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Sunday, February 17. 2008
I've been thinking when should a Dark Chess game be declared a draw.
Obviously, games might occur where none of the opponents has a reasonable chance of winning, but one of them stubbornly refuses to agree to a draw and insists on playing on. The problem is well known in Standard Chess, and therefore there is a number of rules to determine under which conditions a player can demand that a game be declared a draw.
There are three occasions when a Standard Chess game can be declared a draw against the will of one or both of the players:
1. Stalemate;
2. Upon request of the player who is on the move, if the same position is repeated for the 3rd time, it’s been the same player’s move each time and the rights of castling and en passant capture have not been lost;
3. Upon request of the player who is on the move, if each player has made 50 moves without a capture or a pawn move. In certain cases (e.g. King + 2 Knights vs. King + Pawn), the number of moves required is 75.
As you can see, in the first case, the game is always a draw, regardless whether or not the players want it, whereas in the last two cases, the game can only be declared a draw if one of the players requires it. (In chess software, rules 2 and 3 are often enforced automatically, but never in chess tournaments.)
I should also mention that some national chess rules include a fourth draw rule, according to which a game is declared a draw when a checkmate is theoretically impossible, e.g. King vs. King, King + Bishop vs. King etc. However, FIDE rules at the time of writing state that if one of the players objects, the game must be continued until the 3rd repetition rule or the 50 move rule becomes applicable.
Now, let’s look if and how those draw rules can be used for Dark Chess games. After that, let’s discuss the possibility of other means for defining draws.
Continue reading "Dark Chess draw rules"
Friday, December 14. 2007
Back in the days, if someone set his/her mind on becoming a reasonable chess player (or turning their offspring into one), there wasn’t a whole lot they could do about it, other then sign up to a chess club, where they could only hope they’d stumble upon a master who would not spare the effort to aid their development properly.
Nowadays, thanks to technological advancements, learning tools have become much more accessible for those truly willing to improve.
The computer, being the wonderful good-for-everything tool that it is, can be a superb aid for beginners. There are many chess programs out there (some of which come as cheap as 40-50 bucks) which will pit players against the pre-programmed skills of a virtual brain. Like it or not, these programs are likely to give players an exceptionally sturdy challenge in the beginning. Unlike playing online poker, learning to play chess against human opponents can often be intimidating. Playing against a computer eliminates that aspect and makes sure the rookie stays fully focused on the game. The computer won’t taunt junior, and won’t go into a rage when it finally loses a game. The downsides of learning to play chess on a computer program are diverse too, though. Therefore, it is seldom recommended as an advanced learning tool. It’s more like a fast and accessible way to get started in the sport.
The social aspect lacking, the chess program will not teach players any people skills, and believe it or not, playing chess has a lot to do with knowing how to handle people. Even though the “professional” chess engines feature a plethora of individual settings which can be used to fine-tune their play, a computer program will never be able to even approximate the behavior of a human opponent, and thus it is not going to prepare someone for the battle against natural intelligence. Bottom line is, an offline chess program, beyond the advantages it provides, has some pretty obvious limitations. One can basically use it for putting strategies to the test, training, analyzing games and solving chess problems. Make no mistake, all of these factors are useful, but in order to take his/her play to the next level, a player needs to measure up against human opposition.
Fortunately, the computer still doesn’t fall out of the equation here. Online training and learning can be much more valuable than what any good chess program can provide. Nowadays, playing chess online doesn’t involve more fuss than preparing yourself a cup of coffee. As one specialist puts it: it has never been easier to find a human opponent, no matter what time of the day you feel the urge to give the grey matter in your skull a little bit of workout. There are chess servers online 24/7, some of which are free, while others are paid. Depending on the level of expertise you’re looking for, and the conditions in which you like to play, you can choose any of those. Player traffic is certainly very important when playing chess (or some other board game) online, because you definitely do not want to spend half an hour waiting for some potential opponent to drop in. In this respect, large and popular servers provide much better services, whether they’re free or paid.
The power of the internet will impact one’s chess education on several levels though. Chess websites do much more than just provide a safe and stable platform where opponents can hack away at each-other. They bring the social aspect of the game back into the fold via specialized forums, where public wisdom comes for free, and socialization is right at home, too. Before the internet, many of the people who joined chess clubs did so for the social benefits involved. Those same social benefits are conveyed through community message boards and forums these days. It is kind of scary if one stops to think about the fact that one doesn’t even have to leave the house to become an excellent chess player anymore.
The articles and in-depth analysis on certain aspects of the game come in extremely handy as well, whether the discussion is about the King’s Indian Attack or the Marshall Attack.
