text:
SCID shortcuts list
I don't like the mouse and want to use the keyboard as much as possible.
SCID vs PC has a webpage with keyboard shortcuts, but the same does not seem to exist for SCID.
This answer to "How to flip the board" discloses the . shortcut,
which I found documented in Help > Contents > The Scid main window, however only a few
of them are to be found in that section. Some are spread out in the Help, others might be missing.
Where can I find a list of all SCID shortcuts?

After greping the source code, I found them in /usr/share/scid/tcl/keyboard.tcl
in GNU/Linux (if someone knows the path for other OS please share it).
Also, a comment in that file says
> By editing this file you can customize the keyboard shortcuts,
in order to best suit your preferences.
It is not necessary to recompile scid after changing this file.

For convenience, I have extracted all the bindings and their corresponding actions below
(this is not proper TCL syntax, it is just for reading convenience).
<Left>                Back
<Right>               Forward
<Up>                  Back 10 moves
<Down>                Forward 10 moves
<Home>                Exit Variation/Go to game start
<End>                 Go to game end
<Alt-F4>              Exit
<Control-o>           Open a database
<Control-w>           Close the current database
<Control-z>           undo
<Control-y>           redo
<Control-n>           new game
<Control-s>           save game
<Control-S>           save as new game
<F11>                 toggle fullscreen
<period>              flip/rotate board
<s>                   ::setupBoard
<KeyPress-v>          show variations dialog
<Control-Key-$i>      Change current database
<F6>                  ::book::open
<F12>                 ::CorrespondenceChess::CCWindow
<Control-F12>         ::CorrespondenceChess::OpenCorrespondenceDB; ::CorrespondenceChess::ReadInboxg
<Alt-F12>             ::CorrespondenceChess::OpenCorrespondenceDB; ::CorrespondenceChess::FetchGamesg
<Control-equal>       ::tb::Open
<Control-d>           ::windows::switcher::Open
<Control-e>           makeCommentWin
<Control-i>           ::windows::stats::Open
<Control-l>           ::windows::gamelist::Open
<Control-m>           ::maint::OpenClose
<Control-p>           ::pgn::OpenClose
<Control-t>           ::tree::make
<Control-E>           ::windows::eco::OpenClose
<Control-K>           ::ptrack::make
<Control-O>           ::optable::makeReportWin
<Control-P>           ::plist::toggle
<Control-T>           ::tourney::toggle
<Control-X>           crosstabWin
<F2>                  "::makeAnalysisWin 1 0"
<F3>                  "::makeAnalysisWin 2 0"
<F4>                  .analysisWin1.b1.bStartStop invoke g
<F5>                  .analysisWin2.b1.bStartStop invoke g
<Control-A>           makeAnalysisWin
<Control-Shift-2>     "makeAnalysisWin 2"
<Control-a>           sc_var create; updateBoard -pgng
<Control-B>           ::search::board
<Control-H>           ::search::header
<Control-M>           ::search::material
<Control-KeyPress-U>  ::search:::usefile
<Control-C>           ::copyFEN
<Control-V>           ::pasteFEN
<Control-E>           ::tools::email
<Control-I>           importPgnGame
<Control-D>           sc_move ply [sc_eco game ply]; updateBoardg
<Control-G>           tools::graphs::filter::Open
<Control-J>           tools::graphs::absfilter::Open
<Control-u>           ::game::GotoMoveNumber
<Control-Y>           findNovelty
<F1>                  helpWindow Contentsg
<Control-N>           nameEditor
<Control-slash>       ::file::finder::Open
<Control-Shift-Up>    ::game::LoadNextPrev firstg
<Control-Shift-Down>  ::game::LoadNextPrev lastg
<Control-Up>          ::game::LoadNextPrev previousg
<Control-Down>        ::game::LoadNextPrev nextg
<Control-question>    ::game::LoadRandom
<minus><minus>        addMove null null

<exclam><Return>             "sc_pos addNag !; updateBoard -pgn"
<exclam><exclam><Return>     "sc_pos addNag !!; updateBoard -pgn"
<exclam><question><Return>   "sc_pos addNag !?; updateBoard -pgn"
<question><Return>           "sc_pos addNag ?; updateBoard -pgn"
<question><question><Return> "sc_pos addNag ??; updateBoard -pgn"
<question><exclam><Return>   "sc_pos addNag ?!; updateBoard -pgn"
<plus><minus>                "sc_pos addNag +-; updateBoard -pgn"
<plus><slash>                "sc_pos addNag +/-; updateBoard -pgn"
<plus><equal>                "sc_pos addNag +=; updateBoard -pgn"
<equal><Return>              "sc_pos addNag =; updateBoard -pgn"
<minus><plus>                "sc_pos addNag -+; updateBoard -pgn"
<minus><slash>               "sc_pos addNag -/+; updateBoard -pgn"
<equal><plus>                "sc_pos addNag =+; updateBoard -pgn"
<asciitilde><Return>         "sc_pos addNag ~; updateBoard -pgn"
<asciitilde><equal><Return>  "sc_pos addNag ~=; updateBoard -pgn"


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Engine Evaluation Confused
The Muzio Gambit is -0.8 by Stockfish depth 22. However, if the f7-pawn is moved to the g-file, the evaluation falls to -3.5. How is that so? Both positions seem  fine for White.
[FEN ""]
[Title "Muzio Gambit"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. Bc4 g4 5. O-O!

This is not very clear at all what you're asking. What is the exact position you're referring to where moving a black pawn from f7 to g7 drastically changes the evaluation? If the position is what I'm suspecting, then the answer is tied to the fact that a pawn on g7 can be used to guard f6 and to discourage checks from h5 in some lines, but I'm not sure at all that this is the position you're actually asking about.

To figure out why one position differs significantly from another, play out the engine's top suggestion(s) for how White should play in the first position. Then try doing the same thing in the second position, and see why this no longer works for White. This is a very useful analysis technique with engines.

As for "both positions seem fine for White": well, Black has a significant material advantage after 5...gxf3, so White has to find some compensation. If you don't have a concrete continuation which demonstrates that compensation, I don't think there's any reason to think the engine evaluation is confused.
In both positions, a sensible continuation is 5... gxf3; 6 Qxf3 Qf6; 7 d3. Now in the original position Black has doubled f-pawns and a bad pawn structure; in particular the pawn on f4 can't be supported effectively; when it falls Black will have two isolated pawns. Black stands better but has some weakness that White can try to exploit. In the position with the pawn moved from f7 to g7, Black could play 7... g5 immediately, or alternatively 7... Bc5+ and then 8... g5. Now Black's structure is more solid and White doesn't have anything like enough to justify the material disadvantage.

One of Black's biggest problems in the diagram position is that White will get in Qxf3, Qxf4, followed by Qxf7+. With the f7-pawn on g7, Black can shut this plan down with ...g5. It's true putting the f7-pawn on g7 exposes Black's king to Qh5+, but it's not a big deal: Black can meet Qxf3 with ...Qf6, then Qh5+ with ...Kd8 or simply ...g6, and White has no followup. Meanwhile, Black is up a full piece.

In the Muzio proper, White doesn't have a threat other than 6. Qxf4 (which doesn't mean so much, because that's what the c1-bishop wants).  Shift the f7-pawn to g7, now White's threatening Qf3-h5+, and that's hard to deal with.

the engine evaluation states that Black is winning when the f7-pawn is on g7.

Ha! Huh, I dunno. Black's structure is lots sturdier... Oh, I reckon with the pawn on g7, Black has ...g7-g5 in store (again). If White can't break down f4, his chances are much less, So if Black can manage the h5-e8 diagonal, he might shut White down on the file.

I'm extremely confused: What 6.Qxf4? There's no way for a queen to move to f4 in the game given in the question. Also, by the comment it seems that OP thinks this answer is wrong - but why is it accepted then?

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


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Playing Reversed openings
In chess games where my opponent is White, White may play 1. e3 or 1. d3, so when I play 1...e5 and 1...d5 in response, I find myself in a reversed opening where I have the opening advantage. What are the advantages to playing like this?

"I find myself in a reversed opening where I have the opening advantage." I'm not sure about that. White is still the first to play.

Some people just prefer to play Black.

@d4zed Now I am the one who is 'white'. The position is identical to one where Black has the first move.

Why would you want lose the advantage of being White?

Some reasons I can think of to play this way:

White player just wants to play with black pieces for whatever reason (just training their black repertoire?)
White player wants to be sure their opponent don't use an opening book. As far as I know chess opening books (unlike baduk ones) don't have a "symmetry search" feature, so with this trick you just get out of the book from the beginning. Of course White player can use an opening book all the same, but it can become a bit tricky. And of course you can't use the opening book from the chess portal (like the case in lichess).

There's nothing special about this type of position. Play sound, solid chess. Activate your pieces, put your king into safety and occupy the center without overextending. You'll have an easier time than normal achieving an equalized middlegame

Hu.h, that's weird. Your opponent asked the same question earlier. I play 1. e3 and get a reversed French, or 1. g3 and get a reversed King's Indian? What are the advantages in that?
There are none. Grandmaster Larsen used to play 1. a3 to steer for a Reversed Najdorf in the '50s, and while he was glad when it happened, he found it was nothing special.
Your only goal in the opening, no matter what you hear here, is to reach a playable middlegame, one with rough equality in center control, development, and king safety. You can get through any opening paying attention to that, and especially while minding the tactics. People think they need to learn openings in order to survive them, but people don't lose in the opening because they're bad at the opening, they lose in the opening because they're bad at tactics.

Funny detail: 1. e3 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.exd4 d5 transposes to a French Defence! 1.g3 is a fine move, but it's not popular because it's just like 1.Nf3 but allowing black for one extra option (1...e5)

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Latest time to castle in a tournament game
In a casual game I played, my opponent castled around the 80th move. I want to know what was the latest move in which a player has castled, in an official game. I don’t think that there is an entry for this on Krabbe’s record site.

