Kinds of chess and tournament practice

This is a starting position. The pieces are not on their usual squares, but the rules are kept: the bishops on squares of different colours, the king between the rooks, the pawns where they always are. This is how Fischer random chess begins, one of many kinds of the game. In the last chapter of the course we look at what chess can be beyond the ordinary game and how tournaments work.

The rules we have learned stay the same in every tournament, from a school event to the world championship. What changes is something else: how much time each game gets, how points and ratings are counted, whether books may be used. That decides both how to prepare and which mistakes are most common.

Time controls

A game is played with a clock: each player has their own store of time, and the clock runs while they think. A player who runs out of time loses, provided the opponent has material to give mate. If the opponent cannot mate by any series of moves, for example when they have a lone king, the game is drawn.

By the amount of time, FIDE, the International Chess Federation, divides games into three kinds. Standard: each player has 60 minutes or more. Rapid: more than 10 and less than 60 minutes. Blitz: 10 minutes or less. If time is added for each move, it is counted as if the game lasted 60 moves: the control “15 minutes plus 10 seconds a move” gives 15 + 10 = 25 minutes, which is rapid. Online sites also have bullet, games of under three minutes.

The increment per move was invented by Robert Fischer. It saves players from absurd losses on time: even in time trouble a player has a few seconds for each move, and a won position can be brought home. Today almost all tournaments are played with an increment.

Time is a resource just like the pieces, and it too has to be shared out. Play a familiar opening quickly, and save your time for the critical moments: for a sacrifice, for choosing a plan, for going into the endgame. A simple rule for a standard game: by move twenty you should have more than half your time left. If you have less, you are thinking too long over moves that do not decide the game, and at the end you will have to play in a rush.

To improve, you need long games. In blitz you play what you already know: there is no time to calculate, and moves are made out of habit. In a game of an hour or more you can calculate lines, check a move for blunders, draw up a plan. It is in such games that you apply what you have learned in this course, and it is these games that are worth reviewing. Blitz is good as a rest and as opening practice, but it should not be the basis of your training. A good proportion for an amateur is several rapid games for every long one, and blitz only when you feel like it.

Rating

A player's strength is measured by a rating. The system was invented by Arpad Elo, a physics professor, and FIDE adopted it in 1970. Its idea is simple: the difference in ratings predicts the expected result. If you score more than expected, your rating goes up; if less, it goes down. The bigger the gap from the expectation, the bigger the change.

The expected result is computed by a formula, but it is easier to remember a few points. With equal ratings, 50% is expected. With a difference of 100 points the stronger player scores about 64% on average, with 200 about 76%, with 400 about 91%. The change in rating after a game is the result minus the expectation, multiplied by a coefficient. For most FIDE players the coefficient is 20; for players new to the rating list it is larger, so that the rating finds its level faster.

Sites have their own ratings, and they are computed in a similar way but by a different formula: on lichess.org, for example, it is the Glicko-2 system, and every new player starts at 1500. Ratings on different sites and the FIDE rating do not match each other and cannot be compared directly. Besides, each time control has its own rating: a strong blitz player may play standard chess noticeably weaker.

Do not watch your rating after every game. It fluctuates, and a run of three losses says nothing about your strength. Look at it once every few months: if it is slowly rising, your training is working.

An over-the-board tournament

Most open tournaments are played under the Swiss system, first used in Zurich in 1895. Everyone plays the same number of rounds, and in each round players with the same or a similar score meet. So towards the end the leaders play each other, and you almost always meet opponents of your own level. In a round robin, by contrast, everyone plays everyone. When scores are equal, places are decided by tie-breaks, for example the sum of the opponents' scores.

Over the board there are rules that sites do not have. Touch a piece and you must move it; touch an opponent's piece and you must take it, if that is possible. You may adjust a piece on its square, but first you must say “I adjust”. The clock is pressed with the same hand that made the move. In a standard game the moves must be written down on a scoresheet, as in the chapter “Writing the game down”; only time trouble releases you from this: less than five minutes on the clock with an increment of less than 30 seconds. A phone in the playing hall must be switched off: if it rings, the game may be declared lost.

