SchemingMind Online Chess Journal

Modern chess engines running on very modest computer hardware can easily outclass any grandmaster. But are they actually fun to play against?

In this article, Michel Germain clarifies the rules of Alice Chess.

In September 2010 David O'Shaughnessy published an article titled Castling in Chess480: An appeal for sanity in which he suggest that the Castling rules in my 2005 article  Castling in Chess960: An appeal for simplicity lacks sufficient weight in its appeal to change the Castling rule in Chess960.  He was right but not for the reasons he gave.

The history of chess reaches back to time immemorial, as can be seen from the numerous myths which surround its origin. The game has traditionally served as a parallel for human life and often as a metaphor for war, wit and virtue. It has, over the ages, permeated the worlds of culture and art. For example, from the17th to the 19th centuries, it was the subject of drama (Thomas Middleton, Samuel Beckett), fiction (Stefan Zweig, Samuel Beckett, Julien Gracq), painting (Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris), sculpture (Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst), poetry (T. S. Eliot, Giacomo Leopardi, Jean Louis Borges) and music (Francois André Philidor, John Cage).

Between 2010 and 2011 I played a two-game match against Rosario DiPeri, one of SchemingMind's Senior Masters. He beat me easily with White and we drew the other game, which was a fascinating struggle in the Sveshnikov Variation of the Sicilian defence. At one point he chose to go into what I considered a dubious line, but I couldn't exploit it and he defended formidably. After the game I decided to investigate it further and I analysed the game with a strong computer, and came to the conclusion that this continuation loses by force. Here are the findings.

Has anyone composed any Benedict Chess problems yet? Here's a good one.

The purpose of this article is to give a small but consistent and robust door to the study of this as beautiful as hard game. I want to emphasize that this is an inexhaustible work, and all the great players study all day as a full time dedication, but you will also notice as soon as a flash, how you can improve your chess, following this few recommendations.

Chess players often enjoy solving tactical puzzles in order to improve their combinational abilities. We can find these challenges in books on tactics, our favorite chess magazine, the chess column at the local newspaper, educational software, or websites dedicated to the subject. The authors of these puzzles often provide us with one or more bits of the following information…

In 2002 I flew to Reno to play my very first large tournament ever. It was the “20th Annual Western State Open”. The main reason I participated in this event was because one of my dreams at the time was to play in a simultaneous exhibition and be able to beat or draw the GM. The tournament offered the opportunity to play a clock simul against IM John Donaldson, and a non-clock simul against GM Andy Soltis. At the time I had a rating of 1540 with the US Chess Federation.

In the match of the Standard Chess League (season 2): Friends Around the World vs Tao the Watercourse Way, I had the opportunity to play two games against ngu, one of which ended with a draw, and the other I won. Given below is the analysis of move played in one of those games.

In this article Neoliminal takes a standard chess position, and uses a novel and interesting technique to calculate the relative value of fairy pieces.

Benedict’s Chess is a variant that plays like the game Othello with chess pieces. The game is named after the notorious traitor General Benedict Arnold from the American Revolution, who defected to the British (lack of faith?). A piece attack joins the attacking side. Since the piece colour changes at each point of attack, the goal is to change the colour of the king. Only direct attack causes change, so a safe defensive location is generally at the point of attack.

A Chess960 Mini-tournament.

A game of Extinction Chess, with analysis.

The intention of this article is to promote the idea that the castling rules as originally presented by Bobby Fischer for Chess960 are flawed from a game design standpoint and that changing these rules would benefit the advancement and acceptance of Chess960 by both the Standard Chess and non-chess playing communities.

Recently a new Unrated Standard option was introduced to the ever expanding list of variants supported by SchemingMind. Unrated Standard is simply a normal game of chess but one in which the result does not affect the rating of either player. Spohn and I decided to use this new facility to play a training game in which we openly and frankly annotated each move played and invited anyone else watching the game to add their thoughts. The purpose of this article is to provide a report on the game, hopefully providing a coherent record of the main comments made and possibly providing a useful training resource for others.

After spending a large part of the last year playing a combination of blitz chess and correspondence chess, I figured it was time to return to competitive tournament chess, so I decided to shell out some money and play in a tournament. But how to prepare? Like I said I was on a diet of correspondence chess and blitz, so I wasn’t quite ready to jump back into OTB competition. So naturally, I consulted the best resource I could find... Mikhail Botwinnik, or more exactly, Botwinnik’s 100 Best Chess Games.

As a beginning/intermediate player I have come up against the Dragon Sicilian in many encounters and decided that I needed to find a way to tackle it. At first I looked at the Yugoslav Attack, but realized that against a Dragoneer who knew not to let me open the h-file I was hard pressed to find a devastating attack. About 3 months ago I came across the Levenfish variation and have found that I am able to use it to effect against those same Dragoneers with whom the Yugoslav failed. The Levenfish turns the board into a minefield of tactical traps along with chances to sacrifice material for an overwhelming attack like you will see in my game. If someone is playing the Dragon and is unprepared to meet this attack he should think twice.

Stanley Random Chess Introduced & Explained for Beginners.

A somewhat violent incident took place at least once between William Steinitz and Joseph Blackburne, when he threw the former out a window after being spat on by him; though there are at least two variations of the tale. But in spite of the disputes the two men would meet several times on the board to produce memorable games with a remarkable clash of styles…