Chastity's Chess Challenge

Tag: games

  • Chessbase 17 Steam Review

    I am a Chess player who likes to know everything I can about Chess. I mostly use free and Open-Source software to manage my Chess databases. However, because Chessbase is very popular among professional players, I wanted to try it out.

    At first, I found this program confusing and wondered what I could use it for. What I found is that I could easily import any PGN database I already had. I had Caissabase and some other sources. Chessbase makes it easy to navigate imported databases and play through them. However, that really wasn’t something I couldn’t already do with Chessx or HIARCS.

    But what I discovered is that part of the experience of Chessbase comes from the fact that databases, opening books, and courses can all be purchased separately from the Chessbase store. Basically, Chessbase is a store platform for Chess in the same way Steam is a store for video games. Does this justify the high cost of the Chessbase application? In my opinion, it does not. However, there may be features that I don’t understand yet because I am very new to using Chessbase. I will learn more and then perhaps update my review.

    But regardless, Chessbase is very popular among the top Chess players and so it was worth my time to learn about this application so that I understand why it is helpful. I don’t regret my purchase of Chessbase 17, but I can’t help but wonder why the price is so high when free open-source applications like ChessX and En-Croissant have many of the same features.

    If you want to purchase Chessbase, I suggest that you already have a database of games from another source. It could be quite useful for managing the databases you already have of your games from Lichess. I would also recommend using En-Croissant to download the free databases available, like Caissabase, and then exporting them to PGN format to be imported into Chessbase.

  • Annotating a chess game from 2023

    The following is a game from December 14 2023 that I played on lichess.

    It was one of the first games I played shortly after I joined the site.

    [Event “Rated correspondence game”]
    [Site “https://lichess.org/hdH5wwaK”%5D
    [Date “2023.12.14”]
    [Round “?”]
    [White “chastitywhiterose”]
    [Black “FeevomSee”]
    [Result “1-0”]
    [BlackElo “1469”]
    [BlackRatingDiff “-12”]
    [ECO “C57”]
    [Termination “Normal”]
    [UTCDate “2023.12.14”]
    [UTCTime “06:06:10”]
    [Variant “Standard”]
    [WhiteElo “1500”]
    [WhiteRatingDiff “+34”]

    1.e4 $1
    { King’s pawn two spaces is the traditional and most common way for white
    to start the game because it allows white’s queen and bishop to both move
    out diagonally. } 1…e5
    { Black usually replies to e4 by moving their king’s pawn two squares as
    well with the same idea of getting a queen and bishop out early } 2.Nf3 $1
    { Moving the knight to f3 is a very common move for those who want a quick
    attack on the weak f7 square in combination with a bishop on c4 or perhaps
    a queen on h5 or f3 after the knight has jumped to e5 or g5 } 2…Nc6 $1
    { Black’s knight jumps to c6 to prevent white’s knight from capturing on e5
    } 3.Bc4 $1
    { The bishop moves to c4 for the purpose of attacking the f7 square. This
    could lead to a checkmate if black isn’t careful } 3…Nf6
    { The knight moves to f6 and targets the e4 pawn. } 4.Ng5
    { The knight jumps to g5 with the hope of a fork between the queen and
    rook. This works only because it would be protected by the c4 bishop. }
    4…d5
    { White’s plans are ruined by a black pawn which blocks the path to f7.
    White’s bishop can’t capture the pawn because it is protected by the queen
    and knight. } 5.exd5 $1
    { White used the e4 pawn (which would have been captured anyway) to capture
    the d5 pawn. This is a even trade and arguably is the best move. } 5…Nxd5
    { The black knight captures the white pawn. White’s g5 knight is now in
    danger. } 6.d3
    { Moving the pawn to d3 allows the bishop to protect the g5 knight. Now the
    queen can’t safely capture it. } 6…g6
    { It appears that by moving the pawn to g6, black may be planning an attack
    on the g5 knight with the dark squared bishop. However, it also prevents
    the white queen from going to h5 for an attempt at checkmate. } 7.Nc3
    { White offers to trade knights to get the d5 black knight out of the way.
    } 7…Nxc3
    { Black knight captures the white knight because it had nothing better to
    do at the time. } 8.bxc3 $5
    { The white pawn captures the black knight. This is not a bad move but at
    the time, Chastity failed to see that she could have captured the f7 pawn
    with the bishop and put the king in check before capturing back the knight. This would have been better because the game would have taken a much
    better turn. } 8…Be6
    { The black bishop blocks the white bishop from accessing the f7 square. }
    9.Bxe6 fxe6 10.Nxe6 Qe7 11.Qg4 Nd8 12.Nxd8 Rxd8 13.Bg5 Qd6 14.Bxd8 Qxd8
    15.O-O Bd6 16.Qe6+ Be7 17.Qxe5 Rf8 18.Rfe1 Rf5 19.Qh8+ Rf8 20.Qxh7 1-0