A draw is offered after making your move and before pressing the clock. The opponent can accept, decline, or simply make a move, which also declines. Disputes are settled by the arbiter, and you turn to the arbiter if your opponent breaks the rules. There is no need to argue at the board yourself: stop the clock and call the arbiter.

Choose your first tournament to match your strength. Clubs hold weekend tournaments with one or two games a day, and big open tournaments often divide players into sections by rating. Playing opponents slightly stronger than you is the most useful: the losses teach you, and wins against them bring more rating points.

The first over-the-board tournament is a special test. A game lasts several hours, the opponent sits opposite you, and mistakes hurt more than online. Simple things help: get enough sleep, eat before the round, do not discuss the game before it is over, and after each round write down one conclusion. After a few tournaments the nerves go, and the ability to concentrate for a long time stays.

Fischer random chess

In 1996 Robert Fischer proposed shuffling the pieces of the back rank before the game. The rules of the setup: the bishops stand on squares of different colours, the king between the rooks, Black mirrors White, and the pawns are on their usual squares. There are 960 such setups, hence the second name, Chess960. The position is chosen at random before the game, and memorised opening lines stop working from the first move.

Castling is kept, but it looks unusual. After it the king and rook end up on the same squares as in ordinary chess: when White castles kingside, the king goes to g1 and the rook to f1; when castling queenside, the king goes to c1 and the rook to d1. All the squares between them and their destination squares must be empty, and the king may not pass through a square under attack. In 2019 FIDE held the first official world championship in Fischer random chess.

Fischer random chess is useful even for those who do not plan to play it seriously. It tests whether you understand the principles: development, the centre, king safety. Here you cannot learn moves by heart, and you have to think from the first move.

Correspondence chess

Games used to be played by post: a move was written on a postcard and sent to the opponent, and a game lasted for years. Now moves are sent through websites, but the essence remains: you get several days per move. Books and game databases may be used, and in the tournaments of the International Correspondence Chess Federation, founded in 1951, engines are allowed too. So at the top level correspondence chess has become a contest of preparation and of skill in working with an engine.

For an amateur, a correspondence game is a way to get to the bottom of a position and an opening calmly. You can play such a game on lichess.org. Read the site's rules in advance: unlike the correspondence federation, it forbids engine assistance.

Problems and studies

There is a kind of chess with no opponent: composing and solving problems. A problem is a position composed by an author, with a task such as “mate in two”. In a good problem the first move, called the key, is unexpected: often it is a quiet move after which the opponent has no defence. A study is a position resembling the end of a game, in which you must win or draw, and the solution demands precise play over many moves. There are world championships in problem solving.

Solving problems is useful for a practical player too: it teaches you to see moves that do not occur to you at the board. But remember the difference. A problem always has a solution, and only one. In a game there may be no solution, and sometimes the best move is a modest one.

Other kinds

Sites offer other variants as well. In crazyhouse a captured piece can be dropped back on the board as your own. In bughouse two pairs play on two boards, and pieces captured on one board are passed to the partner. There is three-check chess, where whoever gives three checks wins, and “king of the hill”, where you can win by bringing your king to the centre. All of this is good relaxation, and many of these games train tactics, but they have their own rules, and the habits they build do not always suit an ordinary game.

How to train from here

The course is over, but chess does not end here. Here is a plan you can follow for years. Every day, a few puzzles, at least ten minutes: tactics grow with quantity. Every week, one or two long games and a review of at least one of them, as in the chapter “Reviewing your own games”. Once a week, endgames: rook endings, pawn endings, the special ones. Openings as needed: learn the moves where your games go into bad positions.

Come back to the chapters of the course when a familiar theme turns up in a game. The chapter on weak squares reads differently when you have just lost because of a weak d5-square. And play people: at a club, in a tournament, online. Chess is a game for two, and nothing replaces a live opponent who makes mistakes, plays tricks and sometimes surprises you.

What's next

Next comes practice. Solve puzzles in the trainer, play the bot on the “Play” page and review your games on the analysis board. Good luck at the board, and may your games be interesting. Thank you for completing the course to the very end.