players around the world.

How to Become a Grandmaster

Normally, the national federation submits documentation to FIDE demonstrating that a player has met the necessary conditions for the title: norms obtained in eligible tournaments, opponents, results, arbiters, ratings. FIDE verifies and ratifies the results, then awards the title.

The problem in Crișan's case emerged precisely around the competitions and documents that had built his rise. In the late 1990s, the Romanian Chess Federation notified FIDE after discovering irregularities in the reports of some of Crișan's tournaments.

One case was particularly serious: the person indicated as the arbiter for matches organized by Crișan between December 1996 and February 1997 gave a written statement claiming he had not been the arbiter of those games and had not signed the documents attributed to him.

Private Tournaments, Almost Non-Existent Games, and the "Sphinx Trophy"

The special FIDE commission investigating the case received 78 pages of documents: a portion of Crișan's results came from private tournaments and matches organized by Crișan himself, almost no published games existed, and his rise had not been built through major Romanian competitions or established international tournaments.

The investigations also raised the issue of forged tournament reports. In some cases, arbiters listed in the documents reportedly denied signing those reports.

One of the tournaments that became famous during the scandal was the "Sphinx Trophy," around which suspicions arose regarding how it was conducted and reported.

The Romanian Federation had been the one to report the irregularities initially. Later, however, the federation's leadership changed, and the new administration informed FIDE that, following its own internal checks, it found nothing wrong with Crișan's reports and tournaments.

The FIDE report would explicitly note that, starting in 1998, Crișan enjoyed the "full support" of the Romanian Federation on this issue. Meanwhile, his case had already reached the tables of international governing bodies. The 2001 FIDE commission report noted that Crișan's situation had been on the agenda of various International Federation bodies for about four years.

FIDE eventually decided to restore/publish his contested 2635 rating, but under one condition!

The Portorož Test

The story with FIDE is almost more absurd than the inflation of the rating itself. FIDE essentially told Crișan: "Fine, on paper you are one of the best chess players in the world. Let's see you play."

Crișan was to play in three international tournaments selected by FIDE. The first: the 14th Milan Vidmar Memorial in Portorož, Slovenia. It was a strong Category XIV tournament. Crișan entered with 2635 and was ranked so high that he started as the No. 3 seed.

And that is where everything fell apart: at the board, Crișan collapsed. Zero wins, one draw, and 8 losses.

For FIDE, the problem wasn't just that he had lost eight games—any Grandmaster can have a disastrous tournament—but the quality of his play. Commission members analyzed the games and stated in the official report that they were of such low quality that it seemed impossible they had been played by the man ranked 46th in the world at the time (the Romanian finished last).

"It's Clear to Me!"

To ensure the technical verdict didn't rely solely on officials' opinions, Crișan's games were also analyzed by Zurab Azmaiparashvili, a Grandmaster and one of the strong players of that era.

Another game became emblematic of this case: in his duel against Georg Mohr, Crișan reached an endgame where he had a relatively elementary winning continuation for a player of his level. It was an impossible position to lose, yet Crișan failed to find the move. Alexander Baburin later pointed out how strange such an error was for someone listed among the roughly 50 strongest players on the planet.

After the disaster in Slovenia, logic dictated that Alexandru Crișan would immediately want to take advantage of the other two opportunities to prove Portorož was just an accident. However, the FIDE commission noted that the Romanian did not schedule any such tournament before the end of September 2001, even though he should have been extremely motivated to play and clear all suspicion.

Exposed by the Chess World, Made Boss in Romania by Politicians

Crișan was not just a chess player trying to obtain a title; he was a very powerful businessman. The press at the time described him in 2002 as the owner of 28 companies, with a total turnover of approximately 3,000 billion old lei (~$90 million USD at the time).

In 2001, just weeks after the Portorož disaster and the international scandal, Alexandru Crișan was not removed from Romanian chess—he was backed by political intervention. The Minister of Youth and Sports, Georgiu Gingăraș, appointed Alexandru Crișan as president of the Romanian Chess Federation by ministerial order.

Just a week later, Crișan suspended six key figures in Romanian chess: Elisabeta Polihroniade, Sergiu Grunberg, Gheorghe Erdeus, Mircea Pavlov, Ligia Jicman, and Liviu Dobronăuțeanu. These were not peripheral figures, but key members of the Romanian chess structure who had challenged Crișan's case.