This web page claims that "[the] latest castling was performed on move 48 in two games: Neshewat – Garrison, Detroit 1994 and Somogyi – Black, New York 2002."
According to https://www.chessgames.com, the first was Michigan Class A (1994), Detroit, MI USA, rd 2, Jan-15. That site gives that second game here with no tournament or match citation. These are actually both on Tim Krabbe's record page under the title "Latest castling" in the "Moves" section.
Game 1: Kingside Castling
[Title "Neshewat-Garrison, Detroit, 1994"]
[FEN ""]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nf3 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qa5+ 5. Bd2 Qb6 6. Nb3 Ne4 7. e3 Qf6 8. Qf3 Qxf3 9. gxf3 Nxd2 10. N1xd2 Nc6 11. a3 d6 12. Be2 g6 13. Rb1 a5 14. O-O a4 15. Nc1 Bf5 16. e4 Be6 17. Rd1 Bh6 18. Kg2 Nd4 19. Bd3 Ra5 20. Nf1 Rg5+ 21. Ng3 Nxf3 22. b4 Bg7 23. Be2 Nh4+ 24. Kh1 Bh3 25. f4 Bg2+ 26. Kg1 Bxe4 27. Nd3 Bd4+ 28. Kf1 Rxg3 29. hxg3 Nf5 30. Rdc1 Nxg3+ 31. Ke1 Be3 32. Rd1 Nf5 33. Rb2 Bd4 34. Ra2 Ne3 35. Rc1 Ng2+ 36. Kf1 Be3 37. Rc3 Bd4 38. Rc1 Be3 39. Rb1 Nxf4 40. Rd1  Ne6 41. Nf2 Bf5 42. Bd3 Nd4 43. Bxf5 Nxf5 44. Ke2 Bh6 45. Ne4 Bg7 46. c5 dxc5 47. Nxc5 Nd4+ 48. Kf2 O-O 49. Nxa4 e5 50. Nc5 Nb5 51. Rd7 b6 52. Rb7 Nc3 53. Rc2 e4 54. Rxb6 e3+ 55. Ke1 Rd8 56. Rc1 h5

Game 2: Queenside Castling
[Title "Somogyi-Black E., New York, 2002 "]
[FEN ""]

1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 b6 4. Nf3 Bb7 5. Bf4 Nf6 6. Bc4 Nc6 7. O-O Nxe4 8. Nxe4 d5 9. Bd3 dxe4 10. Bxe4 e6 11. c3 Qe7 12. Ne5 Bxe5 13. dxe5 Na5 14. Bd3 a6 15. Qg4 h5 16. Qg3 h4 17. Qe3 Qd7 18. f3 Nc6 19. Rad1 Ne7 20. Bg5 h3 21. g4 Nd5 22. Qf2 c5 23. a3 Qc7 24. c4 Ne7 25. Qg3 Nc6 26. Bf6 Rh7 27. Rf2 Nd4 28. Bf1 b5 29. b4 bxc4 30. Bxc4 Qc6 31. Rd3 a5 32. b5 Qd7 33. a4 Bd5 34. Rc3 Bxc4 35. Rxc4 Qd5 36. Rc1 Nb3 37. Re1 c4 38. f4 Nc5 39. Qa3 Qd4 40. Qf3 Qd5 41. Qxd5 exd5 42. Rd1 Ne4 43. Rc2 Nxf6 44. exf6 Rh4 45. g5 Rg4+ 46. Kh1 Rxf4 47. Re2+ Re4 48. Rde1 O-O-O 49. Rxe4 dxe4 50. Kg1 Kb7 51. Rc1 Rd2 52. Rxc4 e3 53. Rc1 Rg2+ 54. Kh1 Rg4 55. Re1 Rxa4

Those were some crazy games! I wonder how castling could possibly be delayed until move 80!

I went to chessgames.com to read their kibitzers' comments on Neshewat-Garrison and to play through it. I can see how come Black didn't touch their king or king's rook for ages. They launched an attack with minor pieces (after sacrificing the exchange with the queen's rook) but it eventually fizzled out after many moves. But a couple of commenters said that 48 ... 0-0 was premature!


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Touch move rule loophole
When I touch two pieces simultaneously, how will the touch move rule apply? How is this rule used for this situation? I could not find any resources to do with this situation.

When I touch two pieces simultaneously, how will the touch move rule
apply?

It will primarily depend on your intention, or rather what onlookers clearly perceive as being your intention.
Here's what the latest FIDE Laws of Chess have to say:

4.1 Each move must be played with one hand only.
4.2.1 Only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares, provided that he first expresses his intention (for
example by saying “j’adoube” or “I adjust”).
4.2.2 Any other physical contact with a piece, except for clearly accidental contact, shall be considered to be intent.
4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the chessboard,with the intention of moving or capturing:
4.3.1 one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved
4.3.2 one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched that can be captured
etc.

The firs thing to note is that of you used two hands then that will be punished as an illegal move (article 7.5.4).
If it is clearly accidental then you will be permitted (required) to move the piece that it was clearly your intention to move. An example of this is something which sometimes happens to me when I reach across the board to move a piece on the far side and my forearm brushes and sometimes knocks over the tallest piece on my side of the board, my king.
So, that leaves cases where you deliberately touched two pieces simultaneously with one hand. There are two articles which deal with that in the laws, one more draconian than the other and so far less likely to be invoked.

11.5 It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever.

If an arbiter saw you do this (deliberately touch two pieces simultaneously with one hand) then they would likely immediately warn you. If the opponent claimed that it was an annoyance you might receive more than a warning.
Repeat infringements would put you at risk of:

11.7 Persistent refusal by a player to comply with the Laws of Chess shall be penalised by loss of the game. The arbiter shall decide the
score of the opponent.

In extreme circumstances (I cannot think of any time this has been invoked) the arbiter could punish you under:

11.1 The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute.

for example by saying “j’adoube”, I learned to say this as a child, but have never seen it written. Thanks for demystifying this decades old saying


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Retrograde problem websites
I am looking for a good chess website about retrograde analysis problems, but after a few searches, I haven't found anything. Are there any websites that you can recommend?

I would recommmend The Retrograde Analysis Corner It is a top notch and well known site that explains castling and en passant conventions,  what exactly it is all about, and how to solve such problems among it's many, many helpful things.

Do not miss Rund um die Retroanalyse, a blog by Thomas brand, in German language. It features each week a retro problem, with explanations and the problem solution.

There are literally thousands of retro problems at https://pdb.dieschwalbe.de, accessible through the easy-to-use query interface.
There are already discussions for many of the most interesting ones, and if you have any questions or comments, you can just add your own.


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Owen's Defence playability
The Owen's defence is a chess opening which starts with 1. e4 b6!?. This opening is playable if Black can get a quick c7-c5 break, where he has a pawn on e6, b6, and then he pushes c7-c5.
However, Stockfish on 22ply depth disagrees, giving White a +0.89 advantage. This hardly seems playable, as White has almost the advantage of an extra pawn.
So there must be a reason for this evaluation. I think that White can somehow prevent the break, to get a full pawn center, but I can't find any way to do so without compromising my pawn structure.

Forget about engines for opening evaluation. Even if black manages to get that ...c5 push, the best thing that can happen is that they'll get a worsened version of other openings (like the Sicilian or French defences)

Stockfish's @.3484814232843 shouldn't concern Black as much as Morphy's simple plan for White.
1.e4 b6 2. d4 Bb7 3. Bd3 e6 4. Nh3
Stockfish might be complaining because White gets free rein in the center, but Morphy said 'two pawns is enough', then as long as White continues developing, he's guaranteed at least equal development, and because it was the fastest possible kingside development, White has O-O plus f2-f4-f5 in store to open a file.
1...b6 made it too easy for Morphy (and anyone) to follow the general winning plan of better center control, better development, better king safety, then from that superior position, attack the enemy king by opening files for the rook.
See Morphy-Lewis, Philadelphia 1859. Trust Morphy's practical chess wisdom over Stockfish's analysis. stockfish might tell you how much it's bad, but Morphy showed us how and why.

It's completely playable below master level, probably playable to IM level and probably useful occasionally as a surprise weapon at GM level. Combined with the English defense it gives black a very solid opening repertoire with very little theory to learn. The only caveat would be to just be careful castling kingside into a strong attack.
22 ply is 11 moves. How many players below master level analyze 11 moves deep in their opening prep let alone over the board? If you can see two moves ahead you're better than most of the players out there and probably wouldn't be asking this question.
A .89 evaluation is literally nothing below GM level. Analyze your games with an engine. How many times do you see a swing bigger than .89 on a single move? I'm guessing at least once a game. And even if you do play near perfect chess how big a difference is there between that and the alternatives? I'm looking at the 365chess.com database. It has 1...b6 at .66 at a depth of 38. It has other mainstream openings like the French (.53), Pirc (.6) modern (.62), Alekhine's (.55) etc. You're literally talking about tenths and even hundredths of a pawn. It's absurd for players below master level to be talking about differences that small.

Even at my level, well below master one, and in the internet blitz, my winrate against openings like 1...b6 is much higher than against normal ones. The reason is that they are 0.66 only if black knows what they are doing, and they are much harder to play with black than with white, whose play is straightforward.

You put too  much faith in engines and too little respect for how actual people really play.
b6 is more than playable.  I would not venture it against a GM but for any tournament I could seriously compete in it would work --IF it were compatible with my style which it is not.  When they play b6 I generally win.  That has more to say about me and my experience, or their weaknesses ,than the opening move.


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Material value of the Berolina pawn
The Berolina pawn is a fairy piece that moves like a normal pawn, but can move two (and one in all other cases) steps diagonally and capture one forward. How much better (or worse) is this piece compared to a normal pawn?

Put a pawn on an empty board. Count the number of moves it can make. Then put the Berychucky pawn on the board, do the same thing. That'll give you a fair idea of their relative values.

If you're describing it correctly, it's probably worth a slight bit more than a pawn, because it has two moves and one capture, while the normal pawn has one move and  two captures (which doesn't happen as often).

I wonder if anybody has tried a variant where one side has normal pawns and the other side has Berolina pawns? That might be fun. Who would have the advantage>?

"but can move two (and one in all other cases) steps diagonally" Do you mean "two in its first move and one in all other cases"?

@Acccumulation Yes. Just as you would expect. Same as a normal pawn, but with "straight ahead" and "diagonally forward" swapped. A standard fairy chessman. https://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/berolina.html

According to Gnu, which has a page dedicated to Berolina chess, the value of the Berolina pawn is the same as in standard chess, = 1. This is unsatisfactory because they give no explanation of how this evaluation was made.
The evaluations for standard chess existed before computer chess programs and were based on hundreds of years of experience playing standard chess. That doesn't exist for Berolina chess which was only invented in 1926 and is little played.
In the absence of similar amounts of over-the-board games of Berolina I think the best approach to getting an accurate evaluation would be an AlphaZero-like simulation of millions of self-learning games which could provide the empirical data upon which a good evaluation could be made.


text:
Transposition into KID
I have looked at many grandmaster games where White starts off with 1.c4, which later mostly transposes into a King's Indian. However, Black could have immediately played 1...e5, which seems slightly better. Why would Black not take this opportunity?

Why do you consider 1...e5 to be "slightly better" than the KID ?