    I was streaming on Twitch at the time I started learning to annotate a game with HIARCS. If you watch the video you will see how easy it is to add comments on chess games with either HIARCS or ChessX. It would also be easy to annotate using just a text editor but perhaps I might have made mistakes, and I didn’t want to take that risk.

  • Should you buy a Chess program to study?

    Analysis of different Chess GUIs available

    One of the great things about Chess is that you can play for free either online or over the board if you have a local friend willing to play.

    Most of the time, a person doesn’t need to spend any money at all on the game of Chess. However, I am not a normal person but someone who wants to know everything about Chess.

    The official website for stockfish (the world’s strongest Chess engine) has a convenient list of the best Graphical User Interfaces and how to install and use them along with the stockfish engine.

    But if you are a new Chess player or you are looking for serious advice on how to improve at the game, I have a serious warning.

    Computers don’t play Chess like humans do. They look ahead and make a move that may make a different 50 moves later. Therefore, playing against the computer or even using a computer to analyze a game can mislead you into thinking a move is bad when it may actually help you win, or maybe it will tell you a move is good but not have the means to tell you why in the same way a human can.

    Therefore, when analyzing which GUI you want to use, I will be talking about which of them helps you better analyze your own games with human reasoning. I will present 4 options. 2 of which are free and 2 of which are programs you can buy.

    Free programs

    What I find myself using the most lately is a free and open source program called En-Croissant. It lets you automatically download a database of the rated games you have played on either chess.com or lichess.

    Frank Willow, the creator of the program published a blog post on lichess.org about it.

    Another great program is liground. It allows using the computer to analyze not only Chess but also variants like Crazyhouse, Shogi, Xiangqi, and many others. If you only play standard Chess you probably won’t make use of it but if you are someone like me who loves all games that are similar to Chess, you may find it helpful just as I have.

    Paid

    The stockfish site I linked to earlier recommends 3 different programs you can buy: Chessbase, Shedder, and Hiarcs. Of these options, only Shredder and Hiarcs are that good.

    Shredder is mostly for playing against the computer. It can keep track of your games and even assign you a rating that goes up or down depending on how you win or lose. However, it’s not that special beyond this. Perhaps if you are looking for a nice program to play against customized strength stockfish and want to download something because you don’t have a reliable internet connection, it’s pretty good. The interface looks really nice and it does let you import and export PNG files of individual games.

    Hiarcs is the better option for me because I don’t use it to play against the computer. I prefer to use it by downloading my own databases of games from lichess and stepping through them. The same can be done with En-Croissant, but the fact that you can open different PGN files and have them in different tabs is a huge bonus. Another thing that is a selling point for me is that it allows me to type in the hex codes for exactly what color squares I want the light and dark squares of the chessboard to be. This is important for someone like me who cares about the appearance of the chessboard for streaming and recording videos.

    I will mention that there is a program called Chessx which is similar to Hiarcs that is free and open source, but the user interface leaves much to be desired. I think you might want to start with it and then if you like it, you might want to buy Hiarcs because it just looks way nicer and does not have trouble loading larger database files.

    Conclusion

    These are my current recommendations for programs serious Chess players might want to use if they have a PC. The open-source free options also work on Linux too if that is important for you.

    Both Shredder and Hiarcs also have mobile app versions too, but I find them to be not as great as the desktop PC version.

  • Chess: The First Move

    White always plays the first move in the game of Chess. There are a total of 20 possible moves that they can do for their first turn. The possible number of Chess games that can occur is greater than any human can calculate especially since games can go on for theoretically hundreds of moves.