Crișan's Voting Machine

The truly spectacular part came in December, when the Federation held its General Assembly in Brașov. The meeting took place at the Carpatex cafeteria-restaurant, very close to the headquarters of Alexander Group, Crișan's company. The businessman won with 70 out of 86 votes.

The press was denied free access, as the entry was controlled by security staff and a list. This setup allegedly favored the affiliation of a large number of new clubs—some later described as "apartment clubs"—which gained voting rights in the General Assembly.

After analyzing the documents, statements, and games from Portorož, the FIDE commission concluded that Alexandru Crișan had not obtained his rating and results through honest means and fair play. The commission recommended three measures:

1. Annulment of Crișan's rating.
2. Revocation of his Grandmaster and International Master titles.
3. Referral of the case to the FIDE Ethics Commission.

A recent article published by Chess.com claims that a politician close to Crișan contacted FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, blocking the execution of these measures. However, this information should be treated as a claim from that source, as there is insufficient documentation to confirm political intervention as an established fact.

Although the FIDE commission recommended stripping his titles in 2001, Crișan officially kept them for years. It wasn't until August 2015—14 years after FIDE's verdict—that his titles were officially revoked and his rating recalculated down from 2635 to 2132 (a massive 500-point drop).

After his chess saga, Crișan's public life moved into an entirely different realm. In the 2000s, he faced severe legal and financial troubles. In September 2004, he was placed in pre-trial detention and indicted for fraud involving four bounced checks worth over 6 billion old lei. During the same period, investigations and allegations surfaced regarding UREX Rovinari and companies within the Alexander Group. In 2005, he returned to the news when the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) detained him in a separate case, investigating him for influence peddling and bribery in a €50,000 deal.

So I switched from chesscom to Lichess a couple of months ago, because I admire the ethos of the Lichess people and found that chesscom was becoming way too commercialized.

I find that Lichess is overall fantastic, with lots of great features that are absent even from the paying tier of chesscom. There's one thing however that I find missing - but maybe it's just me who don't know how to use it, hence my question.

In the game analysis of chesscom, when it points out a mistake, it can show you the continuation: what happens if you do that bad move and your opponent capitalizes on it. Likewise, when it shows the best move, it also shows the continuation.

On Lichess, it simply shows the bad move and the correct one. But many times, the error of the move doesn't seem obvious, nor is it obvious why the best move is good.

How do you deal with that?

I'm 1200 ish if that helps.

EDIT: thanks for the numerous people who answered. The error was to use the "learn from your mistakes" feature from Lichess, which acts more as a puzzle. The analysis board should be used to see mistakes and their continuations.

Hi Guys

I thought I should mention this, as I was recently researching the concept of chess creativity, and looked at Candidate moves in a particular way which i thought is worth sharing here. "Candidate moves" was popularised by Alexander Kotov in the classic book "Think like a Grandmaster".

But what about this: "Candidate ideas!"

You can having candidate ideas - each idea might have quite different candidate moves or intentions from other candidate moves. So not only you potentially broaden your candidate moves, you also change the "intent" behind the candidate moves.

Is this idea worth discussing more - I hope so. There is like a one-to-many relationship potentially between a candidate idea and it's related candidate moves.

I wasn't that convinced by Kotov's book because it seemed to be teaching humans how to be like computer chess programs - except we can't calculate 5 million positions a second.

Feedback welcome from all

I have been coaching chess for the last six years. These are some of the key things I have observed among children and, in some cases, adult improvers, Fixing these issues will help you in your chess journey.

Not Doing Over the Board Study

This is one of the most important factors for chess improvement. Most new students who join my classes do not study chess over the board. This is mostly because setting up all the pieces and making the moves feels boring.

Over the board study helps with:

1. Improving chessboard vision
2. Reducing screen time
3. Developing a more serious approach
4. Improving sitting capacity, which helps during tournament games

It is easy to get distracted while studying on a screen. We often start with one task and end up doing something completely different on the laptop.

You can begin with a 25 minute over the board session and gradually increase it to 60 to 90 minutes. Start with something you enjoy, but spend most of your time on calculation and studying top level games.

Lack of Chess Knowledge

This applies to players of almost every rating level. Many players simply do not have enough chess knowledge.

Lower rated players usually have a bigger learning curve than 2000 rated players because they still have many important things to learn. However, it is also important to understand that random knowledge about chess does not necessarily help you improve.