Online chess sites, portals and servers play host to a wealth of information about this game, adding to it the benefit of the “wisdom of the crowd”. As soon as it appeared, the internet looked like something that could potentially revolutionize all boards games as well as card-games, and in the case of chess, we can safely state that the transformation has come full circle indeed.
Online poker rakeback can single handedly turn you into a winner. Do not neglect this edge.
Friday, November 30. 2007
The Rules of Chess – A Basic Guide to Understanding the Game
The Board
Chess is played on a chequered board containing 64 squares.
The squares of the board alternate in color and are termed light, and dark squares.
These squares are arranged into rows and columns.
Rows are called ranks and are numbered from 1 – 8
Columns are called files and are labeled from A – H
Pieces are set up in lines which are parallel to the files, and perpendicular to the ranks of the board.
The Pieces
Pieces are divided into two sets which are generally called white and black, despite what the colors of the pieces actually are.
Each player starts with 16 pieces. Those pieces are…
1 King: Arguably the most important piece on the board, the point of the game is to try and capture your opponent’s king. The king can move in any direction one space.
1 Queen: A powerful piece the queen can move in a straight line in any direction, as far as the player wants, as long as another piece doesn’t get in the way.
2 Bishops: The bishop can move diagonally in any direction, as far as the player wants, as long as another piece doesn’t get in the way,
2 Knights: A Knight can move two squares forward and one step to the right or left. This move can be done in any direction, as long as the same amount of distance is covered in the same way. The knight can also make his move over other pieces.
2 Rooks: The Rook can move in a straight line in any direction, as far as the player wants, as long as another piece doesn’t get in the way.
8 Pawns: Pawns are the backbone of a chess army. In general they can only move forward and can only move one space at a time. However, on their first move they can go forward two spaces. Also, the only way for a pawn to capture an enemy, is to move diagonally to take them.
The board is positioned so that the closest square to each player on their far right is light colored.
The row closest to each player contains the non pawn pieces.
If you are the white team, the pieces are set up from left to right as rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishops, knight, rook.
If you are the black team the pieces are set up from left to right as rook, knight, bishop, king, queen, bishop, knight rook.
The two armies should be mirror images of one another. Each queen should stand on a square of its own color.
Game Play
The player who is designated to be white makes the first move.
Pieces are moved either to an unoccupied square or to a square with an opponent’s piece on it. Each player can move one piece on each turn, and turns are alternated. When your piece moves onto an opponents piece, their piece is said to be captured, and is taken out of play.
En passant is a move done by two opposing pawns, in which one pawn can capture the other, under special conditions, without moving to his square.
Casteling is a move in which both the king and the rook move during the same turn, to a predefined position, under special circumstances.
If during play a pawn reaches the other end of the board, they are promoted, and can be exchanged for an extra of any piece the player wants except the king.
The object of the game is to capture your opponent’s king.
When a player maneuvers their pieces such that on their next move they can capture the opponent’s king, the opponent is said to be in check.
When a player is in check, they have to move their pieces in such a way that they get out of check before the next move.
If it is not possible to move their pieces in such a way that they get out of check before the opponents next move, the player is said to be in checkmate, and loses.
Not all games are ended by putting a player in checkmate. A player can resign, or if it seams impossible to achieve checkmate, a game may end in a draw.
If it is a timed game a player can also lose by running out of time.
This article provided courtesy of PebbleZ's natural stone chess sets
Thursday, October 18. 2007
Chess is a game of mystery to the many people who dont know its rules. Often even the most intelligent will remark that they dont really know how its played, or never really understood it. For them the existence of a chess board in a setting is a constant challenge which they cannot meet. If it is your chess set, that challenge is being made by you, and it puts you in a subtle position of dominance over the other person.
For those who do play chess, there will be a sense of respect. Chess is a challenge which pits two minds against one another in a struggle for superiority. Your chess set leaves you as open to an invited game as it does your guest. In that game you could win gloriously, or you could lose, humiliatingly. A chess set shows that you are willing to take that risk, and that you are confident enough in your own abilities to handle anyone who enters that room.
A chess set does not necessarily guarantee a challenge every day, but the eventual invitation to battle will arise, and when it does the worst thing you can do is be bluffing. Answering that you dont really know how to play or that you just keep it around for show will make you look week, and even phony. While including a chess set in a setting doesnt require you to be Bobby Fischer, it does help to have a working knowledge of the game for when contests do arise.
