Like other sports, chess has its own code of conduct and its own idea of what constitutes sporting and unsporting behaviour. Some types of bad behaviour are expressely forbidden. For example you are not allowed to move a piece with one hand and press the clock with the other (Article 6.2.3 of the FIDE Laws of Chess), because this is an artificial attempt to shorten one’s own clock time and lengthen the opponent’s clock time. It is also forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any way during the game (Article 11.5).
One might argue that chess etiquette simply reflects the more general obligation to treat other human beings with respect and consideration. So, although not required by the rules of the game, it is the done thing to shake your opponent’s hand at the start and end of the game, and to say something polite like “Good luck” at the start and “Well played” or “Thanks for the game” at the end.
Not everyone behaves correctly, or course. Some of my opponents have remarked at the end of the game, “You were lucky to win that,” or “This was not one of your better games,” or “Tonight you did not play to your grade” (say that last one in a Russian accent and you’ll know who I mean).
Similar considerations apply in online correspondence chess, although notions of etiquette may seem more remote when you cannot see or hear your opponent. “Distracting your opponent” doesn’t have the same force when you have days rather than minutes to make a move, and you don’t have to sit at the computer or stay in the same room the whole time.
Even so, I was told at the start of my correspondence career that it is good practice at the start of a game to send a greeting or best wishes to your opponent. And I can see the point of ending the game on a gracious note as well. I regard this sort of thing as a virtual handshake.
What happens if your opponent does something during the game to which you object, but which is not serious enough to engage the ICCF code of conduct? For example if your opponent turns down a draw offer in a position which is objectively drawn, simply because he is higher-rated. This is, in my view, a sign of disrespect. I am often tempted to make some cutting remark in a message with my next move. Maybe “You must be either arrogant or stupid.” Or “I can recommend a basic guide to rook and pawn endings.” Or just “Seriously?”
However, I have so far managed to restrain myself. I know that it would be unacceptable to say these things over the board and I am trying to apply the same standards online. It’s better to remain silent and just keep on making moves.
Even so, I don’t think players should be able to get away with it, so I do allow myself a little licence. In respect of abortive draw offers, when the game comes to an end I don’t make the usual pleasant remark. Instead I say nothing at all. This is the virtual equivalent of refusing to shake hands. It doesn’t have the same effect if your opponent cannot see you ignoring his outstretched hand, but I feel that I am making a point, at least virtually.
Another, more concrete, way of expressing disapproval is if your opponent unreasonably declines your draw offer and the position later simplifies to one with 7 or fewer pieces on the board and so is amenable to a tablebase claim. In these situations I will (obviously) check that the tablebase verdict is going to be a draw, then I will simply claim the draw without making a further offer. Similarly if my opponent plays on in a losing position and we reduce to 7 pieces, I will simply claim a tablebase win.
By extension, if a position is drawn, and there are 7 or fewer pieces on the board, and neither side has made a draw offer, I regard it as bad practice to claim the tablebase draw without first offering the draw to your opponent.
Over the board chess is strictly time-limited and you do have to get on with things. In blitz you have to move so fast there is hardly time to calculate – you have to rely on knowledge and intuition to get you through. Even in the longest time controls at standardplay, you need a sense of purpose. You can’t just sit there wool-gathering.
By contrast, in correspondence chess you have so much time. The standard is 10 moves in 50 days (sometimes 40 or 30 days but it makes no real difference). When you have played 10 moves, another 50 days are added to your clock. If you used all your time then a really long game of 100 moves would take an elapsed period of nearly 18 months out of your life. Who needs that much time to play a game of chess? How long do you need to find the best move and play it?
My own approach is to use up only as much time as it takes and no more. I have the best commercially-available computer with the fastest processor running the strongest chess engines. It takes anything from a few minutes to an hour or two; and then I’m satisfied that waiting any longer is not going to improve the quality of the move, so I make the move. As a result, I always have the maximum time available although I never need it.
Some of my opponents seem to have a similar approach. Our games are played at a fast tempo with several moves being exchanged each day. The record for my completed games is vs the Italian player Mario Palladino where we each made 34 moves in less than one day. In just under 10% of my completed games, each player made at least 10 moves a day. Sometimes I get a message from my opponent at the end of the game thanking me for playing at a fast pace (the unspoken point is that many players slow the game down).
I wouldn’t want people to conclude that I and my opponents in these games think too fast and don’t play the best moves. We take as much time as we need and often that isn’t long at all.
But this post is going to be a rant, so now I’m going to focus on players who take much more time than they need. These seem to fall into two main categories.
First, players who realise they are losing and play as slowly as possible. Either they want to delay their final hours as long as they can, or they simply lose interest and the game becomes their lowest priority in life.
Second, players who take the maximum time available even if they don’t need it. This approach is diametrically-opposed to mine and I am still trying to understand the reasoning. It may be psychological.
Let’s start with an extreme example of the first category. This is my game against Player C. He is from Latvia, he has been playing correspondence chess for over 30 years, and his rating is currently similar to mine, although it was over 2500 at one point. The game is so short that I’m simply going to give all the moves.
Player C v Rodney Barking 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 0-0 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3?! Very unusual. 6.Qxc3 is almost always played, preserving the purity of the pawn structure. Otherwise why take a move putting the queen on c2 in the first place? 6…c5 7.e4 c5 8.e5 Ne4 9.Bd3 Nc6 10.Ne2 cxd4 All this has been played before. There are 11 games in my database. White normally recaptures with 11.cxd4. But in this game… 11.Kf1?? I do not understand this move. It leaves White a pawn down with misplaced pieces and no compensation. The evaluation goes from about 0.00 to –2.5. Maybe it was a mouse-slip and he meant to play 11.0-0 although even that loses a pawn and White doesn’t have enough for it. 11…dxc3 12.Bxe4 dxe4
Now White can’t take the pawn on e4 because it’s mate next move on d1. Taking the pawn on c3 with the queen leaves Black two pawns up: 13.Qxc3 Qd1+ 14.Qe1 Qxe1+ 15.Kxe1 Nxe5. So does taking on c3 with the knight: 13.Nxc3 Qd4 and the c4 pawn drops. Developing moves like 13.Be3 allow 13…Qd3 with an overwhelming position.