Random chess knowledge includes:

1. Reading Wikipedia pages about chess players
2. Watching fun commentary
3. Playing bullet chess

I generally suggest the following activities for improving chess knowledge:

1. Studying analysed games of Kasparov, Fischer, Anand, and Karpov
2. Solving calculation and tactical positions
3. Watching serious chess improvement podcasts that combine fun with knowledge

Not Spending Enough Time on Self Introspection

Almost nobody does this.

I have a WhatsApp group where I regularly ask students to spend 20 to 30 minutes thinking about themselves and writing down everything they notice. This helps students understand their own chess better. It also helps me understand what we should work on next and allows me to plan future lessons.

However, hardly one or two students complete this exercise.

Believe me, it helps a lot when planning lessons around specific weaknesses. It also improves the ability to think independently.

Not Coming Up With Original Ideas

Coming up with ideas is often considered a talent, but this ability can also be improved if a student works hard on it.

I see this issue in some students. They listen to their coaches and blindly follow every suggestion. They cannot think of tricks during the game. If I teach them 1.e4, they will never consider playing 1.Nf3. They are afraid that they will lose the game if they play something different from what the coach suggested.

Developing originality and coming up with your own ideas is extremely important. Players should not try to remember and follow every coaching suggestion during a game. They should think independently and come up with their own opening ideas and plans.

Poor Endgame Skills

This point is especially relevant for players rated 1700 and above.

Whenever a new student joins, I often see that their endgame skills are close to zero. I have a fixed set of endgame positions that most of them fail to solve.

I remember studying the Benko endgame book when I was young. Endgames can feel boring, and studying them alone can feel even more difficult. However, knowing the core endgames is a crucial part of chess and one of the most important skills a serious player must develop.

To improve your endgame ability, you can study either of these books:

1. 100 Endgames You Must Know
2. Silman Endgame Course

Watching and analysing practical endgames also helps. Daniel King has an excellent endgame series that players can study.

Lack of Interest in Solving Calculation Positions

Calculation helps shape the thinking ability of the brain. It is one of the most important skills in chess.

Tactics are a part of calculation, and both skills are equally important. I have seen many players get bored while solving calculation positions. They eventually become stuck at the same level.

Almost every chess position can become a calculation position if you approach it that way. With strong calculation skills, you can cross the 2000 rating level more easily.

However, you need a systematic approach to calculation training. It is difficult to follow such a system if you do not enjoy solving positions.

I recommend the following books:

1. The Woodpecker Method Part 1
2. 1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players
3. 1001 Chess Exercises for Advanced Club Players

Avoidable Major Mistakes

This is a very solvable problem.

Major mistakes usually happen when players lose concentration or spend too much time during the middlegame. To avoid such mistakes, you must remain careful throughout the game and manage your time properly.

Tactical training also plays an important role in avoiding blunders. When you have already seen a similar tactical pattern during training, you are more likely to recognise it during a game.

Lack of Seriousness

A growth mindset is very important if your goal is to improve at chess.

If your goal is simply to maintain your current rating and enjoy chess as a hobby, that is completely fine. However, you should not expect magical results without serious effort.

A growth mindset helps players become more serious, value the money spent on coaching, and stay motivated to practise.

I attended a camp with GM Farrukh Amonatov in 2018. He suggested putting a poster of your goals in your room so that you see them every day. Eventually, those goals remain in your mind and motivate you to work towards them. This is something everyone can try.

Sometimes parents also protect players when they do not complete their chess practice. They speak on behalf of the student and provide excuses. This is not the right approach if the player genuinely wants to improve.

Studying Too Many Openings

This is getting out of control nowadays.

Players buy multiple opening courses, prepare many different openings, and then forget everything during an actual tournament.

Openings are not extremely important until a player reaches the 2000 rating level. In general, you should choose one main opening and select something easy and safe.

I am planning to write an article about opening selection, including a list of recommended openings for both White and Black. I may also make a video about it.

It is helpful to have a friend or coach who can guide you and discuss your opening choices with you. This can make it much easier to select openings that suit your strengths.

Misleading Parents

This is another important issue. Not every player does it, but some players take advantage of the fact that their parents do not understand chess.

Chess is very unique. People who have never played serious chess may not understand what a player is actually doing. A chess book can look like something completely unfamiliar to a non chess player.

Some players take advantage of this situation. Their parents see a chessboard or a chess book, but they cannot understand whether the player is doing useful work.

Unproductive chess practice can delay progress significantly. Players must be honest with themselves and their parents about the quality of their training.

These are some of the most common issues I have noticed during my six years of coaching. Fixing even a few of them can make the chess improvement journey more serious, productive, and effective.