When you walk into a room and you see that someone has chosen to display a chess set, your subconscious mind will probably give them a few extra points of respect for their audacity and fearlessness at displaying this open challenge. You may also attribute qualities of strength or intelligence to them, whether they possess these or not, merely because of the possibility presented by that game. These effects are usually very subtle, but by knowing what they are you can use the space around you as a tool to increase perception others have of you.
This article provided courtesy of http://PebbleZ.com home of Unique Stone Chess Sets
Sunday, June 3. 2007
 Is Google product search (formerly known as Base or Froogle) affected by external links to a particular set of results. We're trying this with a search for chess sets on google.co.uk. Can it achieve high rankings even though it doesn't have any Google page rank? Currently on page 6 (2nd June 07) - will linking lift it higher - even to compete with the first current chess set retailer. If you want to link - feel free - it's an interesting experiment - the link is: [http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl=en&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-33,GGLJ:en&um=1&authorid=1104921&cdn=ChessBaron+Chess+Set&q=&scoring=pd] This has important implications - it means that as well as optimising web sites - one can optimise the free results allowed by Google. What then of a shop on eBay or a free chess computer page on eSnips or a chess computer page on Squidoo? This potentially gives another realm to any search engine optimisation company that optimise web sites.
Sunday, November 19. 2006
Author: nabla
Extinction Chess (official rules here) is one of the most fascinating chess variants. It comes from a very natural enhancement of the goal of the chess game, in that one wins by extincting one species in the opponent's pieces - for instance capturing both knights. With such a phrasing, standard chess can be defined as a kind of restricted Extinction Chess, where only the king's species is taken into account - you certainly know that the goal of chess is to extinct the opponent's king ! This variant manages to be in the same time different enough from standard chess in order to produce a lot of new ideas, but close enough as to keep the most positional features of chess, like pawn structures and space. A game where the chess skills are highly transposable, yet where it is vital to stay fully aware of the additional dangers.
Although it is not only a deep game, but also a very fun game, Extinction Chess is less popular on Brainking that I would have expected. I don't know the reason why, and am taking profit of this column to advocate this variant by annotating in detail one of the two best games I ever played. My opponent played it very well too, equalizing as Black, and then only failing to risk himself into an unpredictable position and falling into a passive one as the result of that choice. The game illustrates how easily an Extinction Chess is unbalanced, and how hard it is to overcome the slightest inaccuracies.
Remark about the notation
Although the rules of Extinction Chess state that there is no check or checkmate, I still find it to be a big help to add the check (+) and checkmate (#) symbols to the game notation, with the meaning that :
- A check is a threat to one of the opponent's pieces, which is the last of its kind - such a piece is to be considered as a royal piece as its loss would lose the game.
- A checkmate is an unstoppable such threat. Typical Extinction checkmates are double attacks on two last pieces (those are called forks), and attacks on one last piece, whose move would uncover another last piece (those could be called pins, but I prefer to call them skewers). And it is of course also possible to mate a piece in the good old-fashioned way, attacking it in such a way that it has no retreat.
Continue reading "An annotated game of Extinction Chess"
Friday, November 17. 2006
Author: nabla
When seeking for a subject of my next chess article, I was thinking of how I could maximize my potential readership, and found out that problem was not so easy. Indeed, one of the great things about the community of chess players is its variety. We have veterans and youngsters, intellectuals and manuals, bankers and tramps, artists and competitors, and since a short time we even have men and women.
Isn't there one common denominator ? Fortunately there is one : we all love queen sacrifices. Ahah, say no more, I have found my theme ! Here are three of the finest chess studies ever composed on the theme of the queen sacrifice. I would even like to issue a poll about which one you will like best.
Continue reading "What is your favourite queen sacrifice ?"
Wednesday, November 1. 2006
Author: alexandrecubal
The atomic chess has a great advantage: it is quick!
While in chess your king can't do anything that'll hurt him, in atomic there is no such thing as "danger". The game is over when you kill the opponent's king.
Atomic chess has a curious rule: the explosion, which you can learn here!
In atomic, you can win moving only twice or three times your pieces.
THREE MOVES TO VICTORY:
1st: You need to use a knight(B1) in this method. Go B1-C3 and then C3-D5. Then go D5-E7
If you want to use the G1 knight, it's even better:
G1-F3
F3-E5
E5-F7 or E5-D7
2nd: You need to use a bishop(C1) and a pawn(B2 or D2). Move forward the pawn(B2-B3 or D2-D3).
If you moved B2-B3:
C1-A3
A3-E7
If you moved D2-D3:
D3-G5
G5-E7
(This one has 2 more methods)
3rd: Very similar to the 2nd method, but using the queen and the E2 or C2 pawns.
