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chess.md

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 # Chess
 
-Chess (from Persian *shah*, *king*) is a remarkable, very [old](old.md) two-player board [game](game.md), perhaps most famous and popular among all board games in [history](history.md). To the common folk familiar with video games it could be described as a turn-based strategy, in [mathematical](math.md) terms it's a [zero sum](zero_sum.md), [complete information](complete_information.md) game with no element of [randomness](randomness.md), that simulates a battle of two armies on an 8x8 board with different battle pieces, also called *chessmen* or just *men* (also [stones](rock.md), pieces or juicers). Chess is also called the King's Game, it has a worldwide [competitive](competition.md) community and is considered an intellectual [sport](sport.md) but it's also been a topic of research and [programming](programming.md) (many chess engines, [AI](ai.md)s and frontends are being actively developed). Chess is similar to games such as [shogi](shogi.md) ("Japanese chess"), [xiangqi](xiangqi.md) ("Chinese chess") and [checkers](checkers.md). As the estimated number of chess games is bigger than [googol](googol.md), it is unlikely to ever get solved; though the complexity of the game in sheer number of possibilities is astronomical, among its shogi, go and xiangqi cousins chess is actually considered one of the "simplest" (the board is relatively small and the game tends to simplify as it goes on as there are no rules to get men back to the game etc.). In [2020s](21st_century.md) the game received more mainstream attention and popularity, which under [capitalism](capitalism.md) means a disaster, influx of [toxicity](toxic.md) and [SJWs](sjw.md), commercialization, "chess platforms" full of [ads](marketing.md) and [microrape](microtheft.md), retarded influencers, [women](woman.md), [furries](furry.md), [trannies](tranny.md), [anticheating](cheating.md) malware, idiotic propaganda movies and much more -- this crap is to be avoided. It has to be especially stressed that chess is **NOT** an "esport".
+Chess (from Persian *shah*, *king*) is a very [old](old.md) two-player board [game](game.md), perhaps most famous and popular among all board games in [history](history.md). To the common folk familiar with video games it could be described as a turn-based strategy, in [mathematical](math.md) terms it's a [zero sum](zero_sum.md), [complete information](complete_information.md) game with no element of [randomness](randomness.md), that simulates a battle of two armies on an 8x8 board with different battle pieces, also called *chessmen* or just *men* (also [stones](rock.md), pieces or juicers). Chess is also called the King's Game, it has a worldwide [competitive](competition.md) scene and is considered an intellectual [sport](sport.md) but it's also been a subject of rigorous research and [programming](programming.md) (countless chess engines, [AI](ai.md)s and frontends are being actively developed). Chess is similar to games such as [shogi](shogi.md) ("Japanese chess"), [xiangqi](xiangqi.md) ("Chinese chess") and [checkers](checkers.md). As the estimated number of chess games is bigger than [googol](googol.md), it is unlikely to ever get solved; though the complexity of the game in sheer number of possibilities is astronomical, among its shogi, go and xiangqi cousins chess is actually considered one of the "simplest" (the board is relatively small and the game tends to simplify as it goes on as there are no rules to get men back to the game etc.). In [2020s](21st_century.md) the game received more mainstream attention and popularity, which under [capitalism](capitalism.md) means a disaster, influx of [toxicity](toxic.md) and [SJWs](sjw.md), commercialization, "chess platforms" full of [ads](marketing.md) and [microrape](microtheft.md), retarded influencers, [women](woman.md), [furries](furry.md), [trannies](tranny.md), [anticheating](cheating.md) malware, idiotic propaganda movies and much more -- this crap is to be avoided. It has to be especially stressed that chess is **NOT** an "esport".
 