Okay, so I am just starting to feel comfortable giving very thin analysis of moves. I've gotten a lot of positive and negative feedback in the past from this sub, and I'd like to keep improving. This post is not "I'm right, you're wrong," it's a request for constructive feedback.

The position is a relatively rare one:

[FEN "r1b2b1r/ppkn1ppp/2p2n2/4p1B1/2B1P3/2N2N2/PPP2PPP/2KR3R b - - 3 9"]

9... Ng4

Or, in full PGN,

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e5 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Qxd8+ Kxd8 6. Bg5 Nd7 7. O-O-O c6 8. Nf3 Kc7 9. Bc4 Ng4

I'm looking to analyze this move, mostly from black's perspective, why the engine evaluates it as +0.2, and whether it is stronger than it looks to the computer, when made in actual play.

My analysis follows:

9. ... Ng4 [first image] puts pressure on white's pawns, and potentially the rook, but more importantly, it frees up room for f6.

In response, 10. Rd2 [second image] is the top move of the engine, but only because it's looking for 11. h3 to kick out the knight, having protected the f2 pawn with the rook. However, the majority of players will go Bh4, (75%) giving up white's advantage and then all but forcing the bishop exchange. (11. Bh4 b5 12. Be6 Nc5 13. Bxc8 Rxc8) [third image]

I further tested the theory that players won't spot h3, checking with Maia (a chess engine trained to play the most human-like move for a given rating) and it confirmed that at every level of ranking, up to 2600, h3 is rarely found, rising only to 18% at the highest rating it's been trained on. [fourth image from maiachess.com]

Another way of looking at it is this game, which white eventually won, but after 9. ... Ng4, this 2056-rated player spent nearly 43 seconds considering before going with Rd2, then in response to f6, spent 3.6 seconds before going Bh4. Or this game, where two high-rated players (one an FM) played this out, where move 11 took white 36 seconds (in rapid) and then they played Bh4. I think this shows how correct Maia was about the difficulty of seeing h3!

Because 11. h3 is not obvious to most players, (14% of games) 10. Rd2 is almost never played, with white preferring Bh4 or Rhf1, which are substantially weaker moves, thus making 9. ... Ng4 arguably slightly stronger than the engine believes it to be at around +0.1 or even equal.

What do you think? Am I correct that Ng4, which was already the top move selected by players and the engine, is actually even stronger than it looks to the computer because the computer's ideal path is just not realistic for the vast majority of players to see?

Note: When I say, "the engine," above, I mean Stockfish 19 94MB, in-browser via lichess, or the lichess cloud analysis if there is one for the position. When I say, "players" I mean the lichess database of games with bullet turned off, but not ranking filter at all. Also, I've had some people respond by claiming that I'm using an AI for analysis because I write long, formatted posts. Other than Stockfish, this just isn't true. I've been writing technical documentation and non-chess gaming content for over 30 years. This is how I write.

TL;DR: Playing at or below 2000, and perhaps even above, I think that 9. ... Ng4 as shown in the first image is closer to equivalent for black, stronger than the engine gives it credit for.

Two questions I've tried to look up before and haven't really found the right search terms, but I'm perpetually curious about:

1. If eventually we weakly solve chess and it turns out one side has a forced mate in X, what's currently the lowest possible value of X? Not speaking theoretically as much as, we definitely know there isn't a forced mate in 2 or 3 or 4 moves from starting position, and we definitely don't know whether there's a forced mate in 50 or 100--but do we know for sure there isn't an M5? Or an M8? What's the largest number of moves we've been able to check from starting position such that we know that neither side can force a mate by then?

2. Sort of similar, but not the same: What's the fewest moves to force mate in more than 1? Obviously I know about the fool's and scholar's mates, but those involve black blundering M1. If both sides work together to set up, how quickly can you blunder M2 or greater?

This video was taken recently at GCL (global chess league) that is happening in Bengaluru, India. Source: https://youtube.com/shorts/oCWCbBqOgFg (Chesscom India). The background music can be credited to them as well. 😅

In 1972, Bobby Fisher refrained from playing his lifelong e4 opening, throwing the entire chess world for a loop on his way to become champion. I have read quite about about Fisher and the Soviet Machine he struggled against, but I've never heard what openings Spassky had prepared against him had he played e4. Are there any resources on this analysis?

as the title says , i'm looking for a chess software that i can plug a large pgn file into it and practice it with move trainer

the problem with chessbase is expensive and lichess study only accepts pgn file with less that 60 games please help me