21 ms·

Chess tactics explained

• Normille 6y ago
  I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I was a dusty old man [as featured in a few period dramas]. It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely but, at the same time, [for me anyway] pretty much removed all inclination to do so, as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play.
  • noir_lord 6y ago
    > as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. 100% sure, probably not however all the major online chess sites operate anti-cheat systems and heuristics plus dedicated teams. I play a lot online and nearly always look at the game with a computer afterwards and you can see that it was a human game (or someone been very clever with how they used the engine). I mean if you where a GM playing in a ranked tournament with a prize fund I could see the concern but at our level computer cheats are much easier to spot.
  • bttrfl 6y ago
    google trends can help answer your question: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,fortnite https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,fort...
  • Lio 6y ago
    > as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. That's less of a problem than you might think. The reason being that most online chess systems will give you an Elo rating and use that to match you up to similarly rated potential opponents. Anyone that was using a computer to play for them would quickly gain a high rating and so either be matched against really strong players who stand a chance of beating the computer or others doing the same thing. Give online chess a go, it's great.
  • flr03 6y ago
    Never been good either but I was occasionally playing when I was younger and The Queen's Gambit did get me back into Chess. On Chess.com the post game report gives you the move accuracy which is, I guess, some kind of standard deviation compared to what a chess engine would play. Never seen someone having a very high suspicious score, at least at my level.
    • have_faith 6y ago
      I think the incentive to cheat online at chess wears off quite quickly, there's not a lot of glory. When someone cheats and wins a round of Counter Strike or other only game their win is immediately seen by many people. It's also relatively easy through analysis to spot a not so subtle cheater so auto-bans weed out the few cheaters left.
  • notagoodidea 6y ago
    > I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I was a dusty old man [as featured in a few period dramas]. > It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely but, at the same time, [for me anyway] pretty much removed all inclination to do so, as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. I play on ICCF servers that are the past postal federation. Centaur games (Human + Computer help) are allowed with large time clock (50 days for the first 10 moves, and so on). I play for my fun and taking my time to dig into the problems of the position without hurry. You have to be registered at your national federation to play there but it is fun and very different of the general online chess experience which tends to be centred around blitz games.
  • k__ 6y ago
    [Spoiler Warning] As a person who can barely play chess The Queen's Gambit was a good show not because of the chess, but because it was a show about a women where everything went well. There was foreshadowing and all, but all went well in the end. It was very wholesome. Sure, it was about chess, but it could have been any sport, really.
    • RHSman2 6y ago
      the character work is sublime.
      • jfengel 6y ago
        As an actor myself, I was very impressed. They played chess like chess players. Each move had a meaning to them. They told a story just with the way they touched the pieces. The emotions were both powerful and tightly contained, which I find more exciting than the kind of big, showy acting that usually attracts the most attention. It was an exercise in intention and specificity, things that get drilled into you in acting classes but rarely so clear.
    • nullsense 6y ago
      I don't know if neglect, abuse and addiction is "going well". but she did overcome all the adversity to win in the end. I really enjoyed it, but she had a pretty rough time of it.
    • the_af 6y ago
      I find this is the case with most sports (soccer, dancing, iceskating, etc) movies. They are mostly about character building and overcoming challenges -- the actual sport is barebones and could be mostly swapped for any other. I still enjoyed Queen's Gambit a lot. It did foreshadow but then subvert some common tropes.
    • hackerNoose 6y ago
      I thought that was the biggest weaknes. The challenges all feel small and made up. The depiction of substance abuse is just strange. It's like a teenagers dream of how it is to become a chess pro with some small speed bumps to not make it too blatant. As for the sport, her career was more similar to that of boxer than a chess player.
  • telesilla 6y ago
    This absolutely rekindled my interest. I used to play as a young girl (pre-teen) and enjoyed it but as I got older didn't feel welcome in the chess club. It's nice how they show on TV that girls who wanted it just got in there and be involved but the reality was not as easy.. (hopefully it's easier now, the 80s was not kind to girls with a nerdish bent). I've started reading chess openings and tactics as a way to send me to sleep, on one of those chess sites that sets up a play for you. I don't think I'll ever play chess again - time is limited and I don't think anyone would suffer playing with me given what I've forgotten - but I'm enjoying learning strategies again. It's great stuff for the brain. I've put the Chess Tactics site on my weekend-lazy-reading list. Who knows, maybe I find my way back to playing games again.
    • saeranv 6y ago
      Try chess.com or lichess.org! You're automatically matched with someone of your skill level, and can play games from 1 to 10 minutes (each).
      • SubiculumCode 6y ago
        I highly recommend Chess Tempo for tactics training. A large database of problems drawn from grandmaster games, insightful user commentary per problem, and a full classification of each problem by the type of tactic e.g. attraction.
        • philsnow 6y ago
          chesstempo is neat because they have ELO-like ratings for tactics puzzles. It's the first place I saw such a thing.
          • SubiculumCode 6y ago
            Alot of those puzzles are damn hard, ELO ratings there are legitimate. I feel that chess Tempo has really given me tools to recognize recurring tactical motifs in actual play.
  • sudhirj 6y ago
    It absolutely re-kindled my interest in chess. I played as a child, but never took it seriously. Got a chess board for my 4-yo, but unfortunately she isn't a prodigy. Who'd have thought. Still has fun arranging the pieces and make up stories with them, though. And I'm playing on the Chess.com app. The puzzles especially are a neat way to get your brain running, and they're a better attention sink than Twitter / HN.