Black is inviting you to play d4 at some point :-). Then ...e5 would make it interesting and entertaining.

@Evargalo in my opinion, it is easy to defend against the KID. White can then make progress on the queenside.

Black may not be ready for a quick d4 by White in some lines, but it's mainly a matter of personal taste

It is a matter of choice
Many grandmasters (e.g. world champion Viswanathan Anand) have consistently played 1.c4 e5 with Black. Others favour the KID or other defenses : Hedgehog (with b6), symmetrical English (1.c4 c5), Pseudo-Nimzo (with Nf6 and e6), Pseudo-Grünfeld (with Nf6 and d5), Réti (with e6 and d5) or Slav-like (with c6 and d5) defenses...
There is no definitive hierarchy between all those schemes. You may well prefer 1...e5 and you won't be the only one (this is actually my favorite retort nowadays) but there is no objective reason to think that this choice should be "slightly better" than other reasonable defenses. What suits us doesn't suit everybody.
The case with the KID
The King's Indian Defense has many pluses and minuses: lack of space, ressources for counterplay, long theoretical lines... But one thing that makes it attractive for many players with Black is that the KID is an holistic opening solution for everything but 1.e4 : if you wanna play the KID, you can go for it whether I start with 1.d4, 1.c4, 1.Nf3, even 1.g3 or 1.b3, and there is little I can do to stop you.
As a consequence players who are confident in their KID repertoire against 1.d4 have little incentive to switch to different schemes to meet 1.c4, and prefer to transpose with 1...Nf6 and 2...g6 rather than work on the theory of the pure English 1.c4 e5.

Even against 1 e4 there is enough overlap with the Pirc and Modern to make knowledge of the ideas in KID useful

That's a good explanation, but Black may also delay ...e5 to keep some flexibility (some lines in the King's Indian go for ...c5 instead)

A lot of players play a setup similar to their main response to d4 in order to narrow their rep. Maybe the positions are objectively a little inferior but it gets the player a position they know and are comfortable in while at the same reducing the theory they need to know.

c4 e5  is playing the sicilian an extra move behind
most e4  players do not want to play the sicilian so I doubt they would do it as black either.
I would far prefer the KID to behind a move in sicilian.
so why do you think c4 e5 is so good for black?

De facto, 1.e4 are accepting to face the Sicilian. The intrinsic value of 1.c4 e5 is not the matter here, it has long proven to be a respectable opening.

The assumption that reversed Black defenses are "one move better" when played as White is flawed. Else you would be seeing more people play 1. e3 (a "better" QGD/French) or 1. c3 (a "better" Slav/Caro-Kann), too. The order of moves matters!

It might be closer to the truth to say that most d4 players do not want to play the Sicilian :)


text:
Stockfish Evaluations
I've been getting Stockfish to analyse lines of the KID, and the evaluation gives a score of around +1.5: White has a big advantage. How come this is true, when the KID is a playable(and good) opening? I've also seen the same problem with Stockfish analysing the Neo-grunfeld, and similar hypermodern openings where White gets a large center.

The KID is famous for being hard for engines to evaluate. The Mar Del Plata variation confuses engines to this day.

Komputers are not perfect. You put too much faith in them and their 'evaluations'.

Can you add some lines that lead to +1.5?

oh wow this explains why king's indian was used a computer by arkady balagan in the chess tv series endgame. nice.

Very related: Traxler Counterattack
The answer is effectively the same: White has roughly a +0.5 advantage in the starting position, and a shift of a few centipawns one way or another is acceptable, but if that advantage has grown to +1.5 there's a problem. Do note that the starting position of the KID, 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 is evaluated at about +0.5. If you are getting +1.5 book exit, you've gone into some dubious territory. It doesn't matter what human analysis thought of the line before the advent of computers - if you go into these lines today, and your opponents are armed with engines, you are asking for trouble.
That said, it's worth pointing out that the King's Indian is a difficult, unbalanced opening that even computers don't understand perfectly. That's why it is disproportionately represented in the opening book for engine tournaments - it gives great chances for one engine to outplay the other. But: even these engine tournaments do not usually start with book exit lines of +1.5. That's very likely going to lead to a 1-0, 1-0 game pair.
For illustration, here are some Stockfish evaluations of known bad lines:

e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5?! (see TCEC Season 15 games 43/44): +0.8

d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 e6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. Bg5 f6?! 6. Bd2 b5 (see TCEC Season 18 superfinal game 8): +0.74

e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qe6+? (Patzer variation): +1.1

Pawn odds (White starts without f2-pawn): -1.5

e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5? (Latvian): +1.7

e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6? (Damiano Defense): +1.9

e4 e5 2. Ke2? (Bongcloud): -2.1

As you can see, you have to play some pretty terrible lines to get > +1.5 book exit.
In short, if you are Black, interpret the book exit evals as:

eval < 0. Obviously the best, but will never happen without cooperation from White.
0 < eval < 0.5. The next-best, this is what you will usually be shooting for.
0.5 < eval < 1. Most commonly seen in engine tournaments where the aim is to see if the engine can defend the inferior position. Not recommended for actual tournament play.
1 < eval < 1.5. These lines come close to being busted. You could conceivably play them if you are after an adventurous game, or if it leads to complicated positions where you could hope to outplay inferior opposition, but it's a bad idea to take them up as a mainstay of your repertoire. A computer can still conceivably defend Black's position, but humans are going to suffer.
eval > 1.5. If you ever include these lines in the opening book of an engine tournament, be prepared for viewers to start talking about how you've chosen these lines to make the engine with Black lose.

Edit: since some people were unconvinced about the role book exit plays in opening selection, see this article by Jeroen Noomen (who selects the openings used in the Top Chess Engine Championship, the unofficial world computer chess championship):

The complexity of a position and the book exit evaluation are the most important selection criterions. Book exits have been checked with classical Stockfish (development version, contempt = 0) on a 16 core Ryzen system and Leela Chess Zero v0.26.0, with the net that played in the TCEC 18 superfinal. As mentioned above, book exits are significantly higher compared to season 16 and before, to keep the games interesting and avoid boring draws. Nevertheless, there are also some lines with a lower book exit, especially in the theoretically interesting lines.

Low book exits will lead to boring draws. High book exits can lead to wins, which of course bodes badly for the engine that has the worse position out of the opening. These openings might still be viable in human play, but the keyword here is "human play"; objectively they are subpar and against an opponent armed with engines you are asking for trouble.

I disagree. Not all +1.5 evaluations are the same. There are many +1.5 positions in KID that require such precise play to hold the advantage they become desperate for White

@David can you provide the FEN of one?

1. Nf3 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. d4 d6 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. e4 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5
Ne7 9. Ne1 Ne8 10. Be3 f5 11. f3 f4 12. Bf2 g5 13. c5 h5 14. cxd6 cxd6 15. Rc1 Ng6 16. Nd3 Nf6 leads to a position where engines strongly favor White but statistics don't. Despite both sides still having several moves of known theory ahead of them to play, imprecissions by White often cost less than imprecisions by Black in this type of position.

@David a very similar position was played in the TCEC Season 17 superfinal, game 6 (link). Stockfish actually gave an evaluation of 0.00. I gave your particular line to Lichess Stockfish and it is +0.6 at depth 40 as well, a far cry from +1.5.

Komodo and Fritz give White a huge advantage

@David how huge is huge, and at what depth? It's also worth noting that Komodo is ~250 elo below Stockfish and Fritz is ~500 elo below Stockfish (https://www.sp-cc.de/) so be careful with trusting their evals.

It varied form +1.1 (Fritz) to +1.4 (Komodo). Anyway engines in the future will be 250 or 500 points stronger than current ones, so the same argument could be used against Stockfish's evaluations. Engiens are a tool, not the Bible

@David at what depth? Also, remember that if this particular position is a draw, then as engines improve one would expect their evals to get closer and closer to 0.00.

KID is a notorious difficult opening for a chess engine to evaluate. Forget all those opening lines, just look at the standard positions based on standard positional terms.

White has an advanced pawn on d5 in many lines. This gives space advantage.
Even if White doesn't a pawn on d5, White's centre control is apparently stronger. Open d-file for the queen, more squares for the bishops etc etc.
Better queenside spacing and pawn structure.
(Important) Black often has to advances the pawns in-front of its king on the king side. But ... this is making chess engines worried because chess engines are taught not to push the king protecting pawns without a clear compensation.

KID is too complicated for a chess engine to evaluate properly. You need to push it into specific lines.
You will see the same problem in an opening setup where Black's idea is to give up the center control but opt for long term counter-play. Grunfield, KID, and hypermodern openings all fall into the category.

Your suggestion is good for a beginner, but there's some point of skill level when you'll need to know the specific lines that work or don't work.

Note that Hikaru Nakamura and Garry Kasparov have both stated that engine evaluations in the KID that favor White shouldn't be fully trusted. In the 2015 Sinquefield Cup, Nakamura won a sharp attacking game against Wesley So after which Naka is quoted as saying:

"Wesley, frankly, just needs to learn how to prepare better," Nakamura
said. "He just really misunderstood the position." Nakamura said the
computer evaluation can't be trusted…

Source: Mike Klein, "Nakamura Blasts So's Preparation, Vachier-Lagrave Also Lurking," Chess.com, August 30, 2015.
In a tweet, Kasparov said:

Congrats to @GMHikaru on his victory today. The King's Indian requires
the courage of your convictions & courage to ignore machine opinions!

oh wow this explains why king's indian was used a computer by arkady balagan in the chess tv series endgame. nice.

Worth pointing out that was 5 years ago... A lot has happened since then, Stockfish 6 is rated about 400 rating points lower than Stockfish 12 in the CCRL blitz rating list. Modern versions of Stockfish (and also in this case notably Leela) have a much better understanding about openings like the KID.


text:
World championship games where underpromotion was necessary
I have been frequenting tactics puzzles and a few books over the past year. I come across these underpromotion puzzles frequently, however, I never find them in real games.

Has there ever been a world championship game where an underpromotion was necessary?

And if not, what was the highest level game that involved an underpromotion?