So far my opponent had taken 4 days for his 12 moves, not lighting-fast but still a reasonable pace. But now he stopped. I waited. And I waited. Maybe it was the horror show in front of him but he did not make any more moves at all. 41 calendar days later, the server automatically terminated the game with a loss on time for White. The relevant provision in the 2023 ICCF Rules is section 2.6.2:
If a player does not move or otherwise indicate the player’s intention to continue during 40 full calendar days (plus 24 hours’ buffer time, not including any leave time) for the same move, the game will be scored as an ETL (exceed time limit) loss.
And there’s a further penalty beyond losing on time. Section 2.4.4 provides:
A player who has exceeded the time allowed shall forfeit the game. If the player is not under any ICCF suspension when this occurs, the player will be restricted from registering for any event on the server for a period of 30 days.
So Player C will not be able to sign up for any new events for a whole month. But it does not affect his participation in any existing events. As it happens, Player C is part of the lineup for an event which has already been organised but has not yet started, in which I am also playing. That’s going to be interesting.
I did wonder whether his failure to move in this game might reflect some traumatic event in his life which had taken him away from the chess board and for which he had not taken the period of leave which the server allows. But that is not the case. During the 45 days in which the event has been running, Player C has completed 7 of his allotted 16 games as well as losing this one on time. So it was just a one-off personal tragedy of a game.
That was a case of a player delaying the game through loss of interest. Here’s a more common case where a player realises he is losing but continues to play, although at a much slower rate. I was White against Player D, who is from Poland. At the start of the game he outrated me by about 130 points.
Earlier in the game (by move 18) I had won the exchange through a tactic which my opponent did not see. I guess he was playing without engine assistance at that point. This is the position after White’s move 37. My opponent had already started to slow the game down. His moves 1 to 28 took only 11 days. Moves 29 to 36 took a further 60 days. And now he is clearly losing. My immediate plan is to push the c-pawn to c7, then play Rc4 forcing him to move his knight, then capture his advanced pawn on a2. After this the game is trivial.
My opponent must have worked out this was going to happen because he slowed the game down even further. The game continued 37…Qc6 38.Qxc6 Nxc6 39.Rxa2 after which queens are off the board, I’ve rounded up the a2 pawn, and I have the exchange and two pawns with a completely won position. His moves 37 to 38 took a further 40 days.
The ICCF recognises that players may slow the game down considerably in an attempt to postpone the inevitable. This strategy is known as the “Dead Man’s Defence.” Section 2.15 of the 2023 ICCF Rules concerns the Code of Conduct for players and has this to say:
Extremely slow play in a clearly lost position is not proper behaviour in correspondence chess play, and is subject to a warning from the TD, and will result in disciplinary action if it continues or is repeated in other games. This type of extremely slow play has been nicknamed the dead man’s defense (DMD). The defining characteristics are (a) being in a position that appears clearly lost presuming reasonable play AND (b) dramatically slowing play in that specific game.
The provision is activated when the opponent of the slow player makes a claim. I waited a further 10 days after my move 39 and then contacted the tournament director. He then followed the notification procedure set out in this part of the Rules, requiring my opponent to speed up and start playing at a normal rate again. There are severe penalties for a breach of the Code of Conduct, mainly taking the form of a ban from ICCF events for a certain period. At this point my opponent decided he’d had enough and he promptly resigned the game.
The ICCF does try to hurry players up if they take a long time over their moves. When a player is considering his next move, Rule 2.4.2 provides that real time applies for the first 20 days but after that double time applies (this is known as “duplication”) so that every extra day taken counts as two days on the player’s clock. The rule gives the example of a player taking 23 days over a move, which uses up 26 days on his clock. In other words, 20 days of normal time and 3 days of double time counting as 6 days on the clock.
The penalty for losing on time is based on calendar days (real time) rather than clock days. In the first example I gave, the game against Player C, the penalty was applied after 41 calendar days, but he had actually used up 62 days on his clock. He still had 38 days of clock time left in the game, but his inactivity for 41 calendar days amounted to a loss on time under the rules.
My view – others may not share this view – is that the initial period of 20 days reflection time is too generous. I think the ICCF should reduce this to 15 days or even 10 days. This raises the prospect of players running out of clock time (the clock reaches zero) before the period of 41 calendar days is used up. It would certainly focus the mind. I don’t know whether the ICCF has considered this idea.
But I now realise that this provision is the wrong target and the real problem lies elsewhere in the Rules. This brings me to the case of Player E. I am not going to give any details of his identity or the particular games in question since these are still live. Player E behaves in an extraordinary way. Whatever the standard period of time allowed for a set of 10 moves, he does nothing until almost all the time is used up and then makes a move at the last minute. So for example he might have only one day left for his next 10 moves and then he would finally make a move. You might think he would have to make 10 moves in one day to avoid his clock running out of time. But no. This is what Rule 2.4.2 provides:
Time is counted in days, not in hours, minutes, or seconds. If the first 24 hours has not yet been fully consumed, the reflection time used is counted as zero days. For the next days, a similar method of accounting time consumed will apply. Playing time is accounted for in whole days (24-hour periods). A player will have 24 hours of reflection time to respond to a move before one day of time is charged against the player’s clock by the ICCF webserver.
This means that if you have only 10 minutes remaining on your clock, and you then move, the clock resets itself to 24 hours and that is the time you have remaining for your next move. In effect you can make one move a day indefinitely and you will never lose on time. It’s similar to the incremental time control in OTB chess. You may be down to increment time on the clock (“living on the increment”), but as long as you continue to move within the increment period of, say, 30 seconds, you will never lose on time. The game will continue until it reaches its natural end. This is what happened in the infamous game T.Foster–P.Lalic (Guildford 2023) which ran to 214 moves after 7 hours of play before the final blunder and resignation.