E2-E3 or C2-C3
If E3:
D1-H5
H5-F7 (or maybe H5-E8)
If C3:
D1-A4
A4-D7 (or maybe A4-E8)
(There are a few other methods)
Continue reading "Atomic chess"
Thursday, October 26. 2006
Author: iceninejkw
My hobby is Chinese culture and Ive learned Chinese at least to the point where I can read newspapers and novels and handle most conversations (but not understand televised news reports or most TV programs which are fast, and packed with compressed grammar and words). Ive also learned Chinese chess but was not interested in it too much until I found a couple of postal sites like brainking that featured it. The western symbols are a great innovation at brainking. At a park here in Shanghai or on a real time Chinese chess site, I get slaughtered quickly. Im a big patzer and the kibitzers have a good laugh, Foreigners cant learn Chinese chess! But in postal chess you can take your time and let the unfamiliar patterns soak in. What you can see in one minute in Euro Chess (lets not say International Chess or Chess anymore) may not occur to you until after 10 or 20 minutes of contemplation in Asian chess. So now Im taking down some Asian players. Their fast confident play will quickly kill you in a fast game but if you take your time you can spot any strategic or tactical mistakes and roll them back with a counter-attack. My Euro chess skills (my last USCF over the board rating was 2237 although that was about 15 years ago) come into play especially in the middle game if I survive the opening. Hey! Is this guy using a computer? He plays like a patzer in the opening but a master in the middle game!! No, Im a Westerner with some transferable skills from Euro chess.
Continue reading "Chinese Chess"
Sunday, October 22. 2006
Author: Servant
Chess is like a triathlon, their are three parts to it, the opening, middlegame and the ending, three stages that are different. You can start out well in a triathlon, the swim and bike ride but it is the final run that decides who wins. A person in the lead after the bike ride can easily lose if they are too tired to run fast, the same applies in chess as a person who has the advantage after the middlegame can still lose in the ending, this thought should boost ones confidence in their abilities when playing a tougher opponent. Knowing endgames can help you as you can then think ahead in the late middlegame and have a better idea if you are winning, drawing or unfortunately losing. This knowledge then dictacts how you play, if you swap of pieces or just keep a central knight, long range bishop or a file sweeping rook. If you want to be a strong player then you have to play the best move until move 70 or 80 and try not to make a mistake after that. This is the approach of the modern day Grandmaster who is a really competitve player. I have been following the ongoing Chess World Chamionship in Elista, Russia and have noticed the strong moves by both Topalov and Kramnik in their games. They both have played brilliantly in the endgame and have been able to win and draw when there have been little pieces left. I can see that they are very committed to their endgames, they know that the game is usually decided at the end. To add to that they seem to be very patient too at the table. Much of the endgame requires thinking ahead, perhaps up to 7 moves ahead if one can do that, one such situation is when there are passed pawns and you have to see ahead to see if you can deliver check when you promote to a queen, rook, bishop or knight. You have to see if the opponent can do the same thing to you as well. These days, chess endings are exciting and tend to get alot of focus in tournaments rather than the opening where people who finish their games early come and watch the top board players take each other on right until the last move. I read about endings in the Australian newspapers and there are lots of tricks worth knowing. I have eight positions here where the pawns are invovled. To be honest these foot soldiers can really make a difference in the ending.
Continue reading "Spectacular Endings - the foot soldiers"
Tuesday, October 10. 2006
Author: Problemist
A horrible bad bishop for black, to be sure! In a game, the easy route would be of course to capture pawns and promote but what if, horrors of horrors, Black finds some way to sacrifice the bishop for the promoted pawn and come to a 2N vs. K position? Not likely, but again, such things happen to us all, especially in quick time controls.
Instead, white can use the impotence of the bishop and use his knights to force mate in one line, by sacrificing it.
Continuation:
1.Ng3! threatening Ne2(#3) 1...Bg7 2.Ne2 threatening Ngf4(#2) 2...Bh6 3.Kxc6 Bg7 4.Ngf4 Bf8 [if 4...gxf4 5.exf4#] 5.Ng6#
Interestingly, removing pawns b3/b4, and white knight on g2, leads to an even quicker mate in 4! Can you find it?
1.Nd2! threatening Nb3(#3) 1...Bg7 2.Nb3 threatening Na5(#2) 2...Bh6 3.Na5 and 4. Nxc6#. Mate on the white square again, this time from the Q-side.
This line certainly shows that in blocked positions, the N, or in this case, a set of Ns, can severely overpower a bad bishop!
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