 { There is a nice black and white indie movie called *Computer Chess* about chess programmers of the 1980s, it's pretty good, very oldschool, starring real programmers and chess players, check it out. ~drummyfish }
 
@@ -9,8 +9,8 @@ Chess (from Persian *shah*, *king*) is a remarkable, very [old](old.md) two-play
 **At [LRS](lrs.md) we consider chess to be one of the best games** for the following reasons:
 
 - It's just a deeply [interesting](interesting.md), profound game in which luck plays minimal role.
-- **It is greatly [suckless](suckless.md)**, the rules are truly simple, it can be implemented on simple 8bit computers. Of course the game doesn't even require a computer, just a board and a few men -- chess masters don't even need a board to play (they can completely visualize the games in memory). In the end one can in theory just play against himself in his head, achieving the ultimate [freedom](freedom.md): the only [dependency](dependency.md) of the game is one's brain, i.e. it becomes a [brain software](brain_software.md). Chess is extremely inexpensive, doesn't discriminate against poor people and will survive even the most extreme technological [collapse](collapse.md).
-- **No one owns chess**, the game is hundreds of years old and many books about it are also already in the [public domain](public_domain.md). It is extremely free.
+- **It is highly [suckless](suckless.md)**, the rules are truly simple, it can be implemented on simple 8bit computers. Of course the game doesn't even require a computer, just a board and a few men -- chess masters don't even need a board to play (they can completely visualize the games in memory). In the end one can in theory just play against himself in his head, achieving the ultimate [freedom](freedom.md): the only [dependency](dependency.md) of the game is one's brain, i.e. it becomes a [brain software](brain_software.md). Chess is extremely inexpensive, doesn't discriminate against poor people and will survive even the most extreme technological [collapse](collapse.md).
+- **No one [owns](intellectual_property.md) chess**, the game is hundreds of years old and many books about it are also already in the [public domain](public_domain.md). It is extremely free.
 - It is a basis for other derived games, for example many different chess variants or chess puzzles which can be considered a "singleplayer chess game".
 - It is a source of many interesting [mathematical](math.md) and programming challenges.
 - It seems to strike the right balance of simplicity and complexity, it is very simple but not so trivial as to be ever solved in a foreseeable future.
@@ -35,26 +35,26 @@ Fun fact 2: in 2022 a chess playing robot took and broke a finger of a 7 year ol
 
 ## Chess In General
 
-Chess evolved from ancient board games in India (most notably Chaturanga) in about 6th century -- some sources proclaim that in chess predecessor games dice was used to determine which man a player was allowed to move but that once dice were banned because of hazard games, we got the variant without any element of chance. Nowadays the game is internationally governed by **FIDE** which has taken the on role of an authority defining the official rules: FIDE rules are considered to be the standard chess rules. FIDE also organizes tournaments, promotes the game and keeps a list of registered players whose performance it rates with so called **[Elo](elo.md)** system --⁠ based on the performance it also grants titles such as **Grandmaster** (GM, strongest, around 2000 in the world), **International Master** (IM, second strongest, roughly 4000 in the world), **FIDE Master** (FM, roughly 8000 in the world) or **Candidate Master** (CM). A game of chess is so interesting in itself that chess is usually not played for money like many other games ([poker](poker.md), [backgammon](backgammon.md), ...).
+Chess evolved from ancient board games in India (most notably Chaturanga) in about 6th century -- some sources claim that the game's predecessors used dice to determine which man a player was allowed to move but that this element of randomness had to be removed as dictated by anti-gambling laws. Nowadays the game is internationally governed by **FIDE** which has taken on the role of an authority defining the official rules: FIDE rules are considered to be the standard rules of the game. FIDE also organizes tournaments, promotes the game and keeps a list of registered players whose performance it rates with so called **[Elo](elo.md)** system --⁠ based on the performance it also grants titles such as **Grandmaster** (GM, strongest, around 2000 in the world), **International Master** (IM, second strongest, roughly 4000 in the world), **FIDE Master** (FM, roughly 8000 in the world) or **Candidate Master** (CM). In chess you are basically your rating. The game of chess is so entertaining on its own that it doesn't need to be spiced by money and bets, like so many other games ([poker](poker.md), [backgammon](backgammon.md), ...).
 