This is being remedied in OTB chess for the next Guildford congress with a stricter time control. Should something similar be done for online correspondence chess? The obvious solution would be to remove the increment so that the clock does not reset itself to 24 hours every time you make a move. This already happens in the alternative timing arrangement known as “Triple Block” used for some ICCF events. Rule 2.4.2 sets out the relevant provision:
Time is counted in days, hours, and minutes. All time while “on-move” used counts and is never given back by rounding to the last full day.
I do not know how long Triple Block has been in use. Maybe this kind of provision is the future. It still leaves me with the problem of how to understand players who deliberately use up almost all of their time rather than only taking the time they need. I don’t think such players are simply disorganised. You have to be organised in order to make one move a day every day until you reach the next time control. I do wonder if the reason is psychological. The player is indulging in mind games by creating an expectation in his opponent’s mind of an imminent win on time, only to dash that hope at the last moment, so as to provoke the opponent into moving too quickly (“blitzing”) and making an error. Who knows? Only Player E can tell us and he’s not saying anything.
I do have one further idea to encourage quicker play. This could be implemented without any changes to the time control arrangements. The server knows how much time has elapsed in every game played by each player in an event. If there is a tie between two or more players and none of the tie-breaks can separate them, for example they have exactly the same number of points, the same number of victories, no advantage in direct encounter, and the same sum of opponents’ scores, then an additional tie-break could be implemented to favour the player who has used the least amount of elapsed time.
In what circumstances do you offer or accept a draw in online correspondence chess? I apply a number of tests.
First, I look at the position from the point of view of an experienced OTB player. Is the position simple or complicated? Is it likely to be drawn with correct play? What is my technical knowledge about this particular kind of ending?
Then I check the engine evaluation. If all the lines on all my engines point to 0.00 or close to that, I know the engines don’t think either side is winning. These engines outrate me by over 1000 points. I have to respect that.
Also I take into account my opponent’s play so far. Has he played sensible moves of the kind that a strong human or an engine would play? Does it look as though he is playing with engine support?
If all these boxes are ticked, then I will offer or accept a draw. Notice one test that’s missing – the difference between my rating and my opponent’s rating. I will gain a few points if my opponent is higher-rated and I will lose a few points if my opponent is lower-rated. That’s just how it goes. I am trying to be objective about the position.
In an ideal world, my opponents would take the same approach as me. Many of them do. Unfortunately some of them do not. Let me illustrate that with some examples.
This is from the game Rodney Barking – Player A.
Player A (not his real name) is from England. He has been playing correspondence chess for many years. He is a prominent figure in the world of English correspondence chess but as far as I can tell has never played rated OTB games. At the start of our game, he outrated me by about 150 points.
In this position, I have just played 31.Rbe1. It seemed to me that neither side could make progress. The engine evaluation was 0.00 or slightly better for me across all lines going nearly 50 moves deep. So I offered a draw… which he declined. In correspondence chess you are limited to one draw offer every 10 moves. So I had no choice but to play on.
This is the position after I played 41.Rf4. The position is even more drawish than before. The pawn structure is symmetrical. Neither side has any threats. The engine evaluation is even more firmly 0.00 at over 50 moves ahead. Again I offered a draw, and again my opponent declined.
A few moves later, queens came off leaving a rook and pawn ending that not even Magnus Carlsen could win:
At this point, after his move 49…Rd7, he offered a draw which I accepted.
I have been trying to understand why he turned down the first two draw offers. One possible explanation is that he does not understand the basic principles of chess endings and simply plays whatever move his computer recommends. Maybe he does not know that this type of position is drawn. I think this is unlikely given his high rating and his many years of experience.
A second possible explanation is that he is using a different chess engine that tells him, contrary to the range of engines that I use, that Black is winning these positions and therefore he should play on. Again I think this is unlikely. From what I know of chess engines and how they evaluate positions, none of them would regard this as a winning position. Unless maybe it had become corrupted and had accepted a bribe from Player A in the form of a promise of a processor upgrade.
The only other explanation is that Player A thought his rating advantage of 150 points was sufficient for him to outplay me from a drawn position or that I would make a mistake. In order to think this he would have to set aside the progress of the game so far, in which I (in fact both of us) have played error-free chess. He would also have had to close his mind to the possibility that I might have engine assistance, so that he is not playing a 2200-rated player but a 2200-rated player with the backup of a range of 3500-rated computers.
In short, I think he turned down the draw offers, not because an objective evaluation of the position led him to think he could win, but simply because his rating was higher than mine. That’s rating snobbery and it does him no credit.
Here’s a different example of the same thing.
This is from the game Rodney Barking – Player B (also not his real name). He is an American player who has been playing correspondence chess for less than five years. At the start of this game, he outrated me by over 350 points.
The position is quite different from the other game. It’s unbalanced and tactical in nature. Black has a dangerous advanced b-pawn. I was the exchange up, but have just offered it back by capturing his bishop on e6 (31.Rxe6). He has only one good move (recapturing the rook) – everything else loses – and then my queen and rook combine against his exposed king to force perpetual check resulting in a draw by repetition within a few moves. The engines see this instantly. The lines are forcing, and at all critical points Black’s only choice is between perpetual check or an immediate loss. So I offered a draw… which he declined.
The game continued 31…Rxe6 32.Rc8+ Kf7 (forced since 32…Kh7 33.Qd3+ wins for White) 33.Rc7+ Re7 34.Qd5+ Kg6 (the only other legal move, 34…Kf8, also results in a quick draw after 35.Qd8+ or 35.Rc8+) 35.Qd3+ Kf7 (all other moves allow a forced mate in at most 9 moves) 36.Qd5+ Kg6 and at this point he offered a draw which I accepted.
What made him refuse the initial draw offer? Any engine would have told him that the best he could hope for was a draw by repetition. Was he not using engines and relying on his own natural ability to outplay me in a tactical position?