    • srtjstjsj 6y ago
      The vast majority of grandmasters didn't play chess at age 4.
      • thiago_fm 6y ago
        That's incorrect. I did a lot of ending puzzles and knew a lot about openings and variations at age 5, learned mostly because a father of a friend was very enthusiastic about it. I quit playing around age 7 because some kids there were really out of my league and there wasn't enough government or support for me to continue playing given that I wasn't the best. I still play to this day, but mostly amateurish and very sporadically. Of course if you just want to do it for fun, it's fine. But if you can to become a GM and make a living playing chess, the bar is pretty high and it's very likely that you suck. You can start to play a bit later and become a GM, but it's a big gamble with your future. Most people I know who continued with chess nowadays are in the low 2K range, one made it to IM... all share extremely good memory and logical thinking and could just have been instead a lazy CS student and get top grades, eventually become a software engineer and enjoy a good life. But instead have a shitty life playing the same game all over again and have a hard time leaving it now to do something else, as it's the thing they dedicated their whole life to.
        • YinglingLight 6y ago
          Chess is like Boxing. Pays nothing. The workload is insane, the natural talent is insane, your competition is global. Only the very top 0.5% get name recognition (money). And like Boxing, these athletes could get paid more had they devoted their life literally ANY other pursuit with their work ethic and talent. With far less punishment involved. Concept of Talent Stacking: https://personalexcellence.co/blog/talent-stack/ https://personalexcellence.co/blog/talent-stack/
  • fileeditview 6y ago
    Chess has always been an occasional topic on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chess&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... You should not be afraid of cheaters online. In the lower rating levels the chances to meet one are pretty slim. You can probably have hundreds or thousands of wonderful games before you meet one and probably you would not even recognize it. What you meet more often are people that let their time run out to annoy you. Just realize it's only about internet points, resign and have a new good game. Have fun playing (maybe).
    • rgoulter 6y ago
      chess.com's messaging is the opposite of "chances are slim". but they emphasise that they take the issue seriously, albeit with a low false-positive rate. https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating From the comments, it seems there's also the risk that you'll think cheating occurred, when instead you just missed stuff.
      • fileeditview 6y ago
        Interesting article. They do however say nothing about the rating of said cheaters (or I missed it). What I stated before was that it is unlikely in the lower rating levels and I stand by that. If someone cheats he will gain rating fast and leave the lower rating groups. And yes people also tend to accuse other of cheating if they lose. :) As long as you are not a competitive player the best you can do is to just play and try to improve your own play and have fun.
        • colechristensen 6y ago
          In other words, you would have to be rather bad at cheating to maintain a low rating. Chess competition is driven by various rating systems which match people fairly well. Computers are very much better than beginner to intermediate players.
          • 6y ago
  • Arnavion 6y ago
    >as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. Their ELO would likely be higher than yours if they did, so you wouldn't be matched with them.
  • tlamponi 6y ago
    > I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. There are some indicators that yes, that show has increased interest in learning chess. For example, check the Google search trend for "learn chess" over the last 12 months, or even 5 years to ensure it is no periodic increase of interest: https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?q=learn%20chess https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?q=learn%20chess
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • Fiahil 6y ago
      Wow ! That's amazing !
  • fcatalan 6y ago
    COVID lockdowns had already started the chess surge, for example look at the numbers for chess streams on Twitch: https://twitchtracker.com/games/743 https://twitchtracker.com/games/743 I started playing in June after reading this: https://www.wired.com/story/hikaru-nakamura-twitch-chess/ https://www.wired.com/story/hikaru-nakamura-twitch-chess/
  • jyriand 6y ago
    There was some sorts of renaissance of chess in twitch community. All the big streamers were playing chess for some reason. Not sure what happened there, might be related somehow to Hikaru Nakamura starting to stream and growing pretty big. But that was before "Queen's Gambit".
    • Newky 6y ago
      It was tied to the beginning of Covid lockdowns as well. Chess has had a very strong year in terms of numbers coming to the game. Queen's Gambit seems to have exploded that again.
    • slx26 6y ago
      Here's what happened. Excerpt from the wikipedia page [0]: > PogChamps is an online amateur chess tournament hosted by Chess.com. Players in the tournament are internet personalities, primarily Twitch streamers. PogChamps takes place over the course of two weeks and has a prize pool of $50,000. Basically, very strong chess players trained twitch personalities for a few days, and then had them play against each other. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PogChamps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PogChamps
  • ricardo81 6y ago
    I'm perhaps in the same boat. Played a lot as a child but very rarely nowadays. I am a member of chess.com but haven't played in a while. I think the better players tend to play a quicker timed game to better avoid bot activity. Personally I prefer a more slower game, particularly because I'm out of practice.
  • maaaaattttt 6y ago
    'The queen's Gambit' has definitely lead to a rise in chess popularity [0] and I as well assumed this submission was a side effect of that. In mid-November, more than 100,000 new members registered for Chess.com each day. This is roughly five times higher than average. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/the-queens-gambit-netflix-online-chess-app-interest-2020-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-queens-gambit-netflix-on...