This is not a world championship game but was played recently by two former world champions: Anand vs Carlsen. Carlsen's underpromotion is brilliant: https://youtu.be/gpbZEV02eE4

Found a Rubinstein game!
[fen ""]
[Date "1908.??.??"]
[White "Alapin, Simon"]
[Black "Rubinstein, Akiba"]
[WhiteElo "2500"]
[BlackElo "2640"]
[Result "0-1"]

1.e4 e5 2.Ne2 Nf6 3.f4 Nxe4 4.d3 Nc5 5.fxe5 d5 6.d4 Ne6 7.Nf4 c5 8.Nc3 cxd4 9.Ncxd5 Nc6 10.Bd2 Nxf4 11.Nxf4 Nxe5 12.Bb5+ Bd7 13.Qe2 Bd6 14.c3 O-O 15.Bxd7 Qxd7 16.cxd4 Nc6 17.O-O Nxd4 18.Qd3 Bxf4 19.Bxf4 Rad8 20.Rad1 Qg4 21.Rde1 Ne6 22.Qe3 b6 23.h3 Qh5 24.Be5 Rfe8 25.Qa3 f6 26.Bd6 Qd5 27.Bg3 Qc5+ 28.Qxc5 Nxc5 29.Bc7 Rxe1 30.Rxe1 Rd2 31.Re8+ Kf7 32.Ra8 Rxb2 33.Rxa7 Kg6 34.a4 h5 35.a5 bxa5 36.Rxa5 Rc2 37.Bg3 Kh6 38.Bf2 Ne4 39.Be3+ Kg6 40.Ra4 Ng3 41.Bf4 Ne2+ 42.Kh2 h4 43.Bd6 Kh5 44.Ra5+ Kh6 45.Rf5 Kg6 46.Rf2 Rd2 47.Bf4 Rc2 48.Bd6 Kf7 49.Ba3 Ke6 50.Bf8 g6 51.Bg7 f5 52.Bh6 Kf6 53.Bf8 g5 54.Bd6 Ke6 55.Bb8 Rd2 56.Bc7 g4 57.hxg4 fxg4 58.g3 h3 59.Bb8 Kd5 60.Bf4 Rc2 61.Be3 Ke4 62.Bg5 Kd3 63.Bh6 Nd4 64.Rxc2 Nxc2 65.Bf4 Ke2 66.Bb8 Ne3 67.Kg1 Kf3 68.Bc7 Nf1 69.Bb8 Nxg3 70.Bc7 Ne2+ 71.Kh2 Nf4 72.Bb6 g3+ 73.Kh1 Nd3 74.Kg1 h2+ 75.Kh1 Nf2+ 76.Bxf2 gxf2 77.Kxh2 f1=R 78.Kh3 Rh1#  0-1

and just now, one by lasker:
[fen ""]
[Site "New York, NY USA"]
[Date "1892.11.01"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "3"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Gustave Simonson"]
[Black "Emanuel Lasker"]
[ECO "C67"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "135"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.d4 Nxe4 5.O-O Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6
7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Nc3 h6 10.Bf4 Be6 11.Rad1+ Kc8
12.Ne1 g5 13.Bd2 b6 14.Nd3 c5 15.f4 c4 16.Nf2 gxf4 17.Bxf4 Kb7
18.Nfe4 Kc6 19.Rd2 Be7 20.h3 Rad8 21.Rfd1 Rxd2 22.Rxd2 Rg8
23.Kf1 Nh4 24.Bg3 Ng6 25.Ne2 Kb7 26.Nf6 Rh8 27.c3 c5 28.Ne4
Kc6 29.Kf2 Rd8 30.Rxd8 Bxd8 31.Ke3 Bc7 32.Bf4 b5 33.Bxh6 Bxe5
34.Nf4 Nxf4 35.Bxf4 Bg7 36.h4 b4 37.Bg5 Bd5 38.Bf6 Bh6+ 39.Bg5
Bf8 40.h5 Kd7 41.h6 Bxe4 42.Kxe4 Ke6 43.g4 f6 44.h7 Bg7 45.Bh6
Bh8 46.a3 bxa3 47.bxa3 a6 48.a4 f5+ 49.gxf5+ Kf7 50.Bd2 Kg7
51.Bf4 Kxh7 52.Be5 Bg7 53.Bxg7 Kxg7 54.Kd5 Kf6 55.Kxc4 Kxf5
56.Kxc5 Ke6 57.Kb6 Kd5 58.a5 Kd6 59.c4 Kd7 60.c5 Kc8 61.Kxa6
Kb8 62.c6 Kc7 63.Kb5 Kb8 64.Kc5 Kc8 65.Kd6 Kb8 66.Kd7 Ka8
67.c7 Ka7 68.c8=R 1-0

Both were found on https://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm

I'm not sure about a world championship game, but genuine underpromotions do occur now and then in grandmaster games.
For a starting shot, here is the famous 2012 game with a knight promotion by Hikaru Nakamura. According to the FIDE rating website, Nakamura's rating at the time was 2783 the month game was played. By "highest level," I took that to mean the highest rating of a player in a professional game with a genuine underpromotion occurred.
[Title "Hikaru Nakamura-Vladimir Kramnik, Chess Olympiad, Istanbul Turkey, 9/6/19"]
[FEN ""]
[startply "122"]

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 Bg7 4. c4 c6 5. d4 d5 6. cxd5 cxd5 7. Nc3 Ne4 8. Qb3 Nxc3 9. bxc3 O-O 10. Nd2 e6 11. e4 Nc6 12. O-O Na5 13.  Qd1 Qc7 14. Qf3 b6 15. Ba3 Rd8 16. e5 Ba6 17. Rfe1 Rac8 18. Bb4 Bh6 19. Qd1 Nc6 20. Ba3 Na5 21. Bb4 Nc6 22. Ba3 Na5 23. Nb1 b5 24. h4 Nc6 25. Bc5 Qb8 26. Qe2 Na5 27. Nd2 Rxc5 28. dxc5 Qc8 29. Nf3 Qxc5 30. Nh2 Bg7 31. h5 g5 32. h6 Bxh6 33. Qh5 Bg7 34. Qxg5 Nc6 35. Ng4 Qe7 36. Qxe7 Nxe7n37. a4 d4 38. axb5 Bxb5 39. Rxa7 d3 40. Rxe7 d2 41. Rd1 Be2 42. Ne3 Bxe5 43. c4 h5 44. Ra7 h4 45. Ra2 Bxd1 46. Nxd1 hxg3 47. fxg3 Bxg3 48. c5 f5 49. Ra7 e5 50. c6 e4 51. Bh3 Rc8 52. Ra6 Rf8 53. Ra5 f4 54. Kf1 e3 55. Ke2 Rf6 56. Ra8+ Kg7 57. Ra7+ Rf7 58. Rb7 Kf6 59. Kf3 Re7 60. Rxe7 Kxe7 61. c7 e2 62. c8=N+ Kf6 63. Kxe2 Ke5 64. Nb6 Kd4 65. Bg2 Be1 66. Nd5 Ke5 67. Nb4 Bh4 68. Nd3+ Kf5 69. Kxd2 Kg4 70. Ke2 Bf6 71. N1f2+ Kg3 72. Bf3 Bd8 73. Ne4+ Kh4 74. Ne5 Bc7 75. Ng6+ Kh3 76. Ne7 Bd8 77. Nf5 Bb6 78. Kf1 Kh2 79. Bg4 f3 80. Nh4

This game is somewhat preferrable, as genuineness comes in 3 classes: a) UP is completely superfluous (Lasker game, Kc6! is 3 moves faster, b) UP is the fastest but not the only win (Rubinstein), c) UP is the only win (Nakamura).


text:
What are your thoughts on a chess study plan?
I'm thinking of some serious chess study and wondering if anyone has tailored a study plan for themselves and what the key aspects are to consider. This is what I'm currently doing on a daily basis:

Playing three games of chess (15 min) real time.

Solving a chess problem with a 20 minute time limit.

Playing three blitz games with crafty (2 min)

Reading a chapter of a chess book at night (currently My System - Nimzowitsch)

Anyone else have a study plan and keen to share?

You might be able to ask this guy https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/what-are-your-thoughts-on-a-chess-study-plan

Welcome to [chess.se]! While this may be a good question, it's a bad fit for the Stack Exchange Q&A format which focuses on objective questions. See the Help Center for more details.

Playing is counterproductive until you have some basic skill, but a little playing will keep you motivated and may show you things to be aware of unless the other player is also a beginner.
Do NOT do chess problems.  They will not help at all and waste time.
Do not play blitz at all.  Play 10-15 minute games but pace  yourself to move in exactly ten seconds.
Reading books is good.  You wont get much out of My System but it wont hurt you.  You need to find and do tactical problems that are graded from easy to hard and are grouped around the same theme.  See an example then solve ten more of the same type solution.
You need to learn ONE opening really well for white and black.  But make sure it is ONLY ONE opening.  Do not try to do more than that. Obviously there will be variations depending how the opponent plays that will already stretch your ability to master yet.
Eventually you will need to understand positional play and some other things but start with the list above.


text:
Continuation for white in the Bishops opening variation: 1.e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Qxd4 Nf6
I am currently reading Chess Openings: Theory and Practice - I.A Horowitz. The first opening displayed in the book is a variation of the bishops opening: 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nf3. Seemingly the best continuation for black, if they can defend properly, is to continue 4 ... Nxe4 and to 5. Qxd4 respond with 5 ... Nf6.
From this point Horowitz goes on to consider the variation 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Nc3 c6:
rnbqk2r/pp1pbppp/2p2n2/6B1/2BQ4/2N2N2/PPP2PPP/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 8

This seems fine for white (to me) by basic chess principles (good development, castling around the corner). However I have two questions:

What if black had responded with 6 ... Qe7+?
It seems like white either trade queens and is worse or moves the king allowing Nc6 and is just worse?

What can white do after 5 ... Nf6? My thinking is that 6. Bg5 is the mistake so perhaps 6. Nc3.

You have to keep in mind that the book you're reading was written in the 1960's. Chess opening theory has come a long way since then, and it's almost a guarantee that most of the lines given in the book are severely outdated. In this case the problem seems to be that the gambit line itself is not worth it; White doesn't get enough compensation for the pawn no matter what, as far as I can see.

What could be the continuation after 6.Qe7+ 7.Kf1?

@David In that case I think something like 7 ... Nc6 8. Qh4 d5 9. Bxd5 Qd6 10. Bxc6 Qxc6 would work, leaving black with the bishop pair and open lines for them to develop, not completely winning but I like to play black in that situation . Stockfish 11 (on chess.com) otherwise suggests after 7 .... Nc6 and 8 Qf4 the move 8 ... h6 simplifying the position after 9. Bxf6, again with bishop pair for black.

Good comment @Scounged! I will keep that in mind while reading. Being a lower rated player I still find it beneficial to look at the openings, as my opponents are yet not to good at responding to them. Also, the book has helped me get better at calculating. I think my best plan would be to pick up another book as well or consider studying something like chess.com's database for something more viable!

For a good lecture about the Urusov Gambit and related openings, I suggest you the monograph by the Kenniltworth Chess Club: http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/urusov/gambit/index.html
It is thought for players of white pieces.