Or was he simply making the point that chess etiquette requires the draw offer to come from the stronger player? I understand that point, but in online correspondence chess with computer backing, the concept of the “stronger player” no longer means anything. Nor does “higher-rated.” Come on guys, it’s time to join the 21st century.
Over the board, if you choose a dubious opening, you may score a quick win but against a well-prepared opponent you will end up in a bad or losing position more often than not. That’s the value of mainline openings: they are sound at all levels, and if you know some theory and the general plans and where your pieces and pawns should go, you will reach a decent middlegame where you can start to play chess. And that’s all you can ask from an opening.
In high-level correspondence chess, where the moves are backed by engine analysis, it’s a different matter. The top engines operate at the 3500 rating level. In so far as you can ascribe emotional states to a machine, they are ruthless: they will exploit any mistake, no matter how small.
So I have discovered, to my initial surprise, that some mainline openings are no longer playable in correspondence chess. Let me give two examples with illustrations from games played by Rodney Barking.
The King’s Indian Defence
Since February 2022 Barking has started 218 correspondence games. 173 are finished and 45 are ongoing. Of the finished games, Barking has won 57, drawn 111, and lost only 5. Of the losses, 2 were down to carelessness: Barking played out a linear conditional sequence but got the moves in the wrong order at the point of implementation and lost material. This will not happen again.
The other 3 losses, where Barking was simply outplayed over the board, were all on the Black side of the King’s Indian Defence. Despite relying on the magisterial 2-volume set King’s Indian 1 and King’s Indian 2 by GM Gawain Jones (published 2022), Barking was simply pushed off the board. In this opening Black concedes a significant space advantage. As the engines show, White’s best strategy is to concentrate his forces on the kingside and neutralise Black’s initiative, before gradually expanding all over the board. Computers have become very good indeed at exploiting a space advantage. Barking also relied on engine analysis, but did not always follow its recommendations where the engine departed from Jones’s ideas, and this did not work out well. I am not saying anything against Jones, who is possibly the world’s leading expert on the King’s Indian Defence, and whose books were surely checked with the best-available engines at the time.
White: Michael Moyses (1800), Black: Rodney Barking (1800), ICCF 2022 E94: King’s Indian, Classical Variation Online game – https://lichess.org/QyQdEy2c 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.e4 d6 4.d4 Bg7 5.Be2 0-0 6.Nf3 Nbd7 This is Gawain Jones’s trademark and he analyses it in detail in his book. Of course the main line is 6…e5 followed by 7…Nc6 and Jones analyses that in much greater detail. I’m not ascribing the loss to the 6…Nbd7 line despite losing with it in another game as well. The third game I lost was in the 6…e5 main line. 7.0-0 e5 8.Be3 Qe7 9.Qc2 c6 10.d5 c5 The plan endorsed by Jones is to close the centre, slowing down White’s queenside play, and to prepare kingside expansion with …f5. Often Black will play …Ng8 and …Bh6 to exchange the bad bishop.
11.Kh1 Jones considers a range of 11th moves for White, but this is not one of them. It’s the prelude to a kingside build-up by White. Alarmingly, the engines already evaluate White’s advantage as over +1.00 for several different 11th moves. 11…Kh8 12.Rae1 Ng8 13.g4 Ndf6 14.h3 h6 15.Qc1 Nh7 16.Rg1 Bd7 17.Rg2 a6 18.a4 f5 19.gxf5 gxf5 20.exf5 Bxf5 21.Reg1 Rf7 22.Nd2 Ngf6 23.Qd1 Bxh3 24.Rh2 Qd7 25.Bh5 Rff8 26.Qf3 Bf5 27.Rhg2 Rg8 28.Bf7 e4 29.Qf4 Bh3 30.Rg3 Qxf7 31.Rxh3 Qd7 32.Rgg3 Raf8 33.Qh4 Qf5 34.Ncxe4 Nxe4 35.Qxe4 Be5 36.Rxg8+ Kxg8 37.Rxh6 Over the course of the game, White has steadily increased the pressure on the kingside and has now won a pawn. His advantage is now around +2.00. Black’s king is also very exposed. I give the remaining moves although the game is effectively over as a contest.
This is one of the most exciting and heavily-analysed of all opening variations. Fischer chose it as Black and defended the Poisoned Pawn line where Black snaffles the White b-pawn and aims to weather the storm in potentially quite irrational positions. In practical play, Black often declines the pawn in favour of completing development, and a complex position arises with chances for both sides. The variation as a whole is fully-playable both over the board and in correspondence chess. However, what used to be the main line – a Black option at move 13 – is now regarded as a serious error. Watch and learn.
White: Rodney Barking (2000), Black: Luis A. T. Frazão Ferreira (1668), ICCF 2022 B99: Sicilian Najdorf, 7…Be7 main line Online game – https://lichess.org/FRZOtJZX 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 7…Qb6 leads to the Poisoned Pawn variation. Because it is so theoretical, it tends not to be seen as a practical choice in over the board chess, and not many opening books analyse it for Black. One exception is The Sharpest Sicilian by Georgiev and Kolev, but that dates from 2012 which is a lifetime ago in the theory of this opening. Nor are there any Chessable courses on the Black side of this variation. In contrast, 7…Be7 is well-covered from the Black side, both in Playing the Najdorf: A Practical Repertoire by David Vigorito (2019), and on Chessable in Lifetime Repertoires: Giri’s Najdorf Sicilian by GM Anish Giri (2020). 8.Qf3 Qc7 9.0-0-0 Nbd7 10.g4 b5 11.Bxf6 Nxf6 12.g5 Nd7 13.f5
Black has a major choice here. Currently the best is thought to be 13…0-0! when Black seems to be castling into a kingside attack, but theory suggests that Black can successfully defend these positions. 13…Nc5? The question mark may seem to be audacious for what was the main line of this variation until relatively recently. Vigorito considers it briefly and dismisses it in these words: “The big theoretical main line used to be 13…Nc5 but this never appealed to me in view of: 14.f6 gxf6 15.gxf6 Bf8 16.Rg1. The ensuing variations can be quite irrational and Black’s king is always in danger, with Rg7 and various knight sacrifices in the air. Maybe in a correspondence game Black can hold his own, but over the board it looks too scary. One recent example went 16…h5 17.a3 Rb8 18.Re1 Nd7 19.Nxe6! with a winning attack for White in Vallejo Pons–Wynn, Bangkok 2016. No thank you.”