  • l33tman 6y ago
    You might end up playing a cheater at some point (though it's uncommon). But you're much more probable to end up playing someone better and you'll think they're a cheater.. Look at this livestream where Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, is logged in under another account and crushes Jan Gustafsson (another grandmaster) and he can't believe it's a human playing him :) (or at least suggests he is skeptical) https://youtu.be/Ka5sh6hBvSI?t=219 https://youtu.be/Ka5sh6hBvSI?t=219
  • yodsanklai 6y ago
    > I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination It did for me. Hadn't played chess for decades. After watching this show, my gf wanted to learn and it renewed my interest in the game. Not sure I want to go down this rabbit hole though... > It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely It works very well. I played a few games on lichess (recommended in the comments of another HN thread). I could find opponents who played at my level in a matter of a seconds. There are also tons of youtubers who do a good job explaining strategies and such. It seems Chess never goes out of fashion, still a cool game! It's amazing the amount of resource you can find nowadays. Back in the day, it was extremely limited. I remember I had a couple of books from my grandfather, plus a few friends I was playing with, and "chess master" on Amiga and that was it.
    • bluGill 6y ago
      There are also youtubers who do a good job of convincing people they are good teachers, but real chess experts look at their explanations and think "sure if I make the right stupid moves that complex tactic gets you some material, but why would I make those moves when you created a forced mate in 2 with a different move"
    • geebee 6y ago
      I'm definitely down that rabbit hole now. Online chess has cut into the time I used to spend reading and playing music, but I'm an amateur at all those things. Plus, I've started playing more with my kids in the evening. I'm sure I'll get back over to music and the "long novels I need to read" project eventually, and no real harm. Brief infatuations can have a lasting tail, and I hope that's what happens here, for chess, which really is a phenomenal game. Kind of like archery and "the hunger games", the initial bump isn't sustainable, but there may very well be a lasting increase in interest.
  • fabian2k 6y ago
    I don't think the chance of cheating is a serious issue if you're playing at a low level online. You're generally matched against playes with a similar rating, and someone using a computer heavily would drastically inflate their rating. Which also increases the chance at detection significantly. Computers are scary good at chess, it's not exactly invisible if you use them to cheat. If you're a beginner it's also quite hard to understand why the computer makes certain moves, so if you just sprinkle in some computer moves in your game it's likely you might just fail to capitalize on those moves because you don't understand their purpose. The computer also plays some quite non-human moves at times, which is also likely to draw attention if someone is cheating a lot. I'm not saying people don't cheat online in chess, but I don't think it's anywhere near prevalent enough to ruin the game.
    • jjeaff 6y ago
      I suppose if you are really cheating, you wouldn't sprinkle in some computer moves. You would just move your pieces in the computer game exactly as your human opponent does. Then you move your own pieces in the human game exactly as the computer does in the computer game.
      • fabian2k 6y ago
        Then you're playing at something like 3000-3500 ELO. That's very, very far from subtle. And that is something you can detect by analyzing the games, a human won't pick the engine moves all the time.
        • faceplanted 6y ago
          I've never looked into it myself but when I was graduating someone in my graduating classes final project was a cheating detection system for chess that essentially ran your moves through a variety of different chess AI's like stockfish such and over the game built up a tally of matching moves for each system, and if you matched one too closely flagged you as cheating. I asked the guy how he would cheat against it and his suggestion was basically finding chess engines with variable "skill" levels and varying it over the game, essentially pulling out miraculous recoveries or having a good start but then forcing your AI to try to select a win state a few turns later than optimal but using the same heuristics, so it's still practically unbeatable but drags people along a bit longer to disguise itself. Also I don't know if this exists, but is it possible to tune an AI to a specific ELO to begin with? If so you could set it to gradually ramp up over a long time so it looks like you're steadily improving over months or years and get to the top, but I imagine that wouldn't appeal to the people already willing to cheat anyway.
  • Steko 6y ago
    You can avoid 99% of cheaters by not logging in on lichess but you're at the mercy of much less appropriate matchmaking. You can also play at faster or less unusual time controls.
  • dalbasal 6y ago
    I think the show is part of a zeitgeist that was already there. Streaming & such is popular. Famous GMs like Magnus & Naka are charismatic and extremely online. There are some great sites to play on these days, especially lichess. Lockdown makes for more game time. Chess is on an upswing. It's an old game, I bet there have been a lot of peaks and troughs.
  • gameswithgo 6y ago
    chess.com is pretty good about catching people who cheat with computers, as well, there is an ELO system, so people cheating without getting caught would be rated much higher than you. I think if you thought of reasons to play chess, instead of reasons not to, you could just enjoy yourself rather than complain about nothing!
  • darepublic 6y ago
    Lichess.org is a good site for playing other humans, and they have bot detecting measures built in. Not to say it's impossible you're facing a computer but most of the time very unlikely
  • koonsolo 6y ago
    > I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination There is no question about that: https://www.insider.com/netflix-queens-gambit-spike-interest-chess-2020-11 https://www.insider.com/netflix-queens-gambit-spike-interest...
  • nemo44x 6y ago
    COVID + that show have only helped I’d say. It’s a fun game at all skill levels. Learning fundamentals (don’t hang pieces, sone tactics, a few openings) is an investment but not a huge one and can get you pretty far very fast. So you see rapid progress in the first couple months of playing. Of course it’s at around that point you need to decide if you want to continue to invest for exceedingly fewer gains or just sort of be happy being a mediocre player that will go 50-50. And by all means a mediocre player is very good (like someone who can golf at near scratch level) but there’s a lot of really good players globally.