Using Caissabase or the lichess masters database we can see that instead of Nxe4, Nc6 is more popular to avoid this gambit idea (the Urusov gambit) which is.... dubious but not so simple and seemingly scores fine enough. White has additionally scored p decently.
Qe7+ has only been played in one game, but seems good (black won that game, and SF12 gives -0.89 at depth 37, which is quite good). Nc6 and Be7 are both fine, but Nc6 is probably slightly better, judging from the fact that the lichess database shows it as most common with quite a hefty advantage for black, as opposed to the noticeably higher win rate for white (seemingly due to this very variation, as it turns out!). SF also likes Nc6 best, with an evaluation of -0.86 at depth 40.
After Nf6, Nc3 is seemingly more popular nowadays (as the lichess masters database), but has worse results.
My recommendation would be to consider not playing this gambit in the first place, since the Urusov Gambit is somewhat iffy, although it's probably still playable at a sub-master level, or to get a more recent book on this. This book is from the 1960s, as @Scounged very nicely pointed out, and as such is almost entirely useless- the only cases where it's useful are for general plans and opening names, and even here it will be severely lacking. If you want a starting opening book, Fundamental Chess Openings by Paul van der Sterren is great, although again note that many of the lines will be incorrect (esp in theoretical openings e.g. e4 e5 or the Sicilian)- focus instead on plans and names, and supplement with other sources (books, videos, courses).

Thank you for the analysis! Your advice seems sound. I will check out Paul van der Sterren's book. Do you happen to have a good recommendation for a book if I would like to go further into the theoretical openings (something that perhaps focuses, almost entirely, on the Sicilian)? Or is a database, e.g chess.com's, more viable for learning?

For the Sicilian there's definitely books on it, but I'm not sure- I know there's a course by IM Christof Sielecki about a new (yet sound apparently) variation of the Sicilian, called "The Dirty Harry Sicilian" There are also many youtube channels with opening videos, but treat them like older books- that is to say, with caution and checking. Databases can serve as an additional resource to books to patch up questions/holes you see, but cannot serve as a sole resource due to the plans/ideas not being explained.

And if you want other openings, generally searching the opening name on some chess book site or Chessable will show you plenty of options for courses/books on it- most recent is generally going to be best.


text:
Automatically claiming draw when low on time
Suppose X and Y are in an endgame:

X has a rook and 400 seconds.
Y has a rook and 40 seconds.

Y obviously cannot claim draw because X can theoretically win, even
though a minimally careful play would result in a draw.
X will play to make Y's time run out, but has to avoid the 50 move draw and
the threefold repetition draw.
Now, since Y is hard pressed on time, he may not notice that a position has
been repeated three times. More inexperient players may even overlook that
the 50 moves have been made. In this scenario, will Y actually have missed the
chance to get the draw? Or can Y tell the arbiter that he wants to have the
draw if any of those events occur, even if Y misses it?
Lichess has an option to claim draw on threefold repetition when time remaining < 30 seconds, thus I'm wondering if there is something of the sort for on the board games.

I'm wondering if there is something of the sort for on the board games

The closest thing to this according to the latest FIDE Laws of Chess is article 9.6:

9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:
9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times.
9.6.2 any series of at least 75 moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture. If the last move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence.

However this process is not automatic. For either of these scenarios to play out then either the arbiter has to be watching and counting or the moves have to be recorded by at least one of the players and then brought to the arbiter's attention.
In general a game is drawn after 3 repetitions or 50 moves without a capture or pawn move only if one of the players makes a valid claim backed up by a recording of the moves.
See:

9.2.1 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):
9.2.1.1    is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or
9.2.1.2   has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.

and

9.3 The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, if:
9.3.1 he writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move which will result in the last 50 moves by each player having been made without the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or
9.3.2 the last 50 moves by each player have been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.

but note:

9.4 If the player touches a piece as in Article 4.3, he loses the right to claim a draw under Article 9.2 or 9.3 on that move.

So, you can't retrospectively claim a draw under 3 fold repetition or the 50 move rule.
Note that if there are no increments then in special circumstances you may be able to claim a draw when low on time in endgames like KR vs KR.
Here is what the rules say:

III.2.1 The Guidelines below concerning the final period of the game including Quickplay Finishes, shall only be used at an event if their use has been announced beforehand.
III.2.2 These Guidelines shall apply only to standard chess and rapid chess games without increment and not to blitz games.

Important to note that these rules never apply to blitz games, only standard and rapid. Also important to note that they only apply if announced beforehand. This will rarely happen.
Then:

III.4 If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue.
III.5 If Article III.4 does not apply and the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the chessclock (see Article 6.12.2). He may claim on the basis that his opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been making no effort to win by normal means:

In a physical game, X and Y will normally just shake hands for the draw.
However, if X insists on trying to "flag" Y, then Y can invoke the Quickplay Finish guidelines from the Laws of Chess (2018 edition), provided they are used in that tournament:

III.1 A ‘quickplay finish’ is the phase of a game when all the remaining moves must be completed in a finite time.

III.5 If Article III.4 does not apply and the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the chessclock (see Article 6.12.2). He may claim on the basis that his opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been making no effort to win by normal means:

III.5.1 If the arbiter agrees that the opponent cannot win by normal means, or that the opponent has been making no effort to win the game by normal means, he shall declare the game drawn. Otherwise he shall postpone his decision or reject the claim.

Any sane arbiter will then judge the game to be a draw (or at least keep observing until it's obvious that Y is good enough to not just drop their rook).

Are these the current rules? Pretty sure arbiter decisions to make draws have been removed a couple of years ago already.

@koedem Oh, you are right, I quoted an older version. The rule is still in the 2018 FIDE handbook, though.

So I guess that if it is in the 2018 handbook this rule is still valid? Sorry if this is a dumb question.

@Annatar the standard rule is the one for 5 second increment like I mentioned in my answer below. Though if that rule does not apply (maybe because the tournament organizer doesn't have digital clocks) then this seems to serve as a backup rule.

@Annatar why bother? Because those are the rules. I have seen the 5 second increment be claimed many a times. Though usually the opponent will just accept the draw offer since it would be pointless to play on.

@Annatar which of the two rules gets used is decided before the tournament starts. It's usually in the tournament announcement. When one of the two rules is used, the other one is not used.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

In many over the board long time control games if there's no more time to be added (so no extra time after 40/60 moves or anything) you can request a 5 second increment or delay. This counts as draw offer and if the opponent doesn't want to draw the game continues with those 5 second increment and the opponent getting a two minute time bonus. In a position like this that would be the obvious course of action.
If the tournament does not allow that: there is a 5 time repetition and a 75 move rule that states that if the arbiter notices that a position has been repeated 5 times they MUST intervene and end the game as a draw. So 3 time repetition means you can claim, 5 time repetition means the arbiter themselves must intervene.
In either case I would probably stop the clock and ask the arbiter what the exact rules in the tournament are. At worst you give your opponent a two minute time bonus by doing so.
EDIT: To provide some sources:
"FIDE Handbook Guidelines: III.4    If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue."
Concerning 75 moves rule:
"50-move rule: 5.3.2 A player may claim a draw if the last 50 moves have been completed by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.
75-move rule: 9.6.2 The game is drawn if the last 75 moves have been completed by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture."

Thanks for the answer. Woah, I did not know a play could stop the clock. So according to this the answer to my question is no, there is no such thing as "auto-draw"?

As mentioned it depends on the tournament. Most will play with this rule, then there indeed is no "auto-draw" (except with insufficient mating material of course). As the other answer points out though, a tournament may play by different rules where you can still claim a draw. Best to ask the arbiter of your tournament. And yes, you can stop the clock to make a claim to the arbiter at any time. (though if the claim gets rejected your opponent might get the mentioned 2 minute time bonus)


text:
Some strange moves in Polgar vs Najer (2009)
In the 2009 match between Judit Polgar and Evgeniy Najer in Richard Riordan GM Blitz the following strange(?) opening sequence of the Najdorf was played
[White "Judit Polgar"]
[Black "Evgeniy Najer"]
[Result "1-0"]
[fen ""]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d3 Nf6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nc3 a6 6. Nxd4 e5 7. Be3 Be7 8. Nb3

Black refuses to take the white knight on both move 5 and 7 but why? I see no horrible threat if the capture is made.

The game Najer - Polgar, Richard Riordan GM Blitz, 2009 is from TWIC 767, along with the above sequence of moves. Sicilian Paulsen, White win, 78 moves. There are a large number of moveless games from the same tournament, so it looks like the event organisers had problems recording the game moves accurately.

I'd bet a lot of money that somehow one move from either side was stored incorrectly which makes the whole game incorrect.
A possible correct version of this game may be 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 cxd4 5.Nxd4 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 Or some other permutation of those moves (e.g. play 4...cxd4 one move earlier, I chose this order since it's closer to the game given).
The cause for this probably was some kind of error with the DGT board transmission.


text:
A question about chess literature
I am looking for a chess book written in a very engaging style and thoroughly professional manner. The book should be more along philosophical and psychological lines rather than notations and arithmetic.
I would appreciate any help, preferably from those who are keen chess literature lovers.

You should check out books by GM Jonathan Rowson. As well as being a GM he is a philosopher. After his first degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University he spent a year at Harvard University before doing a PhD in Wisdom at Bristol University. He is currently director of the Social Brain Centre at the RSA (UK Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts). Most of his chess books have a strong philosophical and psychological content and bias.
You should check out:

The Seven Deadly Chess Sins
Chess for Zebras
The Moves That Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life

You will probably find interesting the chess books of David Bronstein, specially The sorcerer´s apprentice. He was an interesting person, and has dissertations about different topics in his books. Even though most of them are chess analysis, he enjoys explaining about psychology, artificial intelligence game style and such.

Thank you, @SharkCaller! Will get books by Bronstein! :)

One book which I liked, when I was a child, is Chess for Tigers by Simon Webb.
However, this book is pretty old (the first edition was published in 1978), and at least the tip to write moves down before moving isn't allowed today anymore.


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Which countries have (or had) chess as a compulsory component of their national curricula?
The only country I know of that definitely has chess as a compulsory subject on its national curriculum is Armenia. Are there any others? I think Paraguay may be one.
Please take "national curriculum" to mean the curriculum that is legally obligatory to be taught in all state schools. Thus England and Wales have a national curriculum, even though there is no obligation for it to be taught either in private schools (attended by about 7% of children) or by home educators.
Quite a bit of chess is taught in Danish, Swedish, and Hungarian schools, but as far as I am aware (and I may be wrong) it is not actually a compulsory subject in any of those countries. I thought it used to be a compulsory subject in the USSR but couldn't find confirmation.