    But the first move sets the stage for the rest of the game. Of these moves, some of them are more popular than others. Some of them may objectively be good or bad. The purpose of this post is to go through all 20 possible moves and comment on each of them.

    I will start with the most popular move and then work my way down according to how infrequent they are. The order of popularity is according to the masters database accessible from the lichess analysis board.

    1. e4 · King’s Pawn Opening

    Pawn to e4 or King’s Pawn opening is the most popular move in any database I have seen. I believe this to be because it immediately opens the diagonal paths from white’s queen and light squared bishop to move. Most players start with this and most of the openings begin with it. Because of this, there are many quick checkmate traps that result from it, most notably, the scholar’s mate.

    1. d4 · Queen’s Pawn Opening

    Moving the Queen’s pawn two squares instead of the King’s pawn is the preferred opening of Chastity White Rose. This approach to starting the game makes the statement that she doesn’t want a quick game but rather to set up a defensive position and slowly wipe out the enemy army. This is the “safe” way to play rather than the quick thrill of checkmates in less than ten moves that begin with the King’s pawn.

    Openings that begin with d5 such as the Queen’s Gambit, London System, and Trompowsky Attack are very easy for beginners to learn. Also, the most popular responses by black are either d5 or Nf6. This is because while black would like to play e5, the d4 pawn would just capture it with no consequence.

    1. Nf3 · Zukertort Opening

    Moving the knight to f3 is the third most popular option. This is unusual because most people prefer to move a pawn and get the bishops out. By playing this move, it signals that white will probably want the knight to be on this square for plans later. The primary benefits of this is that white can see what black’s first move is before forming their plans. White still has the option to move a pawn to d4 or e4 on their second move but can wait and see what black does first.

    One benefit is that black cannot move a pawn to e5 without just losing that pawn immediately. White also can transpose into the london system which includes a knight on the f3 square. Of the knight moves that a player can start with, this is probaby the best.

    1. c4 · English Opening

    Pawn to c4 is useful for allowing white to move their queen diagonally but without creating any weaknesses in the pawn structure. The pawn acts as a bait for black to attack but any piece that does capture it can be attacked with the bishop as soon as white moves their king’s pawn to either e3 or e4. This can easily transpose to the queen’s gambit if players decide to go that route.

    1. g3 · Hungarian Opening

    Pawn to g3 allows white to get their bishop moved out to g2 which brings white one step closer to castling kingside. It also allows the bishop to help capture a pawn on d5 if the game later turns into a variation of the Queen’s Gambit or London System.

    1. b3 · Larsen Attack

    b3 is almost exactly like g3 except on the other side of the board. Both of these moves allow players to get bishops on squares that are in line with the enemy rooks. This could lead to a loss of black’s rooks later in the game after they have forgotten where white placed their bishop.

    To be continued

    So far, only the first 6 of the 20 possible moves have been mentioned. These lead to the most possibilities but I will cover the others as I find more time.

    Also, I have plans to include annotation symbols and a percentage chart from my own lichess games to give an idea how many games I have played with them and by extension, how much experience I have with them.

    This post last updated January 5, 2025

  • Hello Chess World

    This is the first post on my brand new website dedicated specifically to teaching Chess.

    You may remember me from my main website:
    https://chastitywhiterose.com/

    I have written about many topics over the years, but since 2023, my site has become flooded with Chess related posts because my new business, Chastity’s Chess Challenge, is what I will be writing about the most from now on.

    By creating this site specifically about Chess, people who only want to see Chess content but don’t want to know about other things will feel more comfortable. I had this idea because I use Chess as a way to escape from the complicated world of politics and religion that stresses me out because other people attack me with their views, even when I am working at Walmart.

    I will be writing posts on this blog that may eventually become content for a book I will publish. I hope people find these posts helpful.

    But the most important thing I want you to know is that I will fight to the death to prove that Chess is for all people. I believe this and I show it by the lyrics for songs that I write.

    I use AI to sing and make music using the lyrics I write. Although AI is controversial to many people, among professional Chess players, they recognize that AI, notably stockfish, has changed the game forever. Because Chess engines can find the best move, they can evaluate Chess games automatically and tell where the mistakes are.

    And if AI can play Chess, why not also use it to make music about Chess? That’s what I do.

    So, stay tuned to this site because there will be Chess tips, videos, and music!