Four-Player Chess

I don't know if you got wind of this, but Chess.com is developing what is supposed to be the first-ever variant of chess that can be played with four players simultaneously, which they call four-player chess. The variant was announced on September 1st 2017 on chess.com here. I first heard of this through IM Danny Rensch with Chess Today, who spends most of his video trying it out for the first time: https://youtu.be/f-cVupxkQpo

The board looks like this:

And prior to entering the game, you are shown this notice, which includes the gist of the rules:

I played only one game, and somehow I finished 1st out of the four players. I technically lost on time while there was one player left in the game, but the penalty for this is 20 points being awarded to my opponent, and because I had more points than my opponent even after they got their 20 points, I won the game. From one of the rules above, it sounds like I could have flat-out resigned and still win the game!

Personally, I did not enjoy the game that much. The board is huge, such that your opponents' long-range pieces (like the bishops) take a while to get used to because (1) they can come from much farther away than we're used to, and (2) they can come from 3 different players! You also don't have a choice of time controls--everyone starts with 4 minutes (with some minor increment), which I find pretty fast when you're not used to this variant.

If you want to try it out, four-player chess is accessible here: https://www.chess.com/4-player-chess

Importantly, the variant is still in beta phase, so my guess is it's bound to change in the upcoming weeks. Among other things, Danny Rensch mentions in his video that there is currently no notation system for this variant, such that developing theory is difficult.

My queen is invisible!

I have great news: My opponents don’t see my queen (at least sometimes). Maybe it’s only when my opponents are about to move their own queen, I’m not sure yet.

Yesterday I played a rated classical (standard) game on lichess with time control 10 0. This is the position after I played 17. g4. I wanted to open up Black’s kingside (where the king is uncastled) and bring a rook on the eventually-open g-file (or f-file, if lines open up). But my opponent played a move I didn’t think was possible, they played 17. … f4?!, so I responded with 18. exf4, simply winning the pawn. Perhaps Black’s plan could have been to divert my e-pawn to play 18. … d4 (as well as to keep files closed around their king), but no, instead they played 18. … Qxf4??, taking the pawn back:

And they simply resigned after 19. Qxf4+ 1-0.

Then the next day (today), I played a casual (unrated) bullet 2 1 game, and we reached this position:

Here we castled on opposite sides, and I just won a pawn. We’re both planning to attack each other’s king, although my opponent’s attack seems to be coming quite a bit faster--they’ve got both their rooks aligned with my kingside, and the three wing pawns have reached the 4th and 5th ranks. Here I was planning on playing an eventual Bc4, pinning the e6 knight and preventing the move d4, which would prevent my knight from jumping into c4. Eventually I’d also like to develop the queen and bring a rook to the c-file, and play a4, a5, and a6 or b6. But here I decided to hold back on Bc4 in case the bishop is needed for defense on the kingside, so I played 19. Qb3, also preventing d4 and making way for the rooks, with the intention of playing Bc4 next move and pin the knight. My opponent played 19. … g4 and I played 20. Bc4, attacking the knight. Or so I thought--my opponent continued with 20. … g3?, so I took the knight with 21. Bxe6:

And then evidently, my opponent recaptured with 21. … Qxe6?? and resigned after 22. Qxe6 1-0.

So I don’t know what’s going on with my queen…

Both games are available here:

Game of the Day #4: The Walk of The King

In this game (as Black), I got a strategically won game very early. At some point, I had all the time I wanted to actually bring my King all the way from the Kingside to the Queenside, in order for the King to protect the a8, a7 and a6 squares and thus taking these squares away from White's Rook. In the meantime, White had nothing better than to move his King back and forth.

[LINK REMOVED]

Problem #8

The next position is obviously a won endgame for White: I am up a Bishop and a pawn in a R+B vs R ending. The game could go on for a while though, taking pawns and trying to queen one and all that stuff. But I have a faster way to end the game. What is it?

White to move

To see the solution, just highlight the hidden text below.

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Solution:

29. Rf8+ Rg8 30. Rxg8+! Kxg8 31. e6!! : the entombed King. Now his King can only go to either h8 or g8. I don't even have to use my King because I have a 3-2 pawn majority on the Queenside; I quickly activated my pawns, and my opponent was forced to resign 4 moves later, as it was mate in 3.

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Game of the Day #3

It's very hard to say why I didn't start writing again after my semester has ended, at mid-December. Oh and by the way, Happy New Year!