In USSR it was not.

In this article in the Majorca Daily Bulletin (2015), the Spanish parliament is described as having unanimously passed a resolution that year to allow regional governments to introduce chess as a compulsory or optional subject in schools. The resolution is similarly described as "non-binding" in the Financial Times.
The first-mentioned article further states that

Armenia became the first country to apply the policy nationwide in
2011. Mexico followed in 2014, as well as parts of China, India and Germany.

The word "parts" here implies that chess is not a compulsory part of the national curriculum in those countries as defined in the question. I have not yet found a fully reliable source for the case of Mexico. So far the only certain case I have identified is Armenia.
A report on the international conference on chess in schools held in Armenia in 2014 quotes FIDE's then president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as follows:

Recently I was in Mexico. They showed me their national school
curricula [sic] and said that they were going to follow Armenia’s example
and make chess a compulsory subject in schools. The same is true for
Paraguay, Mongolia and Thailand.

Regarding Thailand, I wonder which game is being referred to. International chess is much less played in that country than makruk, also known as Thai chess.

According to this article in the UK Telegraph newspaper - Spain says yes to chess as game is made compulsory in schools - written in 2015 by IM Malcolm Pein who runs CSC (Chess in Schools and Community) in England.
There are a number of countries where something like CSC exists but, like CSC in England, it is not part of the school curriculum. Spain is the only country I know of which has made it compulsory.

But is it compulsory in Spain? According to this article in the Majorca Daily Bulletin (2015), reporting on the same parliamentary resolution, "Spain’s parliament this year unanimously adopted a law allowing regional governments to introduce chess as a compulsory or optional subject in schools."


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Why is this "slow move" with the king a good move?
rn1qkb1r/1p3pnp/p1p1p1p1/3pP3/3P2P1/2NBBQ1P/PPP2P2/2KR3R w kq - 0 13

Stockfish (depth 30) says the best move is Kb1 with +1.5 evaluation.
I'm having trouble to understand why.
The a2 pawn is not getting threatened soon,
and that the c1-h6 diagonal is well guarded against checks.
Furthermore, it is early game and white has an advantage,
building pressure on black's kingside. Kb1 looks like a tempo wasting move
that just doesn't accomplish much.
The engine also likes Qg3, Ne2 and Bh6, which I deem more active ones.
But can you help me understanding reasons why Kb1 is a good move?

It is really hard to find a bad move with White...

Any difference of less than 0.5 with the seoncd-best option should be considered irrelevant at beginner level

Prophylaxis. A pawn roller on the king side (that atrocious Ng7!!) will blow Black to pieces sooner or later, unless he tries to force things with Be7, Pf6 but that doesn't exactly reduces his holes. So if I at gun point had to play Black, I throw my whole queenside to the front. Now look at the bad white pieces: The Nc3 bites on granite. Moving it to c1 gives the K more protection, on b3 it could put a cork on c5 (giving up the darkfield bishop is suicide for black) and Rc1 followed by c4, especially if the bP already made it to a4 and b4, takes any pawn levers out of the queenside.

Just because Stockfish thinks a move is best doesn't mean it is best. But let's see why Stockfish might like it.
When I look at Stockfish's static evaluation of that position, and move the king from  c1 to b1, I see four sub-evaluations change. In order of the size of the change, those sub-evaluations are:

Psqt bonus. This gives a bonus to each piece based on what square it's on. The king gets a bigger bonus simply by being on b1 instead of c1.

Shelter weakness. The king gets a penalty on c1 because the adjacent d-pawn has moved, and gets no penalty on b1 because none of its adjacent pawns have moved.

Mobility bonus. On b1, the White pieces are slightly more mobile (the rooks can now move to c1 - yes, it counts the square for both rooks) and that gives a bonus.

Shelter storm. Black gets a bonus for the d5 pawn beginning to "storm" the White king if the king is on c1. With the king on b1, the d-pawn does not count as "storming" since it's no longer on an adjacent file to the king, and Black doesn't get this bonus.

All told, it adds up to about 0.5 evaluation points.
It seems that Stockfish is simply having a hard time coming up with a good plan here. At depth 27 it gives Rhf1 as the second-best move, but the line it gives starts with this.
rn1qkb1r/1p3pnp/p1p1p1p1/3pP3/3P2P1/2NBBQ1P/PPP2P2/2KR3R w kq - 0 13

1. Rhf1 Nd7 2. Kb1 a5 3. Rg1

But it doesn't exactly seem like the best sequence for making progress.

It's difficult to know exactly why the engine makes Kb1 in particular its top move here, and I wouldn't get too hung up on it since it's such a close tie in evaluations between the engine's top moves. But it's really not a bad move at all, so I'm not surprised that the engine recommends it.
The dreadful knight on g7 is a clear indication that something has gone terribly wrong for black, and this together with the fact that white is seriously ahead in development indicates that white should be the one to push in this position. But here black doesn't really have any good way to create any active counterplay at the moment, so white has some time to prepare before going for the kill. When there is time to prepare it is often a good idea to prepare one's position for the attack by placing all the pieces optimally in order to facilitate a concrete winning plan.
So, what does a concrete winning plan look like in this position? I think a sound idea is to go for a pawn break, say f2-f4-f5 since the pawns on e6 and g6 create a nice hook for white to use in order to break black's position. But white could also go for another potential break with c2-c4 if black's king decides to run to the queenside, and for this particular break the white king would be better on b1 than on c1. More generally, the king is going to be safer and less in the way on b1 than on c1, so investing a move in improving its position is not a bad idea when there is no rush.

Typieclly Kb1 (or Kb8) is played after queenside castling to add protection to the "a" pawn. The likely necessity of doing this at some point at the expense of time is one of the reasons queenside castling is not as  popular as kingside castling.  Whether the pawn is attacked immediaely or not is irrelevant.  It's best to do this when not under duress.  In a later critical position, it may be a compromising, time-losing move even though necessary.


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Fastest way to generate castling moves in a computer chess engine
I am currently developing a Bitboard chess engine using C++. I am in the process of creating the move generator function. I have completed most of it and only the casting part is left.
I have used Magic Bitboards for sliding pieces and precalculated the attacks for other pieces. I am trying to make everything Highly efficient, by avoiding too many if-statements. The part I am stuck at is castling. The most naive method would be to use a few if-statements for checking whether the squares are empty and castling is still available. But this wouldn't be efficient at all.
What would be the fastest method to generate castle-moves?

Castling checks seem easy to short-circuit to be efficient. For my own implementation (not blazing fast), I did the following checks in order:
Generate pseudo-legal move:

Castling rights: Booleans for each castling, flipped when relevant king/rook move for the first time.
Intervening squares vacant: precalculated bitboards for each castling; AND it with all pieces.

Test move:

Check that the 3 squares the king (not the rook) passes through are not attacked. I had a general isSquareAttacked method for that.

This already suffices for orthodox chess. No need to make and unmake the move.
For Chess960, if you're interested, you do need to make and unmake the move to see if the king is in check after castling. This is because of the following type of situation: wRb1, wKe1, bRa1; a-side castling is illegal for white, although the squares the king passes through (e1, d1, c1) are not under attack in the static position. This case only arises for Chess960, though.

It's been a long time since I've made any efficiency mods, but this can be reduced to one if statement, but many would be easier to read.
if
!bitboard_occupied  // easy to find by ORing with f1/g1 (or queenside)

!bitboard_attacked | [square e1/f1/g1 (or queenside)  // attacked already known

!bitboard_moved | (h1 (or a1) & e1)

Updating the moved bitboards would be more costly to maintain during each move and undo than the extra if statements in the relatively rare castling routine.

I am not sure about the fastest way but I used pre-defined bitboards with 1:s on the bishop and knight squares (and queen if castling queen side) respectively and AND those together with the all pieces bitboard (there can't be any oppoennt pieces on the squares either). If the resulting bitboard is empty and you have castling rights, then you are allowed to make the move.
Edit: You also can't add the castling move if you are in check, which should be the first and easiest to check (since you probably already check if you are in check or not in your move gen routine).

Yes that's works except that the king can't castle if any of the squares where the king might be in between the castle are under attack, what about that :(

Are you generating only pseudo-legal moves? If so you will do this check when you make the move to save time in your engine. If you try to make a castling move you let the make_move function check whether those squares are under attack, and if they are return that the move is False.

What I do is generate a set of pseudo-legal moves first, iterate through them later on to check whether the king is in check AFTER making the move. The thing is the king moves more than 1 square during casting, and none of them should be under attack, not only the one that it would be on after castling.

So in your Negamax function you have something like 'children = get_pseudo_legal_moves()' and then when you loop through all nodes you do something like 'for child in children: if make_move(): do all the stuff, else unmake move and skip to next move'. Since most of your moves probably won't be causing the king to end up in check. In the make_move function where you check if the move ends up in check you can have a special case where 'if move_type == 'castling': also check square -1'. I hope I make myself clear, English is not my main language :)

Actually I haven't started the implementation of the search. I am still implementing the move generator, trying to make it as efficient. But i get what you mean, thank you. And yeah your English was comprehensible you don't have to worry.


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Source on common ways to make draws
I was recently surprised by the following drawing idea, black to move:
6k1/pR3pbp/6p1/1Q6/8/5nP1/PP1r3P/5K2 b - - 0 1

In this position black can play Nxh2+ and, no matter white's king move, move the knight back with Nf3 and make a repetition (or win!).
It is a win if white decides to run to the h1 corner because for example 1...Nxh2+ Kg1 2. Nf3+ Kh1 3.Rh2#. If instead white goes for the rook, then 1...Nxh2+ Ke1 2.Nf3+ Kf1 (only legal move) and we have repeated the position.
Is there a source where I can find a collection of drawing ideas like the above?

This question feels misguided to me.  There are some beginning/intermediate players who seem to think that the way to improve is to learn more rules of thumb and become better at recognizing when they apply, when, actually, the way to improve is to become better at raw computation.  You don't learn to find draws by seeing them in a book and recognizing them; you learn to find draws by computing out the moves at the board, just as you have done in writing up the question.  (Of course, books aren't useless, but this question feels too book-reliant to me.)

I know it is an old question and an old comment, but sorry, I can't hide how strongly I disagree with this comment. Raw computation is, unless we are talking about top gms, for engines, not humans. It is very inefficient in the sense of energy spent, it is very unreliable in the sense of it is easy to go wrong, and there is a lot of positions where computation does not help, while understanding does. On the contrary, it is a very good idea to learn patterns like this one and be able to recognize them in the game. Unfortunately I am not aware of such collections, which is a shame.

there are different books that cover this topic,
for example Neishtadt book on tactic " Improve Your Chess Tactics: 700 Practical Lessons & Exercises" has a chapter dedicated to miracle saves, which is stalemate and perpetual.
On John Speelman tactic book as well there si chapter on that,
I'd say many chess tactic books have a chapter on this topic generally.