-The mastery of chess is often divided into two main areas (it is also common to divide strong players into these two categories depending on where their main strength lies):
+Chess skill is often divided into two broad areas (it is also common to divide strong players into these two categories depending on where their main strength lies):
 
 - **positional play**: Strategic, long term, big picture patterns leading to general advantages and opportunities and easy choices of good moves, trying to get a "good position" with men on strong squares, guarding each other, controlling key parts of the board, putting enemy under pressure, taking away his maneuvering space,    ensuring safety of own king, good pawn structure, leading pawns close to promotion etc.
 - **tactical play**: Short term, quick action, tricks and calculation skills that win advantages, often material, with tools such as forks, pins, discovery checks, double attacks, sacrifices, zugzwangs etc.
 
 Of course this is not the only possible division, another one may be for example offensive vs defensive play etc., but generally chess revolves around position and tactics.
 
-A single game of chess is seen as consisting of three stages: **opening** (starting, theoretical "book" moves, developing men), **middlegame** (seen as the pure core of the game) and **endgame** (ending in which only relatively few men remain on the board). There is no clear border between these stages and they are sometimes defined differently, however each stage plays a bit differently and may require different skills and strategies; for example in the endgame king becomes an active man while in the opening and middlegame he tries to stay hidden and safe.
+A single game of chess is seen as consisting of three stages: **opening** (starting, theoretical "book" moves, developing men), **middlegame** (seen as the pure core of the game) and **endgame** (ending in which only relatively few men remain on the board, sometimes also defined as play without queens). There is no clear border between these stages and at times they are defined differently, however each stage plays a bit differently and may require different skills and strategies; for instance in the endgame kings become active while in the opening and middlegame they try to stay hidden and safe.
 
-The study of chess openings is called **opening theory** or just *theory*. Playing the opening stage is special by being based on memorization of this theory, i.e. hundreds or even thousands of existing opening lines that have been studied and analyzed by computers, rather than by performing mental calculation (logical "thinking ahead" present in middlegame and endgame). Some see this as weakness of chess that makes players spend extreme energy on pure memorization. One of the best and most famous players, Bobby Fischer, was of this opinion and has created a chess variant with randomized starting position that prevents such memorization, so called *chess 960*.
+The study of chess openings is called **opening theory** or just *theory*. The opening stage is distinct by being based on memorization of this theory, i.e. hundreds and thousands of existing opening lines that have been studied and analyzed by computers, rather than by performing mental calculation (logical "thinking ahead" present in middlegame and endgame) and creativity. Many now see opening theory as the ugly, [harmful](harmful.md) part of chess, one forcing players to spending energy on pure memorization of opening lines. One of the chess legends, Bobby Fischer, held this opinion strongly and devised a chess variant with randomized starting positions so as to do away with this memorization -- the variant is called *chess 960* (aslo *Fischer random* or *freestyle chess*).
 