  • nickmancol 6y ago
    About postal chess, Woody Allen wrote a quite enjoyable short story. The Gossage—Vardebedian Papers. http://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html http://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html
  • jgwil2 6y ago
    Honestly, why even worry if your opponent is cheating? You can learn equally well regardless. Just worry about what you do; as long as you're not cheating it's not a waste of time.
  • Buttons840 6y ago
    > as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. As mentioned, cheaters are detected and banned. But from another perspective, cheater or not doesn't matter. You know you are playing against someone you have a statistical chance to beat. Same thing in Starcraft where people use map hacks. Who cares? The ranking system matches you with people you have a chance to beat. The challenge lies before you, and unfair advantages or not, there is good reason to believe you can succeed if you play your best game. Play to improve, play to have fun. Sometimes you will lose, no matter how strong you become this fact remains. And if you ever reach a point you believe you can only lose due to cheating, seek mental help.
    • watwut 6y ago
      Cheating in chess typically means using engine. There is big enough difference in how engine plays and how human plays for it to make game less fun. Pls, it is quite natural for humans to care about notion of fairness. How and why we loose matters.
      • 46756e 6y ago
        Yeah, although this is speculation, I imagine its less of an issue because cheaters would get board somewhat easily. I mean whats the fun in copying what a machine says to win chess games against strangers? Its not like its people they know who might be impressed and if they cheat then their ranking will rise far above their skill, so if they wanted to play a real game, they would then be crushed.
        • dragontamer 6y ago
          > I mean whats the fun in copying what a machine says to win chess games against strangers? I mean, what's the fun in beating everyone in Overwatch / PUBG / Fortnite / Quake / Doom / etc. etc. with an aimbot? To win. Because cheaters find winning fun, even if they're not doing it on their own skill. I obviously disagree with the mindset, but cheaters disagree with me (and clearly continue to use aimbots / chessbots / whatever to rack up "their wins"). Generally speaking, their excuses are along the lines of "I don't have the reaction speed of others", or "I don't find games of reaction fun" (etc. etc.). Similarly, a chessbot user would almost certainly say "I don't like having obvious blunders in my games, and a chessbot prevents me from missing obvious blunders". --------- I mean, Centaur Chess is a thing. Human + Computer, if you really wanted to fight fair. But these cheaters don't go towards Centaur Chess servers, they stay on human-only servers and just wanna have an advantage on the opponent. Soooooo... yeah. That's their decision. There's chess tournaments of 24-hours a move, no holds barred. (IE: Chess AIs are allowed to assist you). If you really wanted "blunder free chess", people can play in those communities. Those who continue to use computer-assistance on human-only servers are simply cheaters in my book.
  • sleepysysadmin 6y ago
    Chess has been popular on HN for more than a year. It was popular before covid lockdowns. Covid lockdowns have done a ton for chess popularity. Then queen's gambit is very approachable without chess knowledge. It's a perfect storm.
  • grml 6y ago
    There is at least a correlation. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=chess,queens%20gambit https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...
  • racl101 6y ago
    I think like just like mathematics, cryptography, computer science and movies like The Imitation Game for example, those who are initiated and curious would gravitate towards the subject as they probably would have eventually, and those who are not, will just be happy to watch the movies, shows or other pop culture about it. I do not believe it would draw more people than usual because with any endeavour, eventually the wonderment disappears for some people when they realize they gotta put in some work to continue going down the rabbit hole. Many drop off and become observers but not active participants.
  • Normille 6y ago
    Wow! --that got a lot of replies, for one of my comments! Thanks for all the interesting info. I'll probably have a go at online chess again, after reading all the assurances about how cheating is discouraged. After all these years and never having been that good to start with, I'd probably be on an ELO rating so low I'd be paired against a hitherto undiscovered tribesman from the depths of the Amazonian rainforest, who'd never seen a chess board before... ...and still lose.
  • jacobsenscott 6y ago
    I play a lot of online chess, and for the most part I don't believe I've played cheaters simply because I win often enough, and I'm not very good. I can't rule out that maybe some people check a move or two with an engine in the endgame, but at the same time that just doesn't matter. I don't play chess to win. I play to get better at chess. And that will happen either way. The learning resources provide by a good online chess site are fantastic today. Puzzles, interactive lessons, instant analysis of your games as soon as they are over. I don't think there's ever been a better time to learn chess.
  • jczhang 6y ago
    unlikely at any low ratings imo, also you can look at post-game analysis. not a reason for not playing!
  • aaroninsf 6y ago
    Hottake: regardless of chance of detection, the incentive to bother cheating for most online play, e.g. at chess.com, is close enough to zero to not worry about it. Probable that there are sociopaths who will do it, but, the 99% case is good faith players interested in a match for compatible reasons. TQG reminded me I used to play every day, recreationally; I'm finding chess.com quite nice.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • mlyle 6y ago
    > It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely but, at the same time, [for me anyway] pretty much removed all inclination to do so, as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. Cheaters are ranked way too high to play with us ordinary mortals :D This is mostly a problem with those who are really strong. On the other hand, people who insist on running out their entire clock when they clearly lost everything moves ago.. those salty people are common at the low ranks :P
  • bradly 6y ago
    > I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination According to Google interest in learning Chess has tripled because of The Queen's Gambit: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=how%20to%20play%20chess&geo=US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=how%20to%20play%2... > I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play I play regularly on online and it really isn't an issue. I'm sure an opponent or two has cheated, but to me it doesn't matter. Either way I just play the board. If it happens I'm just playing a harder game and maybe learning something new. My rating isn't important enough to me that a game or two lost to cheating is not a big deal. I've also had Chess.com reverse games a month later that they have detected the player as cheating.