Well that was 2019. Roll on 2021 and the 2-volume set The Najdorf Bg5 Revisited by Lukasz Jarmula. This is the most detailed and up-to-date coverage of the Bg5 Sicilian from White’s point of view. His assessment is even more stark: “This is the old main line, which has been pretty much refuted in correspondence practice.” He demonstrates this in 8 pages of detailed analysis backed up by recent games, concluding that the line “…has been simply refuted by modern engines. The whole line is unplayable unless as a provocation in a rapid or blitz game against an unprepared opponent.” 14.f6 gxf6 15.gxf6 Bf8 16.Rg1 Bd7 I have also faced 16…h5 in a more recent correspondence game which is still ongoing. We are only at move 20. The engine evaluation in that game is +1.60 and I am already winning. 17.Rg7 Bxg7 18.fxg7 Rg8 19.e5 0-0-0 20.exd6 Qb6 21.a4
White has sacrificed the exchange for an irresistible attack. 21.a4 opens up the queenside. The evaluation is now +2.50 and the game is effectively over. 21…Qb7 22.Qh5 f5 23.axb5 axb5 24.Bxb5 Rxg7 25.Qe2 Qb6 26.b4 Ne4 27.Qc4+ Kb8 28.Bxd7 Rdxd7 29.Nc6+ Kb7 30.Na5+ Kb8 Although Black has a slight material advantage, his king is completely exposed and is no match for the marauding White pieces. 31.Nxe4 fxe4 32.Qxe6 h5 33.Qd5 e3 34.Nc6+ Kb7 35.Ne7+ Kb8 36.Rf1 Rxd6 37.Rf8+ Kc7 38.Qc4+ Rc6 39.Rc8+ Kd7 40.Rxc6 Qa7 41.Qe6+ 1–0 It’s mate next move although Black could have resigned a long time ago.
I’m going to start this post by quoting an extract from the Wikipedia entry, since it says what I want to say and I don’t see the point of paraphrasing it.
An endgame tablebase is a computerized database that contains precalculated exhaustive analysis of chess endgame positions. It is typically used by a computer chess engine during play, or by a human or computer that is retrospectively analysing a game that has already been played.
The tablebase contains the game-theoretical value (win, loss, or draw) in each possible position, and how many moves it would take to achieve that result with perfect play. Thus, the tablebase acts as an oracle, always providing the optimal moves. Typically the database records each possible position with certain pieces remaining on the board, and the best moves with White to move and with Black to move.
Tablebases are generated by retrograde analysis, working backward from a checkmated position. By 2005, all chess positions with up to six pieces, including the two kings, had been solved. By August 2012, tablebases had solved chess for almost every position with up to seven pieces, but the positions with a lone king versus a king and five pieces were omitted because they were considered to be “rather obvious.”[1][2] These positions were included by August 2018.[3] As of 2022, work is still underway to solve all eight-piece positions.
Tablebases sometimes come with a name as a prefix, e.g. Nalimov, Lomonosov, Syzygy. Eugene Nalimov is a computer programmer who generated the first tablebases in the 1990s. Lomonosov is the name of a Russian supercomputer. Syzygy is an astronomical term describing the occurrence of three celestial bodies in a straight line. No, I don’t know what that has to do with chess either. Syzygy 7-piece tablebases are the most recent. These are used by the International Correspondence Chess Federation.
What is the practical use of a tablebase in correspondence chess? In my experience the tablebase is a means of bringing a game to an end quickly and so achieving a draw or a win, when your opponent cannot or will not see this, and particularly when he or she has slowed the game down in order to delay the inevitable. The ICCF rules allow you to claim a win or draw by reference to a tablebase where there are no more than seven pieces on the board. Here’s an example from one of Barking’s games earlier this year.
Yes, I know there are more than seven pieces… This was the position after White’s 41st move. Earlier I had given up my queen for a rook and bishop. As all the pieces are on one side of the board, and there are no passed pawns, Black can hold the draw easily enough and in fact the evaluation of one of the chess engines I use is 0.00. However, White can continue the game for quite a long time just by probing with the queen.
As I’m not winning this position, there’s no advantage to me in prolonging it. What’s the quickest way out? Answer: sacrifice some material… 41…Bxh4! 42.gxh4 Rxg4+ 43.Kh3 h5
Despite the material difference, this position is actually drawn. Black has constructed a fortress. There is no way the white king can penetrate Black’s defences. I offered a draw, which my opponent accepted.
The point that’s relevant to this post, and obviously I checked this before going nuclear, is that the position is a tablebase draw as well. I would have claimed a draw by reference to the ICCF tablebase if my opponent had not co-operated. This is what the tablebase evaluation looks like:
Interestingly, the various engines I use all evaluate this position differently. The strongest of them has White at +0.81 (approaching a clear advantage, but not yet winning). The weakest has White at +4.21 (a trivial win). I guess none of the engines has the 7-piece tablebase programmed in. Maybe that should not be a surprise as the storage size you need for a tablebase is absolutely huge.
I was going to give a further example, another game against my Austrian opponent Herr Wiesinger. We have reached a rook and pawn ending where the Austrian is totally lost. He knows this and has slowed the game down to a funereal pace. Unfortunately there are still eight pieces on the board so we are just out of tablebase range. I expect one of his pawns to drop off very soon (when he finally gets round to moving) and then it will be Goodnight Vienna.
So much for correspondence chess. What about tablebases in OTB chess? Now here’s a thing. Chess leagues are increasingly using incremental time controls. These carry the risk that a game may still be going on at the end of the playing session. Back in the day, if the two players couldn’t agree on the outcome, these games were resolved either by adjournment to a later date or by adjudication. Neither of these is ideal. Adjournments simply add to fixture congestion. Adjudications take the result of the game out of the hands of the players and transfer it to a third party (in Barking’s eyes this is a detestable practice).