I played this game earlier today, and although I rarely attack, in this one my opponent allowed for my pawns to advance with tempo, so the pawn storm kind of imposed itself as the only logical plan.

Hopefully I'll post again soon!

[LINK REMOVED]

Problem #7

The last problem was more than 2 months ago. Time for a problem!

I played this game earlier today. I have reached an obviously winning position, but I had to definitely take my time there to find the winning path. It's actually a mate in 6! (Well, technically it's mate in 7 given that White has Qxh2+ at some point, delaying the mate for one more move, but we all know in practice that he wouldn't play that move). Note that the mate in 6 is the only mate in the position, as confirmed by computer analysis.

White to move

To see the solution, just highlight the hidden text below.

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Solution:

20. Qg6 Kg8 21. Qf7+ Kh8 22. Ng6+ Kh7 23. Ne7+ Kh8 24. Qg6 1-0. White will play Qh7# either next move or after Black throws in the sorry 24. ...Qxh2+.
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Positional chess: an exact science?

In most books on chess strategy, authors explain why such and such a move was the best in the given position, or even, they ask you to find the best move in a position. Some do this by giving a multiple-choice question, where you have to choose the best plan (e.g., Alfonso Romero in Ultimate Chess Strategy Book); others give a diagram and simply ask you to find the best move (this is the case for Aagaard in Excelling at Positional Chess, which was the subject of an earlier article).

The underlying postulate is that given any (or most?) position exists an objective best move or plan, and using abstract thinking you are asked to find it.

I used to tell one of my friends – who doesn’t like chess at all so needless to say that she didn’t care – that one of the big differences between the middlegame and the endgame is that very often in the endgame, one and only one move wins (or draws), and all other moves lose. Whereas in the middlegame, you can play many moves that are just as good as the others: it’s much less exact.

So what’s the answer to that question anyway? Is positional chess an exact science, much like the endgame, as Aagaard sees it? Is it a multiple-choice decision, where some plans are good but not equally, so they are not awarded the same amount of points by the author when you choose them? Or are there some moves which are equally right?

I don’t have the definite answer to that question, but I recently ran into a book which brings the most interesting (and nuanced) answer so far. The book is written by GM Lars Bo Hansen and is called Foundations of Chess Strategy. I haven’t read the whole book – I actually found it on GambitBooks.com, looking at their list of books, which comes with a sample of each book in PDF format; the sample for Foundations of Chess Strategy is here.

The author says that the best move in one’s position depends on their playing style. In the chapter “The Opponents: The Role of the Human Factor in Chess”, Hansen describes his viewpoint as thus:

The players in a chess game are humans [...], and the choices they make are influenced by their background, experience, self-confidence, personality, etc. This means that what is the right choice in a given position for one player is not the right choice for another player with a completely different personality and chess style. Therefore there is no ‘best’ choice in a (strategic) position – no ‘one size fits all’ approach! The right choice of plan in a given strategic position should not only be determined by purely chess reasons. [...] This means that we should give up the assumption that in a given strategic position there is one best way to play which should be chosen by any player in the given position against any opponent sitting on the other side of the board.

Hansen appropriately gives the example of a positional (“solid”) player versus an attacking (“sharp”) player. When discussing a line chosen in the Queen’s Gambit by Karpov (solid) and Kasparov (sharp) – who did not choose the same line –, Hansen writes: “according to the statistics in my database Karpov has an almost 80% score against top-level opposition in ‘his’ line, while Kasparov even displays 90% in ‘his’! Despite their magnificent talents I doubt they would achieve the same scores if we switched the variations [i.e., Karpov playing Kasparov’s line and vice-versa]. Obviously they would still score well, but I don’t believe it would be this high.”

The author does make an interesting point. As he accurately points out, we all have played in positions in which we knew we had an objective acceptable position, but we still didn’t feel comfortable playing it. I might even add that although opening theory is huge and provides us with a wide choice of openings, only a few truly fit our style.

I think the example of Karpov and Kasparov speaks for itself. But don’t get me wrong: I am not discrediting neither Aagaard’s nor Romero’s approach. I have Aagaard’s book, and I think it’s excellent, and it has helped me a great deal. I think that all in all, critical judgement is still essential, even when reading GM books (although let’s face it, they’re more right than I am hehe). More importantly, you should choose moves (and openings for that matter) that truly fit your style, and that give rise to positions in which you are comfortable. Don’t choose a line because your chess idol or favourite author (in his positional exercises!) praises it.