  • 8note 6y ago
    In shorter time controls the cheater is giving you an advantage. Even if they can get a good position, they'll spend too much time looking back and forth and inputting moves
  • ouid 6y ago
    not playing chess because someone might be cheating is like not living in a house because someone might rob it. You can't make this argument in the absence of the numbers.
  • sabujp 6y ago
    i think as people start getting vaccinated and are able to start traveling again, chess will again take a back seat to other leisure options
  • herval 6y ago
    You don't have to wonder: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,queen%27s%20gambit https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,quee... - data seems to point it that way
• WalterBright 6y ago
  I was never very good at chess because while playing most of my attention was on designing a program to play the game for me so I could be lazy.
• tgb 6y ago
  > between good players, a one-piece advantage is enough to cause the disadvantaged party to resign. Is this accurate? I would have assumed that, say, positioning is equally important and a naive "count the pieces" assessment wouldn't hold much value.
  • flr03 6y ago
    The answer is both. Ie, pawns holding the centre of the board have a higher relative value than pawns on the sides. At a very high level, if a player end up resigning because of a one piece advantage it's because they have already processed the next few turns and know there is no way out.
  • chegra 6y ago
    Very accurate, you should trade off pieces quickly when you are ahead, thus solidifying any gains. Also, if you are more than 3 points behind, at least with strong players, it's best that you invest your energy into a new game where you didn't blunder.
  • dmurray 6y ago
    Yeah, it means a one-piece advantage (and specifically, a "piece" in this context means a bishop or a knight) with everything else being equal. It's possible for one side to have a crushing positional advantage that is worth more than a piece, but that's relatively rare. For 90% of quiescent positions reached by strong players where one side has the advantage, "count the pieces" is indeed enough to tell you which side it is.
  • nemo44x 6y ago
    Yes, to a point. A knight is often considered “less” than a bishop, but trading your bishop that is on the same color as your pawns for a knight that is covering the center is generally a “good trade”. Or taking a piece that is stuck or unlikely to be a threat while putting your own, possibly lesser piece at risk may be a poor play too. Game dynamics matter too. Knights do well in closed games where as bishops are nicer in open games. Games tend to open as time goes on though. And then of course if sacrificing to setup a mate soon - that’s the entire goal of the game so in that situation positioning is quite important. Counting the pieces is pretty indicative of most games I’d say though. Against poor players you can be down quite a few pieces while setting up a back rank mate the opponent just doesn’t see. But this would never fly at moderate skill levels.
• seamyb88 6y ago
  Looks like good information for beginners, but the hardest part of chess, for me, is the opening and how to play from move 4 onwards. It is less obvious why a strong position is a strong position early on, unless your opponent makes some very poor choices.
  • MauranKilom 6y ago
    I feel that this is something that ChessNetwork (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCDOQrpqLqKVcTCKzqarxLg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCDOQrpqLqKVcTCKzqarxLg) explains very solidly in most games he covers.
  • noir_lord 6y ago
    There are certain metrics that can be used. Pieces developed onto unattacked squares, squares under control (because more attackers than defenders), undefended pieces, a balance of control on the white/black or both, open files, half open files, open diagonals, half open diagnals, pawn structures, doubled pawns, isoated pawns, pawn islands. It's a nuanced thing, it's also largely how chess engines evaluate a position - it's not something humans can do because to do all of the above would take too long however strong players get an intuitive grasp of all of that and more and use it to assess a position.
  • bluGill 6y ago
    Even at the high levels all openings are played. That basic e4 (pawn in front of the kind moves forward 2 squares) is the most popular for a reason, but all possible first moves are played from time to time. Looking for tactics and trying to make them work will serve you at all levels until well after 2000.
  • iKlsR 6y ago
    I started playing this year and the first game I won (after playing about 30) was after I watched this video[1]. I made nearly every mistake he advised against. My openings are fairly good now for a beginner, working on tactics now. I'd recommend watching the whole playlist. Also doing puzzles daily really helps you to spot stuff faster when playing. TL;DW - Develop your pieces, you need your whole team to play effectively. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21L45Qo6EIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21L45Qo6EIY
• magicalhippo 6y ago
  Due to Magnus Carlsen, chess has had a major boost here in Norway. His major tournaments are covered in detail on TV with commentary by chess experts, which makes it quite approachable and exciting to watch. Given the inevitable slow parts of the game, the experts have time to explain the position on the board, and show how the variations can play out etc. They've somehow managed to turn chess into a spectator sport. If per chance they're not geoblocking it, you can get a flavor of it here[1]. Currently there's the Champions Chess Tour (online), which gets several hours of coverage each day they play. [1]: https://www.tv2.no/sport/11799097/ https://www.tv2.no/sport/11799097/
  • Newky 6y ago
    As an aside, for very good analysis of current Chess games (as well as older sagas around certain legends of the game), I heartily recommend checking out agadmator's Youtube channel[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/c/AGADMATOR https://www.youtube.com/c/AGADMATOR
    • srtjstjsj 6y ago
      Agadmator is a very charismatic speaker but he does very little analysis. He mostly just moves the pieces and says the moves.