The London League used to rely solely on adjournments, following a playing session of 30 moves in 90 minutes. Those days have gone. At some point in the past decade, the League introduced an incremental time control of G75 + 15. So far, there have been no documented cases of games being unresolved at the end of the playing session. But adjudication is available as a backup if needed.
This season, and as far as I know this is the first time this has happened in English league chess, tablebase decision-making has been introduced. If a game is unfinished, and there are no more than seven pieces on the board, the outcome is determined by reference to a tablebase rather than adjudication. This has the advantage of determining the outcome by objective rather subjective means since you know with certainty what will happen with perfect play on both sides, rather than relying on the human (no doubt computer-assisted) determination of the adjudicator. The relevant London League rule is as follows:
C8. UNFINISHED GAMES C8.1 If any game is unfinished at the end of the session, both players and both captains shall record the position on the board. If the two sides cannot agree a result, then –
(a) if no more than 7 pieces remain on the board, the result shall be determined by reference to a tablebase such as the Syzygy endgame tablebase at https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=4k3/8/8/8/8/8/8/4K3_w_-_-_0_1;
(b) In other cases, both sides shall submit an adjudication claim to the league secretary together with a fee of £10. If only one claim is made, it shall be upheld without adjudication. Either side may appeal against an adjudication decision, providing supporting evidence, and on payment of a further fee of £10. The fees shall be returned to the relevant side if no adjudication is needed or if an appeal succeeds.
Whoever thought of this deserves a medal. Who says space can’t be conquered?!
Carnage. Chess engines are now significantly stronger than the best human players. Using an engine makes a real difference to the way you play correspondence chess and the outcome of the game. It’s not in the type of moves you make – engines will recommend the logical rather than the natural move, even if it looks non-standard. Instead it’s in the accuracy of calculation. Human players make tactical errors. Chess engines do not. So if your opponent blunders during the game, you know he’s not using an engine.
This is how Barking’s county captain put it at the start of the season: “An important point to note is that use of computer engines is permitted – nearly all players in the first and second divisions use engines and many in Division 3… [to Barking, the newbie:] I expect you’ll be using an engine; if not please let me know and I’ll put you in the Div 3 team.”
In tournaments at a higher level, where the use of engines is routine, the engine v engine contest is very often a draw. For example in one of my current ICCF tournaments, a 7-player all-play-all with an average rating of 1950, 20 out of the 21 games have finished and 17 of these were drawn with only three decisive games (and one of these was a win on time). The only game outstanding is one of mine, against the tournament’s highest-rated player. I am winning this, and it’s only still going on because my opponent has slowed the game to a crawl.
As you might imagine, a game of engine vs non-engine can be a real mismatch. This type of game is often a miniature (under 25 moves) with strong tactical strokes. Which leads me to…
Visualisation. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the ability to calculate accurately is one of the most important skills in chess. Training and testing this skill is the basis of one of the most popular types of chess book – the tactical puzzle book. These give you a diagram and ask you to find the continuation, essentially calculating what should happen next, without moving the pieces.
What’s less well understood is how you go about developing the ability to calculate. Enter visualisation – the practice of calculating variations without looking at the board at all. Visualisation without the board is the most effective way of developing clarity and the depth of calculation. This is what the specialists in blindfold chess do all the time, sometimes in a spectular way through simultaneous exhibitions against many players.
This is the subject of chapter 2, ‘Blindfold Chess and Stepping-Stone Diagrams’, in Jonathan Tisdall’s book ‘Improve Your Chess Now’ (Cadogan, 1997). He quotes Dr Siegbert Tarrasch:
The whole game of chess is played as a blindfold game. For instance, every combination of five moves is executed mentally, with the only difference that one has the board before him. The pieces which one is looking at very often hinder the calculations.
Tisdall draws attention to the practice of some GMs (Shirov, Ivanchuk, Svidler, for example) who “often calculate variations by suddenly staring into space instead of at the board. Clearly, they have some built-in belief that they can more clearly focus their visualisation of critical variations by looking away from the board.”
You can try this at home without going out to find an actual opponent and playing an actual game. Take the score of any chess game (I don’t mean the result, but the set of moves as seen on the page), and at first the shorter the better, and try to play through the game in your head. See if you can visualise the position after each move. This is hard work, particularly when you first do it because the relevant chess muscles are weak and undeveloped, and the further you go into the game, the harder it becomes to maintain a clear mental picture of the board. But it is rewarding and it is a very good way to improve your game.
A similar method is to go through a book of chess games with diagrams at intervals in each game. Try to visualise the game without playing the moves on a board, using the diagrams as an aid or stepping-stone (another technique recommended in Tisdall’s book).
For starting out, I recommend ‘Blindfold Opening Visualisation: 100 Chess Puzzles’ by Martin B Justesen (Say Chess Publishing, 2021). This gives you the score of 100 games take from Lichess, all of 10 moves or fewer, and featuring tactical points, where you have to find the continuation.
Which brings us back to the carnage of engine-inspired destruction. Here are four of Barking’s miniature wins from 2022. Play through them with a board if you like, but if you feel up to it, play through them blindfold, and see if you can keep track of what’s going on.
In this post we examine deliberate losing on time, and its lesser cousin deliberate timewasting, in the world of correspondence chess.
The rules of the International Correspondence Chess Federation provide for a range of time controls. The one that I have used most often requires you to make 10 moves in 50 days. After 10 moves, a further 50 days is added to your clock, and the same at later stages of the game. As with OTB chess, total time is what counts, so you do not have to make 10 moves in each period of 50 days counted separately. If you make 19 moves in the first 50 days, you only have to make 1 move in the next 50 days.
Players may take up to 45 days of leave in a calendar year. During a period leave, the clock is stopped and neither you nor your opponent can make a move.