-**[Elo](elo.md) rating** is a [mathematical](math.md) system of numerically rating the performance of players (it is used in many sports, not just chess); Elo basically assigns players a rating number that says how skilled the player is. Given two players with Elo rating it is possible to compute the probability of the game's outcome (e.g. white has 70% chance of winning etc.). The FIDE set the parameters so that the rating is roughly this: < 1000: beginner, 1000-2000: intermediate, 2000-3000: master (currently best humans rate close to 3000). More advanced systems have also been created, namely the Glicko system, however these are often quite [bloated](bloat.md) and complicated, so Elo stays the most commonly used rating system. **Alternative ways** of determining player skills also exist, for example so called accuracy, which says how closely one played to the perfect play according to some strong engine such as stockfish. The advantage here is that to rate a player we don't need too much data like with Elo (which needs to see many games of the player against other already rated players) -- it may be enough to let the player play a few games against a computer to determine his skill. A disadvantage however lies in how exactly to compute accuracy because that gets a little complicated by other factors, for example many times finding the best move is trivial (like retaking a queen in an exchange) while in others gets much more difficult, or the fact that humans often DON'T want to play the mathematically best move but rather a bit weaker, more comfortable one, so even grandmasters often choose a weaker move even though they know the theoretically best move. Another idea may be to use a standard set of puzzles, basically like an [IQ](iq.md) test. Yet another idea is for example to compute so called [Erdos number](erdos_number.md), i.e. the minimum length of a chain of victories from the world's best player, i.e. for example rating player A with number 3 says he defeated someone who defeated someone who defeated the world's best. A guy called tom7 devised a method for measuring performance of weak chess engines by basically mixing stockfish (the strongest chess engine) with a random move bot in certain ratios -- i.e. making an engine that with certain probability (given by the mixture ratio) plays either a move by stockfish or a random move -- and then determining the mixture ratio at which this monstrosity becomes indistinguishable from the tested engine (i.e. we can say "the tested engine is a mixture of stockfish and random moves in this ratio"). Along these lines we may similarly try to compute how much of a different kind of handicap -- let's say material or time (or, with humans, amount of alcohol) -- we have to give to the strong engine for it to become on par with the tested entity (i.e. the ratio of wins and losses is about 1).
+**[Elo](elo.md) rating** is a [mathematical](math.md) system of numerically rating the performance of players (apart from chess also used in many other sports); Elo essentially assigns players a rating [number](number.md) that expresses the player's skill. Given two players with Elo rating it is possible to compute the probability of the game's outcome (e.g. white has 70% chance of winning etc.). The FIDE set the parameters so that the rating is roughly this: < 1000: beginner, 1000-2000: intermediate, 2000-3000: master (currently best humans rate close to 3000). More advanced systems have also been created, namely the Glicko system, however these are often quite [bloated](bloat.md) and complicated, so Elo stays the most commonly used rating system. **Alternative ways** of determining player skills also exist, for example so called accuracy, which says how closely one played to the perfect play according to some strong engine such as stockfish. The advantage here is that to rate a player we don't need too much data like with Elo (which needs to see many games of the player against other already rated players) -- it may be enough to let the player play a few games against a computer to determine his skill. A disadvantage however lies in how exactly to compute accuracy because that gets a little complicated by other factors, for example many times finding the best move is trivial (like retaking a queen in an exchange) while in others gets much more difficult, or the fact that humans often DON'T want to play the mathematically best move but rather a bit weaker, more comfortable one, so even grandmasters often choose a weaker move even though they know the theoretically best move. Another idea may be to use a standard set of puzzles, basically like an [IQ](iq.md) test. Yet another idea is for example to compute so called [Erdos number](erdos_number.md), i.e. the minimum length of a chain of victories from the world's best player, i.e. for example rating player A with number 3 says he defeated someone who defeated someone who defeated the world's best. A guy called tom7 devised a method for measuring performance of weak chess engines by basically mixing stockfish (the strongest chess engine) with a random move bot in certain ratios -- i.e. making an engine that with certain probability (given by the mixture ratio) plays either a move by stockfish or a random move -- and then determining the mixture ratio at which this monstrosity becomes indistinguishable from the tested engine (i.e. we can say "the tested engine is a mixture of stockfish and random moves in this ratio"). Along these lines we may similarly try to compute how much of a different kind of handicap -- let's say material or time (or, with humans, amount of alcohol) -- we have to give to the strong engine for it to become on par with the tested entity (i.e. the ratio of wins and losses is about 1).
 
