Questions tagged [winning]

one out of three possible results in a chess game (win, draw and loss are the 3 possible results).

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Game ended with a handshake

In a amateur game, black offered a handshake and white shook hands with him and neither spoke any word and the game ended. Later they had a dispute whether the game is a draw or a win for white. Black claimed that his offering of a handshake was a…
Zuriel
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Can a player in check win, by checkmating the opponent, while not getting themselves out of check?

Consider a player who is in check. Suppose they can make a move that would checkmate the opponent, but would not stop themselves from being in check. Would that be a legal move? For example, in the position below, if Black plays ...Rf8, it will put…
user32279
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Is this endgame position a theoretical win or draw?

The following tactics problem comes from ChessTempo, and was taken from a game between Anatoly Karpov and Alexey Kuzmin. It's white's move. The idea of the problem is to find white's best move from the shown position. But my question is slightly…
Mark Byers
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Why is flagging considered a win?

Let's say I totally dominate my opponent, but simply run out of time, then I lose the game right? But doesn't it make more sense to be given 51% of the rating adjustment (not 50/50 as for a draw). The criteria would be simple, that is if a user is…
lbragile
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What chess *scoring* alternatives exist?

Chess (often being classified as a sport) stands almost alone among sports in that its results are of a strictly ternary nature that is not quantified any further: The only possible outcomes are a win, a draw or a loss. While the same is of course…
user3297
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The thin line between winning and losing at the top level?

At lower level, we often blunder many times and do not make the best moves, so there can be multiple ways to win. But at the top level, for example, during the candidate matches going on now, the masters do not blunder often and they do not make…
xaisoft
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What does it mean to win "by force"?

I occasionally see annotations/commentary where a move / line is said to make (for example) white win "by force". I am unsure if it has the general sense of "this move initiates a forcing sequence where white will come out on top" or something more…
Ani
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Is this a chess variant? Chess without taking pieces!

I just noticed a special style of playing chess in some of the top games in chess.com; A chess without taking pieces: The whole game here: [FEN ""] [Event "Live Chess"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2015.07.09"] [White "adypady02"] [Black…
BigOther
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Is there a terminology for "the worst winning move"?

What do people call a move which maintains a winning position but is the worst among all such moves? For example, h8=N+ is such a move in the following game: [FEN "8/7P/6k1/8/8/8/B1K5/8 w - - 0 1"] 1. h8=N+ I will not normally play such moves in…
Zuriel
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Is this endgame winnable for either side?

I'm a complete novice in chess and I don't know if this even qualifies as endgame with so many pieces left, but I ended up in this position playing as black vs. a king's pawn debut. I sort of tried to play king's gambit of my own, despite playing…
Violet Giraffe
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How can white force a quick win here?

This is from a tactics puzzle I encountered today. The given solution was 1. Qxf6 gxf6 2. Bxf6#,” but to me 1... Ne6 seems to halt white in his tracks, even if it does give up a rook. My moves as white were clearly not optimal, as it "feels" like…
Darren H
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How is White winning in this OTB position?

Can anyone kindly guide me on how White has won in this picture of the end of an OTB game?
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There is neither checkmate nor stalemate, so why did black win?

I'm programming chess in python for my cs class and I'm doing some testing using chess.com. However, I'm confused as to why this game (and several others) seem to prematurely come to an end? AFAIK the end-conditions to chess are checkmate, where…
Jam
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What happens if a player mistakenly thinks they have been checkmated?

A quote from Wikipedia: The objective is to 'checkmate' the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. Suppose two players (A and B) play the game using the old fashioned way (no computer involved). If player A has…
EmilyJ
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Is there a forced mate/ winning advantage?

Recently I played a game in a High School league match as the top board. I played f4 followed by d5 (very standard). I played passively and waited out his attack and soon gained the momentum. At around the 25th move we progressed to this situation: …
theeppright
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