There are penalties for slow play and running out of time. If you don’t make a move for 20 days, your remaining time is used up at double speed so that each additional day of consideration counts as two days off your clock. This process is known as duplication.
The system also sends reminders. First after 14 days of inactivity, just to prompt you. Second after 35 calendar days (i.e. ignoring duplication). At this point you must, within the next 5 calendar days, either make a move, or indicate your intention to carry on playing.
You lose the game if you run out of time, or you ignore the 35-day warning and do nothing by 40 days. Losing on time carries additional penalties in that you may be barred from competing in future events.
The allocation of 50 days for 10 moves is generous. No matter how busy you are, you don’t need that much time for so few moves. And in most of my correspondence games, my opponents have got on with the game more of less expeditiously.
Unfortunately, some players tend to slow the game down when they realise they are losing. Either they want to postpone the moment of defeat as long as possible. Or they simply lose interest in the game – in some cases letting the clock run down to zero. This makes the game seem interminable. One possible reform would be to introduce duplication at an earlier stage, after say 15 days or even 10 days, to speed the process of retribution for players who behave like this.
Now for some examples of completed games in 2022. I make no apology for naming and shaming.
All this is theory, and is the line recommended for White by Simon Williams and Richard Palliser in ‘The Iron English’ (Everyman, 2020). Black normally continues with …Nc5 and …Nb4, and queenside play. My opponent pursued an independent path. It’s now 25 April – we have reached move 14 after only 10 days’ play. 14…b6 15.Rb1 a5 16.b3 Nc5 17.Rb2 Re8 18.Rd2 Black’s structure is quite rigid, with no obvious pawn breaks. In contrast White is well-placed to start a kingside attack. The computer evaluation is about +1.2, indicating a clear advantage to White. 18…Rb7 19.Nb5 Bd7 20.Nec3 Qc8 21.Kh2 Nb4 22.f4 Rb8 23.g4 Bc6 24.h4 Ra8 25.g5 Rd8 26.h5 Rf8 27.h6 Bxc3 28.Nxc3
White’s kingside attack has reached a dangerous point. The computer thinks White is winning (+2.8). My opponent should bring his pieces back to the kingside to defend. Instead he blunders a piece. After this the game becomes trivial. It’s now 9 May – we have made 28 moves in 24 days. Still quite a brisk rate of play. 28…Nxe4?? 29.Nxe4 My opponent realises that he is losing and starts to take longer over his moves. 29…Qb7 30.Qa1 f6 31.Qd4 Rae8 32.f5 gxf5 33.gxf6 e5 34.Qxd6 fxe4 35.f7+ Rxf7 36.Bh3 Qe7 37.Rg2+ Now the computer says that White can force mate in at most 7 moves. I could have sent my opponent a message to announce this, but the practice is passé. It’s now 4 June. The last 9 moves have taken 26 days, almost all used by Black. 37…Kh8 28 June – that’s +24 days. 38.Qxe7 Rexe7 17 July – that’s +19 days. 39.Be6 Be8 17 August – that’s +31 days. 40.Rfg1 Rg7 29 September – notionally +43 days, although I think most of this was annual leave taken by my opponent. 41.Rxg7 1–0 And now it’s mate in 2 moves. At this point Black resigned. 20 October – that’s +22 days.
From the start to White’s 37th move took 50 days. The remaining 5 moves took 138 days, over 4 months, although this did include a period of leave. Very unsporting behaviour by Herr Wiesinger. Normally after the game one exchanges pleasantries, e.g. “Good game – well played – thanks for the game,” but after this game I had nothing to say to my opponent.
Game 2 Start: 20 June 2022, End: 23 October 2022 (125 days) White: Rodney Barking (ENG – 1800), Black: Thomas Clarke (SCO – 1800) B06: Pirc–Robatsch, 4.Be3 Nf6 This was one game in a double-header on board 42 of the “friendly” match between Edinburgh and London. As the ICCF blurb puts it: “The Edinburgh Chess Club is the oldest chess club in Scotland, established in 1822 and one of the oldest chess clubs in the world. As part of the Club’s bicentenary celebrations this match against London is being played as a sequel to their original match with London which started in 1824.” Sadly unrated, but could resist such a romantic playing opportunity? 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Be3 The English Attack is White’s most popular continuation against the Pirc / Modern, even at GM level, giving the lie to its reputation as the hacker’s weapon of choice (“the 150 Attack,” beloved of players graded 150, or about 1825 these days). The idea is very simple: play Bh6, advance the h-pawn, deliver checkmate. 4…Nf6 5.Qd2 a6 6.Nf3 O-O 7.Bh6 c5 8.Bxg7 Kxg7 9.O-O-O Nc6 10.dxc5 dxc5 11.Qf4 Naturally White keeps the queens on the board, to strengthen the kingside attack. 11…Qa5 12.e5 Ng4 13.Bc4 Bf5 14.Rhe1 b5 15.Bd5 b4 16.Ne4 Rad8 Now both sides are attacking on opposite wings in an exciting middlegame position. However, White’s threats are stronger. 17.Ng3 Be6?! Sacrificing a piece to break through on the queenside – but it’s not sound. White can take the material and defend successfully. 18.Bxe6 fxe6 19.Qxg4 Qxa2 Threatening mate in one, so White’s next few moves are forced. 20.Rxd8 Rxd8 21.Nd2 a5 22.Qe4 1-0
And that’s where the game stopped, with victory to White in an unclear position. What just happened?
Although the game started on 20 June, Black arrived late at the board and did not make his first move until 5 July. Play then progressed rapidly until after White’s 13th move on 8 July, just three days later. Black then slowed down and took 18 days over his next four moves.
After 17.Ng3, Black’s kingside pieces get into a tangle. He did not move again until 8 August, 13 days later, and followed up quickly with two more moves. I played 19.Nxg4 on 10 August. Inexplicably Black then took over a month to play 19…Qxa2, which is the only move in the position. He then played another two moves very quickly.