-The rules of chess are quite simple ([easy to learn, hard to master](easy_to_learn_hard_to_master.md)) and can be found anywhere on the Internet. In short, the game is played on a 8x8 board by two players: one with **[white](white.md)** men, one with **[black](black.md)** (LOL IT'S [RACIST](racism.md) :D). Each man has a way of moving and capturing (eliminating) enemy men, for example bishops move diagonally while pawns move one square forward and take diagonally. The goal is to **checkmate** the opponent's king, i.e. make the king attacked by a man while giving him no way to escape this attack. There are also lesser known rules that noobs often miss and ignore, e.g. so called en-passant or the 50 move rule that declares a draw if there has been no significant move for 50 moves.
+The rules of chess are fairly simple ([easy to learn, hard to master](easy_to_learn_hard_to_master.md)) and can be found anywhere on the Internet. In short, the game is played on a 8x8 board by two players: one with **[white](white.md)** men, one with **[black](black.md)** (LOL IT'S [RACIST](racism.md) :D). Each man has a way of moving and capturing (eliminating) enemy men, for example bishops move diagonally while pawns move one square forward and take diagonally. The objective is to **checkmate** the opponent's king, i.e. put the king under attack while leaving him no way of escape. There are also lesser known rules that noobs often miss and ignore, e.g. so called en-passant or the 50 move rule that declares a draw should there occur no "significant" move for 50 consecutive turns.
 
-At the competitive level **clock** (so called *time control*) is used to give each player a limited time for making moves: with unlimited move time games would be painfully long and more a test of patience than skill. Clock can also nicely help balance unequal opponent by giving the stronger player less time to move. Based on the amount of time to move there exist several formats, most notably **correspondence** (slowest, days for a move), **classical** (slow, hours per game), **rapid** (faster, tens of minutes per game), **blitz** (fast, a few seconds per move) and **bullet** (fastest, units of seconds per move). There is also a category called cyborg or centaur chess in which computer assistance is allowed (which would normally be seen as [cheating](cheating.md)) -- this category usually greatly overlaps with correspondence chess.
+At the competitive level **clock** (so called *time control*) is present to impose a time limit on making moves: with unlimited move time games would be painfully long and more of a test of patience rather than skill. Clock can also conveniently help balance unequal opponents by reducing the stronger player's thinking time. Based on the amount of time to move we recognize several game formats, most notably **correspondence** (slowest, days for a move), **classical** (slow, hours per game), **rapid** (faster, tens of minutes per game), **blitz** (fast, a few seconds per move) and **bullet** (fastest, units of seconds per move). Most frequently each player is given a total time for making all his moves plus a so called *increment*, a small time amount added back after every move. There is also a category called cyborg or centaur chess in which computer assistance is allowed (which would normally be seen as [cheating](cheating.md)) -- this category usually greatly overlaps with correspondence chess.
 
-Currently the best player in the world -- and probably best player of all time -- is pretty clearly Magnus Carlsen (born 1990), a [white](white.md) man from Norway with Elo rating 2800+. He just keeps beating all the other top players effortlessly, he was winning the world championship over and over before giving up the title out of boredom.
+Currently the best player in the world -- and by now almost undeniably the best player of all time -- is very convincingly Magnus Carlsen (born 1990), a [white](white.md) man from Norway with Elo rating 2800+. On most days he habitually wipes the floor with all the other top players effortlessly, he was winning the world championship over and over before giving up the title out of boredom.
 
 During the [covid](covid.md) pandemic (circa 2020) chess has experienced a small boom among [normies](npc.md) and [YouTube](youtube.md) chess channels have gained considerable popularity. This boosted chess as such and gave rise to [memes](meme.md) such as the bong cloud opening popularized by a top player and streamer Hikaru Nakamura; the bong cloud is an intentionally [shitty](shit.md) opening that's supposed to taunt the opponent (it's been even played in serious tournaments [lol](lol.md)).
 