Look at mikail tal's games. They are one of the most aggressive chess games played in the history of chess. It is quite splendid. Check it out.

This doesn't appear to make any attempt to answer the question.


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Disallow opponent from offering draw on lichess
How can I turn off the ability of the opponent to offer a draw? It has happened a couple of times now. I thought opponent was asking for takeback, in a hugely losing position. But it was actually a draw offer, so I ending up drawing a game that should have been easily won.

Draw offer is part of the game, if you remove it, it is no longer chess.

@Ivella So is promoting to a knight, yet many clients have a function to automatically promote to a queen.

@FedericoPoloni But taking away the opportunity to under promote is restricting what you are allowed to do, and you can always undo it. Taking away the opportunity to offer a draw is restricting what your opponent can do, and they have no way round it. Thus they are fundamentally different.

@IanBush So you're saying that I cannot have a checkbox that says "forbid opponent to propose draws", but I can have one that says "auto decline draw offers"? Fair enough, I'll take the latter.

Auto-decline is fine so long as your opponent is informed of it so they don't waste time thinking about and making draw offers. And I have to admit I personally wouldn't play anyone with that option set, but that's my choice.

@IanBush what's the difference between what you just said and completely forbidding draw offers?

Honestly the problem is that the takeback confirmation and the draw offer confirmation look identical in lichess. They should be two totally different UIs.

You can't. You can disable takebacks though. If you don't play games long enough with enough time to read what is being asked, perhaps you should accept mouseslips as part of the game.

There is no way you can do this, at least from the options available on Lichess. However, I've put up a Tampermonkey script that hides all draw offers such that you have no way to see or accept them:
// ==UserScript==
// @name         Lichess - Hide Draw Offers
// @match        https://lichess.org/*
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
  'use strict';

  var css = ".negotiation.draw { display:none }";
  var style = document.createElement("style");
  style.innerHTML = css;
  document.head.appendChild(style);

  var chatbox = document.querySelector(".mchat__messages.chat-v-1");
  var options = { childList: true, subtree: true };
  var callback = () => {
    chatbox.querySelectorAll("li.system t").forEach((item) => {
      if(item.innerHTML.indexOf("offers draw") > -1 || item.innerHTML.indexOf("declines draw") > -1) {
        item.parentElement.remove();
      }
    });
  };
  callback();
  var observer = new MutationObserver(callback);
  observer.observe(chatbox, options);
})();

Note that this does not deprive your opponent from their ability to offer you a draw. It just hides the draw offer from you. Your opponent will see their draw offer getting declined as you play your next move.

You can't. If your opponent offer you a draw, it means that he already know and understand all the moves you can make to win.
If you take it, it means that you accept your inability to force a victory (to surrender) using another strategy

lmao I love your username

As already mentioned by theonlygusti, the actual issue is that the draw offer and the takeback request look identical and are located right in the same spot. It already happened to me multiple times that my opponent requested a takeback with the intention to trick me to clicking accept right when it turns into a draw offer. The first time i didnt consider something like that at all and straight up fell for it . . .


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How do you write "castles" in algebraic?
Sorry if this question is a duplicate one, but I can't find the algebraic notation for castling. What is it?

In either algebraic or descriptive notation, castling is notated 0-0 or O-O on the Kingside (when the King goes to g1 or g8) and 0-0-0 or O-O-O on the Queenside (when the King goes to c1 to c8).  See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)#Castling

Small addendum: In PGN, O-O is the preferred notation - some programs accept 0-0, some don't. Chessbooks may even have OO or 00. The official version is Appendix C of the FIDE rules.

I assume you mean castling? 0-0 denotes kingside castling, i.e. the "short" way, and  0-0-0 is for queenside castling, i.e. the "long" way. The zeros represent the number of squares the rook travels.


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Is there a website that supports blind chess?
I am a blind chess player and desperately need a platform that I can play online. I've searched the web and the only thing that I could find is software that you have to download in order for this feature to be supported. I don't like to go for trouble if I don't have to. I would like to know if there is an online website that supports these kinds of features.

Just to be clear: Do you mean the traditional sense of “blind/blindfold chess”, where the moves are given individually as they happen (written, spoken, or otherwise), and the full board position is not available to the player during the game (visually or otherwise)?  Or do you mean chess with an interface accessible to visually impaired players, where the board position is available during the game as usual, but in some non-visual format as well as (or instead of) graphically?  Currently the question tags suggest the former, but the question body seems to suggest the latter.

Lichess has an option to play blindfolded if you have an account registered.
You have to activate the Speech Sound effect, in the upper right corner → Sound → Speech.
To enable writing coordinates(e.g. Nxe4) instead of moving pieces you can activate blindfold mode in your game display preferences.
Enjoy your games!
Source


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Is analysing moves on separate board in correspondence chess ethical?
In Lichess, any form of external help (e.g. engines) is forbidden, even in correspondence chess. However, there is an option to open a separate board where one can make unlimited scratch moves.
I would regard using a separate board as cheating because building
variations in the player's mind is in the spirit of chess and is subject to failures. For example, overlooking a piece that refutes an attack could be eliminated by using a separate board, so while using it will undoubtedly hinder a player's personal improvement, not using it will place him in disadvantage over another player who does.
Assuming external help is forbidden, is it ethical to use a scratch board in correspondence chess? Am I wrong that it goes against the spirit of chess?

Why not just agree with the person you're playing with on how you want to do it?

@BenCrowell There are normally tacit assumptions of the rules. From the answers and comments, I've learned there is no consensus on the case in question. In such cases, a previous explicit agreement is indeed the best. But I guess at the technology era online platforms will consolidate a de facto standard, even if involuntarily.

Nice question.  I sometimes use a board.  It never occurred to me that there could be ethical considerations.

Your question is a bit paradox: analyzing is the whole point of correspondence chess (and since strong engines exist, it is sort of a zombie). It is very unfortunate (and not your fault) that Lichess called it that way in the first place: e.g. ICCF explicitely allows engines. Better would be calling it "very long time chess". Consequently, you may analyze per hand. Of course, you again must distinguish from, how shall I call it, postal chess - a friendly game between strangers just for the sake that it's possible (today much faster and easier, of course), and you tacitly agree not to analyze.

ICCF rules

Thank you for the answer! I'm confused: I did assume correspondence chess was just "very long time chess" indeed (at least under Lichess it is, as you say), did the meaning totally change since the introduction of engines so that it is now "computer assisted chess"? The whole chess (except maybe for bullet) would be sort of zombie by that logic, but since players are not allowed to use engines, it is still alive (assuming they don't cheat).

@Quasímodo: No idea of the meaning changed (I never played correspondence), but the praxis definitely. (See Wiki article.) Chess itself is somewhat zombie-resistant, as it is not that trivial to bring an engine to an OTB fight, but that can only change to the worse when technology marches on.

Is this correct?: "Having a separate board for unaided analysis is actually a normal/expected thing in correspondence chess, as opposed to tighter time controls." Is that what your answer tries to convey? Sorry if I'm being a bit slow. The Wikipedia article provides no insight on that.

@Quasímodo: Yes, this was true at all times.

In its FAQ, lichess explicitly states their rules for what they call "correspondence chess":

Is correspondence different from normal chess?
On Lichess, the main difference in rules for correspondence chess is that an opening book is allowed. The use of engines is still prohibited and will result in being flagged for engine assistance. Although ICCF allows engine use in correspondence, Lichess does not.

I found no official mention of manual analysis on a separate board (except on forum threads), but the lichess user interface explicitly and deliberately provides easy access to both an opening database and an on-line analysis board (with engine features disabled). Thus, it is safe to assume that this is considered "part of the game". It would be nonsensical to allow an on-line analysis board, but disallow an off-line "physical" analysis board.
This is consistent with the correspondence chess rules and the user interface of other online chess platforms, e.g. gameknot (which explicitly allows move databases but disallows end-game tables) and chess.com (same).
Obviously, you are free to play by stricter rules if your opponent agrees.

One thing I would add is that this analysis board and opening book aren't terribly obvious, so I point them out whenever I'm playing with someone new. As long as you both have full information about what the other is doing  and agree, it can't be unethical

@llama Indeed, I for one only found it out because I wanted to premove and using that board is the only way.


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Is there a chess program that can detect if someone has left the game?
I was playing a game with someone and they left because they knew they were going to lose. This is a really annoying thing that has happened to me. I would like to know if there is a chess program that knows if someone has switched to another screen.

Related: https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21239/what-are-the-actions-one-can-do-against-chess-com-players-who-stop-moving-when-t/21247#21247

On chess.com, you can click their icon, report their behaviour, and then block them for future matches. In my experience, 95% of players on chess.com are decent.

Chess.com detects it as well. If they by chance disconnect due to internet issues, it will show a bar that fluctuates based on wifi strength. They have a certain time to reconnect.
Chess.com additionally gives warnings and will ban that user if they consistently leave matches, so you don't have to worry about them.
For a chess program that can check if they switch screens, I doubt that as of late. It may be possible to check servers, but that could cause an invasion of privacy, as well as consent needed to "share screen" or some sort. If you have suspicions, you can send a message to the developers and tell them, and chess.com allows you to review your opponents accuracy and time of moves, to check if they truly have been making moves they shouldn't have been able to.

I assumed "switch screens" means "change to another window/tab," which can be detected with the JavaScript blur event.

@BrianMcCutchon On the other hand, you can never really trust what JavaScript is telling you, as that can be modified client-side.

Lichess (http://lichess.org) has some ability to detect when your opponent has left the game. When that happens, it gives your opponent a brief chance to rejoin, then allows you to claim a victory or a draw if they do not rejoin. If Lichess detects that your opponent has left, it will show a counter counting down the seconds until you can claim victory. The amount of time on the counter seems to depend on the time control and other factors. If Lichess does not detect that your opponent has left, but they decide to run out the clock, Lichess will not allow you to claim a victory, but will still automatically penalize your opponent with a ban after repeated offenses.
Note that none of this happens in correspondence chess, as temporarily leaving the game is normal in that time control.

How long does it take lichess to let me claim a victory?

@TobyHarnish I think it depends on the time control and other factors.

I have waited months and I still don't see a option for me to claim a victory option on lichess.

@TobyHarnish If you're playing with an "unlimited" time control, leaving the game is considered normal. If you want your opponent to have to play a move eventually, play with a time control.