So to the final move in the game, 22.Qe4, which I played on 14 September. After that, nothing. I waited 39 calendar days, which with duplication amounted to 58 total days, and that point Black’s time ran out and he lost. I do not understand why he allowed this to happen. Maybe he thought there was no point continuing the game a piece down, even with compensation. As it happens the computer thinks Black can keep going with 22…Rd3, which keeps the white queen out of the queenside.
So this wasn’t unsporting, just very odd. I don’t see the point of starting a game of chess if you’re not going to see it through to the end. As Magnus Magnusson used to say on Mastermind: “I’ve started so I’ll finish,” his catchphrase whenever time ran out while he was reading a question on the show.
I first played correspondence chess a long time ago. Maybe in the 80s or 90s. I agreed to play for Surrey in a county match. This was before the time of chess engines. The rate of play was very slow. One move at a time, sent by postcard. I still remember the game, dimly. I was White. It was a French Winawer. The only resource I had was the 1975 Batsford classic ‘The French Defence Main Line Winawer’ by John Moles, and that was written from the Black point of view. I followed theory as far as I could (move 21 or thereabouts) then had to think for myself. I was outplayed in the middlegame and lost. And the game seemed to take forever. After that I decided I would never play correspondence chess again.
Fast forward to 2022. I have returned to the correspondence world. In less than nine months I have started 120 correspondence games and finished 70 of them, with a score of +33 =33 –4, or about 71%. My opponents have been rated 1866 on average (that’s not FIDE, but ICCF, or the International Correspondence Chess Federation). I started with a default rating of 1800 and this has been rising steadily by over 100 points a quarter. I now like correspondence chess very much. How and why has this happened?
It started with a mailshot from the Surrey captain almost a year ago inviting interest in the 2022 round of county matches. He explained how modern correspondence chess worked. Instead of sending moves by post, games were played online on a server. Although the rate of play was still rather stately (10 moves in 50 days is standard), players could move as quickly as they wanted. My completed games have ranged from 1 day to 156 days in length, at an overall average of 34 days. Apart from one game (ongoing) where there is bad blood between me and my opponent, I always play very quickly. My opponents tend to play the opening at a decent pace, continuing in a timely fashion when the game is still quite balanced, but slowing down considerably when they realise they’re losing.
The more significant innovation is that the use of chess engines to analyse during the game is actively encouraged. Engines have improved tremendously over the past 20 years or so. The top engines are rated about 3500 – well above world champion human level. They play technically perfect chess. They also play beautiful chess, developing concepts that go beyond human experience. They are not afraid to enter mind-boggling complications. And finally, they have started to play like humans, incorporating intuitive factors such as the value of the initiative and prioritising piece activity over materialistic considerations. Since this is the one chess format where it is allowed, I simply could not resist enhancing my game with riches as wonderful as this.
I will have more to say about correspondence chess in later posts. For now, here is one of my first correspondence games from early in 2022.
White: Rodney Barking (1800, Surrey), Black: Ken Clow (2099, Essex). B31: Sicilian, Rossolimo. 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 4.Bxc6 bxc6 5.0-0 Bg7 6.Re1 Rb8 7.e5 7.h3 is the theoretical move. I rather like 7.e5, cramping Black’s position and forcing him to weaken his pawn structure in order to develop. 7…f6 8.d4 cxd4 9.Bf4!
Sacrificing a pawn for active play is the computer’s top choice. I preferred this to retaining the material balance with 9.exf6 Nxf6 10.Qxd4, when Black has open lines and a dynamic position. 9…Rxb2?! Greedy. He should have clarified the position in the centre with multiple exchanges on e5 so as to develop and castle. This was for me the first indication that my opponent was either playing without a chess engine, or with an engine that wasn’t as strong as mine. The evaluation is now +1.36 despite the temporary two-pawn deficit. 10.Qxd4 Qb6 11.Qd3! Ba6?! 12.Qa3 fxe5?! Black is again two pawns up and his developed pieces are superficially active. But the computer soon demonstrates that White has a very strong initiative. 13.Be3 Qb7 14.Nc3 d6?! 15.Rab1 Rxb1 16.Rxb1 Qc8?! The position looks messy, but Black is behind in development and his king is still in the centre. White’s advantage has now risen to +4.71 which tells me that I am now winning. Black cannot hold his queenside together. 17.Bxa7 Bb7?! 18.Qb3 Ba6 19.Ng5 Nh6 20.Nd5! Not really a piece sacrifice. 20…cxd5 21.Qa4+ Kf8 22.Qxa6! wins immediately. 20…Bf6 21.Nxf6+ exf6 22.Ne4 Nf7! 23.Qa3! Ke7 24.Rb8 Qxb8! 25.Bxb8 Rxb8
Black’s queen sacrifice has produced a very interesting endgame with an unusual material balance. Material is dynamically equal: I have queen for rook, bishop and pawn. On the face of it, Black should be able to hold this position. But chess engines are very good at exploiting the limitless potential of the queen – especially in combination with a knight. The evaluation remains at between +4 and +5 for quite a long time. 26.h3! Bc8 27.Nd2! f5 28.Qa5 Bd7 29.Nc4! Rb7 30.a4 e4! 31.Kh2 f4?! Black’s pieces are awkwardly-placed and he finds it hard to co-ordinate. In fact there is now no defence to the simple plan of advancing the white a-pawn. 32.Nb6 f3 33.gxf3 exf3 34.Qa6 Nd8 35.a5 Rc7 36.Qa8 Rb7 37.Qxb7! Nxb7 Sacrificing queen for rook to force the pawn through to promotion. The black knight on b7 is spectacularly badly placed and cannot stop the pawn. This is an elementary endgame tactic and you don’t need a chess engine to see it. 38.a6 1–0
Black resigned. On the face of it, this was a crushing victory. But the computer’s summary is interesting: “White loses 0 pawn per move (no errors), Black loses 0.17 pawn per move (8 inaccuracies).” Computer analysis shows that Black did not make any blunders or obvious errors. It shows that at the very top level, you have to play perfectly to survive.