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ During the [covid](covid.md) pandemic (circa 2020) chess has experienced a small
 
 On **perfect play**: as stated, chess is unlikely to be ever solved so it is unknown if chess is a theoretical forced draw or forced win for white (or even win for black), however many simplified endgames and some simpler chess variants have already been solved. Even if chess was ever solved, it is important to realize one thing: **perfect play may be unsuitable for humans** and so even if chess was ever solved, it might have no significant effect on the game played by humans. Imagine the following: we have a chess position in which we are deciding between move *A* and move *B*. We know that playing *A* leads to a very good position in which white has great advantage and easy play (many obvious good moves), however if black plays perfectly he can secure a draw here. We also know that if we play *B* and then play perfectly for the next 100 moves, we will win with mathematical certainty, but if we make just one incorrect move during those 100 moves, we will get to a decisively losing position. While computer will play move *B* here because it is sure it can play perfectly, it is probably better to play *A* for human because human is very likely to make mistakes (even a master). For this reason humans may willingly choose to play mathematically worse moves -- it is because a slightly worse move may lead to a safer and more comfortable play for a human. This fact has also recently been demonstrated by a modified Leela engine that specifically focuses on handicapped play (playing without one knight or rook) against humans -- even though Stockfish is objectively a better engine than Leela, this specific Leela version achieves better results under stated conditions, i.e. it more often beats human grandmasters in odds games, and that's because it learned to play moves that are not objectively methematically best, but rather best AGAINST HUMANS, i.e. creating confusion, tension, tricky and unusual situations and psychological pressure that favor precise engines.
 
-Fun fact: there seem to be **almost no black people in [chess](chess.md)** :D the strongest one seems to be Pontus Carlsson which rates number 1618 in the world; even [women](woman.md) seem to be much better at chess than black people. [This](http://www.billwallchess.com/articles/Black%20chess%20players.htm) website says that as of 2015 there were only 3 black grandmasters in the whole world. But how about black women? [LMAO](lmao.md), it seems like there haven't even been any black female masters :'D The web is BLURRY on these facts, but there seems to be a huge excitement about one black female, called Rochelle Ballantyne, who at nearly 30 years old has been sweating for a decade to reach the lowest master rank (the one which the nasty oppressive white boys get at like 10 years old) and MAYBE SHE'LL DO IT, she seems to have with all her effort and support of the whole Earth overcome the 2000 rating, something that thousands of amateurs on the net just causally do every day without even trying too much. But of course, it's cause of the white male oppression =3 lel { anti-disclaimer :D Let's be reminded [we](lrs.md) love all people, no matter skin color or gender. We are simply stating facts about nature, which don't always respect political correctness. ~drummyfish } EDIT: We seem to have missed Tuduetso Sabure who became a WOMAN grandmaster (i.e. NOT a regular grandmaster) in 2005, however her peak rating is merely 2075, which is quite low, seems very sus.
+[Fun](fun.md) fact: there seem to be **almost no black people in [chess](chess.md)** :D the strongest one seems to be Pontus Carlsson which rates number 1618 in the world; even [women](woman.md) seem to be much better at chess than black people. [This](http://www.billwallchess.com/articles/Black%20chess%20players.htm) website says that as of 2015 there were only 3 black grandmasters in the whole world. But how about black women? [LMAO](lmao.md), it seems like there haven't even been any black female masters :'D The web is BLURRY on these facts, but there seems to be a huge excitement about one black female, called Rochelle Ballantyne, who at nearly 30 years old has been sweating for a decade to reach the lowest master rank (the one which the nasty oppressive white boys get at like 10 years old) and MAYBE SHE'LL DO IT, she seems to have with all her effort and support of the whole Earth overcome the 2000 rating, something that thousands of amateurs on the net just causally do every day without even trying too much. But of course, it's cause of the white male oppression =3 lel { anti-disclaimer :D Let's be reminded [we](lrs.md) love all people, no matter skin color or gender. We are simply stating facts about nature, which don't always respect political correctness. ~drummyfish } EDIT: We seem to have missed Tuduetso Sabure who became a WOMAN grandmaster (i.e. NOT a regular grandmaster) in 2005, however her peak rating is merely 2075, which is quite low, seems very sus.
 
 ## Chess And Computers