@ @Brian McCutchon, Thanks. I guess I was playing unlimited game.


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How to install stockfish on winBoard 4.4.5?
I want to install stockfish to winBoard 4.4.5. But winBoard 4.4.5 doesn't seem to have the same protocol as stockfish. Is there a way to do it on windows 10? I would like to install the latest version of stockfish to winBoard 4.4.5.

Stockfish supports the UCI protocol, Winboard supports the Xboard (or CECP) protocol. What you're looking for is a Winboard to UCI adapter, that sits between Winboard and Stockfish and does the translations between the two protocols.
The other alternative is using a chess GUI that supports UCI, e.g. Arena, ChessX, scid. even give Tarrasch a try.

It looks like Polyglot is the way to connect Winboard to UCI engines. It's being retired from Winboard, but should still be part of a Winboard installation. See here: https://www.chessprogramming.org/PolyGlot -- if the polyglot files aren't part of the Winboard install, I'd suggest downloading an older version of Winboard (Jan 2018 or earlier)


text:
Abbreviations like 't', 'm', 'zt', 'sf' in chess databases
I am just cleaning up the Event and Site headers in the games in my chess database.
There are a lot of abbreviations there. I am relatively sure about the following:

of, qf, sf and f – octo final, quarter final, semi final and final.
zt and izt  – zonal tournament and interzonal tournament.

But I could need help with these:

tt – Transnational Tournament? Training Tournament?
m (also: mt) – Masters? Match? Men? Memorial?
Tch – Transnational Championship?
It – Invitational Tournament? Italia?

Any hints are appreciated.

m usually means match. Don't know about any of the others, sorry :/

Maybe an issue of "Chess Informant" has the info (and the same abbreviations)?

I compiled this database from different sources, and I think they use m for different meanings. I now fix it source by source and afterwards I merge them together. I remove everything except the seven tag roster to make progress. Still, lots of work with the "Event" and "Site" headers. The event header should contain the name of the event, like "XXII SuperGM" and the site header the name of the city/region followed by the FIDE country code, like "Linares ESP". Well, should :-/

@HaukeReddmann yes, I guess it comes from chess informant. But I can not find related info on the net. Wikipedia gives the symbols used inside of games, but not abbreviations used in event titles.

@NilsLindemann: Tomorrow I'm in the lib, which has a few recent issues. If I don't forget it, I take a look. No promises :-)

@NilsLindemann: Sorry, no luck. CI has only a few abbreviations, almost all of them (OK, "o"=olympiad) already mentioned. I also found an issue of "New In Chess", likewise a dead end.

@HaukeReddmann too bad, but thanks for taking the time :-)

tt in databases means "team tournament" : you can find it for teams events, for instance the French team championship or Olympiads.
I suspect Tch to be similar ("Team championship") but I wouldn't be affirmative.

Wikipedia says TT is Transposition Table...
When the search encounters a transposition, it is beneficial to 'remember' what was determined last time the position was examined, rather than redoing the entire search again. For this reason, chess programs have a transposition table, which is a large hash table storing information about positions previously searched, how deeply they were searched, and what we concluded about them. Even if the depth (draft) of the related transposition table entry is not big enough, or does not contain the right bound for a cutoff, a best (or good enough) move from a previous search can improve move ordering, and save search time. This is especially true inside an iterative deepening framework, where one gains valuable table hits from previous iterations.
IT seems to hint at Invitational Tournament, though I cannot confirm this.

Ok, but I would guess tt does not mean that in the context of an [Event "..."] or [Site "..."] PGN header. Scid would store that somewhere else. Yes, I am also more and more sure that It means "Invitational Tournament".


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Can I watch two engines play each other on lichess?
Is there a way for me to watch two chess engine to play each other on lichess? I want to know who will win under time-limit.

There is a list of lichess bots here https://lichess.org/player/bots You can watch their games, they will sometimes play other bots. Or you can even create your own bot and challenge one of these bots.

You can use lichess bots playing against each other on lichess tv bots (https://lichess.org/tv/bot) or make your own bot and challenge online bots.

That link also sometimes include humans playing bots, but in https://lichess.org/games/bot there are more games and a higher chance of bot vs bot

Besides the mentioned lichess bots, you can sometimes catch

chess.com Computer chess championship at https://chess.com/ccc or  https://twitch.tv/computerchess with chat and background music
TCEC matches with chat at https://twitch.tv/tcec_chess_tv


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On Lichess, how do you promote to a rook with algebraic notation?
I am a blind chess player on Lichess. I came across a position in which I wanted to promote to a rook. I learned that you can promote by writing like this:
a8=n // promote the pawn at a8 to a knight.

Thus, I modified it to this:
b8 = r // promote the pawn at b8 to a roke.

The error it gives me is: "Envilate move."
I'm not sure what I did wrong. How is it done?
Here is the link to the game:
https://lichess.org/QlZNv9I8
It might look stubid because I wasn't playing the game.

maybe try: b8=r  (without the spaces around the = sign).

I see that you wrote the following: "// promote the pawn at b8 to a roke." Did you actually type that part into Lichess?

@Tanner Swett, No.

I figured out what is wrong. To promote a pawn to another piece, I need to first type the letter in which the pawn is, followed by the position I want the pawn to go, and lastly the equal sign with the piece I want to promote to.
Here is an example:
"Promote a pawn to a knight"
ee8=n "promote a pawn to a knight"

Here is how it works.
My pawn is at the letter e and I want the pawn to go to e8. So I typed:
ee8

The pawn should be a knight that is where =n came from.
Again here is the algebraic equation to use:
ee8=n


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Why can't I play puzzles on Lichess?
Lichess is a blind-accessible chess site that I like to play. But for some reason, it doesn't support puzzles in an accessible way.
I've done everything that I need to do to make them accessible. But they still aren't, even though it seems possible.
Why aren't puzzles accessible on Lichess for the vision-impaired?

On the Lichess database site for puzzles I found a link, where someone implemented an interface to solve puzzles "blindfolded" (i.e. without seeing the board):
https://www.tryit.in/blindfoldpuzzles/
However, because of my nonexistent knowledge in that matter, I have no idea if it's usable by blind people. It also seems limited to puzzles with very few pieces.

I just found out that Lichess has changed the way they do puzzles. If you were to enable accessibility mode under settings, you can go straight to Lichess' puzzle page and type out your moves to solve the puzzles. The site has also provided additional information such as where the pieces are, if your move is correct if you've entered a wrong move, what steps it took for the computer to get to that position, etc.

I am making a website called odinchess.com that is exclusively for blindfold chess. The games are by text (PGN/SAN notation) and so are the tactics! I'd love for you to check it out - hopefully it can help.
Let me know if there is anything I can add to it that might make it easier to use. I am curious, how do you prefer to be presented the board for tactics? There would need to be some way for you to know what the current position is.


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If there is two knight that can go to the same square, how does lichess know which knight I moved in the blind mode?
I just thought about something where two knight can go to the same square. Let say if a white knight is at c3 and a black knight is at b2. They both can go to a4 square. My question is that if I am play in the blind mode and typed
na4

and press enter, how does the chess engine know which knight I moved? Is it matter at all for chess engine to know this?
Note I am playing chess at lichess.

The engine keeps track of whose turn it is.

In algebraic notation, you must specify either the file or rank of the specific piece you'd like to move if an identical piece can also move there.
in the following image, there's a knight on c6 and another knight on e2. There's an arrow going from the f2 knight pointing to the d4 square.

if you'd like to specify this move, then you'd write

N2d4 or
Ned4

In some rare cases you must name both file AND rank. This usually happens when there are 3 of the same pieces on the board, in most cases; 3 queens.
In the following image there are 3 queens, one on d3, another on d7, and another on f7. There's an arrow going from the d7 queen pointing to the f5 square.

this move would be:

(Q)d7f5

The "Q" before "d7f5" is redundant because only a single piece can possibly be on the d7 square so you can just leave it out.

I can't see the image. So please write out the algebraic for everything that you're trying to show me. Your answer will be accepted if you do that.

@TobyHarnish no problem bro. I added captions on top of each image explaining the contents.


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What does this algebraic notation expression mean?
What does this algebraic notation expression mean?
exd5

There is no such notation as x. There is only a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and h. I don't know how this algebraic notation works.

Four downvotes and no comments? What is going on here? Stack Exchange questions are generally expected to show evidence of research effort, and this question shows none. So it should be downvoted. But so should many other questions here, for example, Is “Rdxd2” algebraic chess notation valid? (which currently has a score of 7). Why is this question being treated so harshly?

If this question is so bad, why you guys don't let me delete it?

It is usually not possible for an author to voluntarily delete a question with answers, but there are other ways for questions to be deleted. With a score of -6, this question may be on the way there.

I’m voting to close this question because Low-quality Questions. Should be deleted.

The "x" means "captures". So, exd5 means the e pawn captures the piece on d5, which may be either a pawn or a more valuable piece.
If the piece doing the capturing is not a pawn then the letter for the piece is used, e.g. Nxc3
Here is an example from the Scotch Gambit
[fen ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. c3 dxc3 5. Nxc3

For those of you (like me) who use this notation (x = capture) all the time: it's good to note that the confusion probably arises from a variant which uses a colon (:) to indicate captures. I've only seen it in old books myself, but Wikipedia lists it:

A colon (:) is sometimes used instead of "x", either in the same place the "x" would go (B:e5) or at the end (Be5:), but this is not the FIDE standard.


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Is castling bad in chess?
One of my chess opponents said that he doesn't think castling is good because the king is in the corner and it is easy to checkmate. However, many articles and books suggest that I castle early when I get a chance. Why is castling a good move in chess?

Does this answer your question? When is castling needed?

Castling is generally a good move because it gets your king out of the center in the early and mid game. The center is contested in the early and middle game. The classical idea behind controlling the center is that with more space to place pieces and maneuver, that player has a positional advantage that can transform into a tactical advantage if their opponent plays imprecisely. Getting the king away from tactics and scary pieces is a good way to avoid getting checkmated.  Once those scary pieces have been traded off, the king is best placed in the center where it is often the most powerful piece of the endgame.
It's true that the king is easier to checkmate in the corner, but the king is also easier to defend in the corner.

You should probably mention that the king is also easy to checkmate in the center - especially if all our pieces and pawns are trying our best to control the center and we can potentially blast it all open

Chess is a game of specific posiitons more than one of general principles. Normally, kings are safer in the corner because players want to fight for the center, so it's not a good idea to have the king in the middle of the action. But this doesn't mean that a castled king will always be safer than one in the center or vice-versa