      • disown 6y ago
        > Agadmator is a very charismatic speaker but he does very little analysis. It's good enough for the vast majority of chess players. Most chess players are casual fans. They aren't interested in deep analysis. And besides, if you want analysis, you wouldn't want a youtube channel but stockfish or other chess engines and work through it yourself. > He mostly just moves the pieces and says the moves. Not true. Sure he tells you the moves but he provides analysis for the good parts. He provides highlights which is what people want. Nobody is going to sit through a detailed analysis of an 8 hour game.
      • itcrowd 6y ago
        I thoroughly enjoy Stjepan Tomic's channel "Hanging pawns" (on YouTube) for more detailed analyses than Agadmator. Videos are long but excellent and (i find it an advantage that) he doesn't go with the latest hypes around chess only (i.c. Queen's Gambit tv show)
• mci 6y ago
  > This site teaches chess in words. > It assumes you know only how the pieces move and builds step-by-step from there. Do not get me wrong: TFA is a fine and useful book for an intermediate player but the above claims are overselling it. They are equivalent to telling you that learning the x ^= y; y ^= x; x ^= y; trick will make you a better programmer while being silent on what copy-and-paste programming, magic constants, or hardcoded data are and how to avoid them. While novice chess players are naturally attracted to brilliant combinations, they will have no chance to play them without knowing how to gain positional advantage. > Strategy and tactics both are important, but tactics are more important. > If you're a whiz at strategy but not much good at tactics, you will have trouble winning or having fun because your pieces will keep getting taken. I beg to differ. You should first learn how to supercharge your pieces by controlling the centre, putting rooks on open files, co-ordinating your bishop pair, keeping a strong pawn structure, etc. Two oldie but goodie books that teach these principles and are available as PDF's are Capablanca's A Primer of Chess [0] and Nimzowitsch's My System [1]. EDIT: memorizing openings ⊄ strategy. I understand strategy as applying good principles regardless of your opponent's moves, and tactics as calculating (mostly) forced move sequences. Also, strategy does not have to be dull. Playing a gambit and attacking Black's f7 weakness is a strategy, albeit one that can hardly succeed without tactical thinking. [0] https://archive.org/details/aprimerofchess https://archive.org/details/aprimerofchess (this particular edition uses the outdated descriptive notation) [1] https://archive.org/details/my-system-2020 https://archive.org/details/my-system-2020
  • YetAnotherNick 6y ago
    I think this book is for pre IM level and I think you can do well by learning tactics rather than remembering all the 15 length opening sequence. It is fine if you miss a tempo if you can attack when you need to. Of course in GM level classical chess missing few tempos could be equal to a loss and structure is very important. A Primer of Chess and Nimzowitsch's My System are targeted for IM/GM.
    • mci 6y ago
      Thank you for the reply. I do not advocate "remembering all the 15 length opening sequence" either. > A Primer of Chess and Nimzowitsch's My System are targeted for IM/GM. This is an interesting assertion. How about you take a peek into either book?
• tromp 6y ago
  Train your chess tactics at https://lichess.org/training/ https://lichess.org/training/ For me, the challenge is solving 15 consecutive problems correctly to turn the bottom bar all green. I also enjoy the 5 daily problems at https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rated https://www.chess.com/puzzles/rated
  • c0ax9 6y ago
    never thought to keep doing puzzles until the green bar is fully green. Nice idea!
  • justarandomq 6y ago
    Long-time player here. Strangely enough, the hardest part of these exercises is the uncomfortable brief moment of getting acquainted with (or being teleported to) a random board position.
    • gnulinux 6y ago
      A couple days ago I was really captivated solving chess puzzles on lichess and I encountered a particular puzzle that didn't make sense to me (my puzzle rating is ~1800). Then I realized it's white to move, and I've been pondering on black moves for the last 10 minutes... Mistakes a human mind can make while playing chess really surprise me, even while doing another intellectual activity like programming, learning math, reading a book etc you don't realize how notoriously prone your brain to errors until you have an objective measure to compare your reasoning to. Fascinating.
      • sverona 6y ago
        Mercifully Lichess actually tells you who has the move. ChessTempo didn't (you have to figure it out from who moved last,) and thereby made this feeling of disorientation much worse than it had to be.
    • tromp 6y ago
      It's a moment that actually requires paying attention to. Occasionally I find myself unable to find a winning move. To the point where I just try all possible legal moves. And they all fail! That's when I realize the last opponent move was actually a pawn move that can be captured en passant:-(
• prawn 6y ago
  A link I discovered in the last chess story on HN has become a very regular daily distraction: https://lichess.org/training/ https://lichess.org/training/ Works well on mobile also.
• joelthelion 6y ago
  If you prefer learning by practicing, Lichess has a great introduction to most tactical patterns: https://lichess.org/practice https://lichess.org/practice Once you start mastering them, you can try real problems on Lichess as well (https://lichess.org/training https://lichess.org/training), or try solving as many as you can in five minutes (https://chesscup.org/ https://chesscup.org/), it's a lot of fun!
  • kzrdude 6y ago
    Does lichess practice have anything about fundamental principles? Like another commenter mentioned here, control the center etc. It looks like the current selection is mostly tactical, which will help with puzzles, but the fundamentals are missing (which will help with the basics of an actual game).
  • colmvp 6y ago
    To be honest, I find Lichess tactics to be a bit too obvious in the sense of not requiring as much foresight into what the opponent might do, at least in comparison to Chess Tempo which may have say, a fork but it requires more steps to get there. I'm not a great player, but I find myself generally more stumped by Chess Tempo tactics puzzles than Lichess.
    • tomlu 6y ago
      That depends on the strength of the puzzle? I find them pretty difficult once you get above 2000 or so.
  • woko 6y ago
    I think the chess puzzles are what could shine in this book: http://www.chessproblems.org/ http://www.chessproblems.org/ (it is the Chess Quizzer from the OP) I have tried a few, and I enjoy the explanation of the solutions in plain English. Short and clear.
  • klmadfejno 6y ago
    I've never been good at chess, nor felt like I was making any progress on paper chess problems. Not that I really tried to solve them. But lichess training was really engaging for me. I played it for a few hours, and I found the format of the problems and the ui nice in a way that let me solve things pretty quickly. I like that all of them are formatted as "do the best moves", and yet some of them end in checkmate, while others end with just getting a really favorable trade. It felt like 90% of the plays involved making a check, and then using the forced response to gain an advantage. Is that representative of actual play though? I get that you can't make a deterministic puzzle unless there's a fairly deterministic right answer and path to get there. But what fraction of good chess thinking resembles solving these kinds of puzzles?
• aasasd 6y ago
  CC-ND explicitly allows format conversions, so I'll go ahead and ask: has anyone made an epub of this site-book?
  • SamBam 6y ago
    And speaking of modifications, it would be nice to have a version where the puzzles are one-click away from the section at hand. I keep feeling like I'm missing something. I don't understand why the puzzles are on their own page, let alone their own domain, so if I'm in a section and I want to do a puzzle I need to click back to the main site, click on the puzzle site, then find the equivalent chapter heading, and then dive into a puzzle.
  • TheGeminon 6y ago
    I found https://github.com/nathanj/predator-epub https://github.com/nathanj/predator-epub which worked pretty well.
    • aasasd 6y ago
      Thanks! Though the decision to go via Markdown is weird, since Epub is HTML.
    • aasasd 6y ago
      I'd like to note also that the epub is provided in the ‘releases’ section of that repo. Though some three images are missing from it (judging by the messages from pandoc). I discovered that only after Homebrew installed two different versions of GHC taking up three gigabytes in total, and compiled `cabal-install` and then pandoc for five hours, with two gb of temporary files for 170 mb of output. Well at least I've taken this occasion to clean up some unused apps from the machine.
• antirez 6y ago
  If you are a weak player, this book will raise your ELO by, like, 200 points in a few weeks. Try it.
• deleted 6y ago
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• nemo44x 6y ago
  I used to think computers “ruined chess” because it felt like the mystique was removed from the game. However it has made watching high level tournament play really enjoyable. You can see in real-time the effect a players move has on the advantage. And of course when a amusing your own games you can see move by move how the advantage moved. And then comparing your comparatively very low level games to GM’s and really seeing, quantitatively how good GM’s are. I’ve seen many games where advantage rarely moves at their level. Just every move, many non-obvious, holding it tight as they struggle to keep their heads above water.
• Michael_Sieb 6y ago
  Big fan of chess! Who watches Hikaru's YT videos? Full of awesome tactics.
  • gnulinux 6y ago
    I watch Hikaru pretty regularly, he's an entertaining streamer, but I'm not sure about the value of watching his video for chess knowledge. He plays these really baffling chess variants (like all pawns + queen vs IM opponent) in hyperbullet (30 secs) or bullet (1 min) like in one of his streams he went on for minutes about how he hates 3+1 because it's "too serious". As someone who exclusively plays 15+10 or 30+20, his streams really just feel like watching a video game stream to me, since it's impossible to understand "the chess" at that speed for a mere mortal like me. For chess, I prefer watching e.g. agadmator's YT channel. I stop, think, roll back pretty frequently. I can rarely solve his puzzles ("feel free to stop the video..." parts) but without stopping and thinking for a min, I can't even understand the position lol.
  • sransara 6y ago
    Hikaru's videos are very entertaining. This[0] was pretty fun to see. Not the best example of his instructional videos. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/k34chd/exactly_just_like_i_said/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/k34chd/exactly_just_... GM Daniel Naroditsky's channel[1] is the best instructional I have seen. His speedrun series is very good. He takes the time to stop and explain his thought process while playing the game. And then after few games he does a deeper analysis and answer any questions. The moment that sold me was when he showed how they use chess engine to do preparations at their rating level. [1] https://www.youtube.com/c/DanielNaroditskyGM https://www.youtube.com/c/DanielNaroditskyGM On a side note, I have been working on a bughouse[2] chess web app in my spare time[3]. It's not ready for HN traffic yet though. Bughouse is not getting a Queen's Gambit anytime soon. But I would love to see more steam behind online bughouse as well. It is my favorite variation. The need for team work and communication makes it very lively. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess [3] https://utopia.buddychess.com/ https://utopia.buddychess.com/
• markjenkinswpg 6y ago
  I'm a little miffed the section headings for chapter 2 on forks doesn't have king forks!
• boneitis 6y ago
  About the author: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Farnsworth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Farnsworth Interesting profile. Law school dean. Books on law, chess, and classicism. His writings on chess tactics are immediately actionable for novices. His books on classicism (and one on stoicism) employ a really unique technique: he puts forth an abstract point, then stands on the shoulders of many giants to support and thoroughly make it very tangible. All dressed up and presented with his personal commentary to make his lessons his own.
• baryphonic 6y ago
  This is good stuff. I want to start teaching my kids to play chess, but the problem is I'm not great at it myself due to lack of practice. And when I read names of well-known tactics, I tend to get lost. Being able to learn them for playing with my kids and then teaching them the names would be useful.
  • DavideNL 6y ago
    There's also apps if your kids are into that... check out the Magnus Trainer (has much free content) : https://www.playmagnus.com/en https://www.playmagnus.com/en It starts at a very easy level with the basics of chess.
• matsemann 6y ago
  I have recently bought chess books through the Android app "Forward Chess". It's very nice, as all the boards and games described inside become clickable and interactive. No longer do I have to set them up manually or try to see all the lines in my head. As a beginner that makes it easier to focus on the crux of what the book is trying to teach me. I can highly recommend it. There are demo-books one can download for free to test the concept. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.forwardchess https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.forwardche...
• deleted 6y ago
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• kdamica 6y ago
  I bought physical copies of these books years ago. They are great and Farnsworth consistently does a great job introducing and then reinforcing these concepts.
• Zenst 6y ago
  My favourite chess tactic is one I learned early on when learning the game. I didn't see book opening as fun as might as well just set the game up that way and play from there. So I kinda did my own thing and if I played anybody who would template play book openings (many do) then going against that start and busting it would see them out of their comfort zone and me having a fun enjoyable game. I did win fair few and chess tournaments in my youth but been decades since played that it's almost a crime. Sadly finding people to play who don't get into a hissy fit if you don't do the book-opening they want to play was always an issue.
• freeopinion 6y ago
  On the subject of cheating, I have a little different angle. I am not a great chess player, somewhere below 1500 I'd guess. But I do enjoy playing with other not-very-good players. I am better enough than my children to never lose to them so far. But I would like them to enjoy the game. It doesn't seem very fun if you don't have some reasonable chance to win occasionally. This creates a situation where I have an incentive to cheat very creatively so that my child has to work for it and doesn't detect the reverse-cheat that allowed them to win.
• erfgh 6y ago
  If you like such exercises but for backgammon, check my site at https://www.bgtrain.com/ https://www.bgtrain.com/
• pull_my_finger 6y ago
  If anyone has interest in practicing these, there is some nice software: CT-Art that was just a tremendous help to me. It focuses on "motifs", where instead of most puzzles that ask you to "find the next move" you see the position a few moves out from the desired pattern so you learn to recognize what it looks like and learn to steer it into that pattern when it's not staring you in the face.
  • DavideNL 6y ago
    They (Chess King) have many apps that overlap in functionality, it can be a bit confusing... I think that probably they have a separate app for every course, but all the courses are also available in a single app. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ct-art-4-0-chess-tactics/id1132601225 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ct-art-4-0-chess-tactics/id113... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chess-king-tactics-puzzles/id1305823239?l=en https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chess-king-tactics-puzzles/id1... PS. This app is also mentioned in this article/HN post: https://www.gautamnarula.com/how-to-get-good-at-chess-fast/ https://www.gautamnarula.com/how-to-get-good-at-chess-fast/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6791742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6791742
• Tommah 6y ago
  If you like these kinds of exercises, try out my checkmate trainer at https://www.checkmatechamp.net/ https://www.checkmatechamp.net/ .
• longtimegoogler 6y ago
  Personally, I recommend Go over Chess. I've played both not well and I enjoy Go more. Chess is extremely tactical and calculation oriented. One blunder and the game is over for the most part in Chess. While in Go, reading is also incredibly important there are other aspects to it that make the game richer, IMO.
  • sabujp 6y ago
    i haven't played enough go at all, but is go blitz a thing? If so i might give it a go, but I just don't want to spend 45 mins per side per game
    • longtimegoogler 6y ago
      Yes. Although, there aren't the extremes in chess like the bullet variations that I am aware of.
• 29athrowaway 6y ago
  What I do not enjoy in chess is that many pieces that can cross the whole board in multiple directions. In shogi, lances and knights only move forward. Gold and silver generals move one tile at a time. There is 1 bishop and 1 rook per player and no queen. And as a result pieces are not constantly crossing the whole board. Pawns are more consistent too. The move forward, one tile at a time. No conditionally diagonal moves or 2 tile moves or en-passant.
• Shorel 6y ago
  I often put two engines to play against each other. This makes for the most boring games ever, with a long endgame and few pieces. In contrast, human beings are capable of beautiful checkmates and crazy attacks. Without this aesthetic aspect, chess is just not interesting to me. Having said that, many years ago, with the Chessmaster DOS engine, a Casablanca bot managed a beautiful checkmate. Which is now lost in time.
• sinuhe69 6y ago
  The book must be very old because the notation is not in the currently de-facto standard Algebraic Notation. I tested some random positions but found the book’s solution not totally correct (besides hard to follow). This one for example, where the correct move should be Ne7+ but the book proposed Rxd7... then Nh6+ (FEN) r3r1k1/ppqn1ppp/2p2n2/4pN2/2P5/Q4PPB/PP1R1P1P/3R2K1 w - - 0 1 (could not copy the URL because it’s not permanent)