As I am reading about chess, I come across many types of advice and information that are called “rules”. Here I have classified them into 5 groups. I would like to hear your opinion about this classificaiton and some examples of “rules” that do or do not fit into this classification.
Rules of the game. What FIDE calls the Laws of Chess. These are the rules that govern how the pieces move and capture, how castling is performed, pawn promotion, etc. These rules are the same for OTB, corespondence or blitz chess.
Tournament rules. These would be rules that govern how pairings are done, the use of the clock, notation requirements, claiming draws, etc. These rules differ according to the type of competiton. Correspondence rules differ from OTB and blitz.
Rules of strategy. What I am thinking here would be the fundamental rules that guide decisions of strategy. This would include the relative value of the pieces, the advantage of two bishops in an open position, rooks behind passed pawns in the endgame. Rules in this category would be expected to have few exceptions. If they had zero exceptions, and could be assumed to be true without further proof, we would call them axioms. Can anybody give an example of an axiom of chess strategy?
Rules of thumb. These would be rules that have so many exceptions that they must be considered only as rough guidelines. Knights before bishops is a good example. Some in this category might be called parables: for example the story of the man who left his inheritance on the condition that his son never captured a b-pawn with his queen.
Rules about how to think. Not specifically about strategy, but more about how to manage your own thought processes. Kotov’s tree of analysis for example. Or the advice: If you see a good move, look for a better one.
Have I missed any categories of rules? Do you have examples that do not fit into these categories? What are your favorite rules?
You could divde your category 1. into two. Call them 1. and 1.5. 1. would be how the pieces move, when you can castle, checkmate, etc. 1.5 would be touch-move, determined move, illegal positions, etc. Come to think of it, 1.5 would then overlap 2. a bit, also.
Axioms? Maybe trivial ones such as “queens are stronger than rooks” and “queens are stronger than bishops”: add a “Saavedra clause” and it’s true in all positions.
But queens are not axiomatically stronger than knights or pluripotent pawns.
You don’t need a Saavedra clause if you use the phrase “stronger than”. Such a clause is only necessary if you use “better than”. There are other positions than Saavedra where a rook wins and a queen draws.
My most memorable one is the final round of the IL state K-8 where board one had extreme mutual time pressure with white winning and black’s multiple pawns and one piece (bishop?) unable to move. White silently played b8 with the black king on a6 and then both players realized that queening was stalemate. With the clock ticking, both players chuckling and they and the floor chief about to begin the post-game analysis I moved close and calmly asked if the game was over. When they both said yes I asked what the result was. When they both said it was a draw I then said that “since you both agree it’s over, and a draw, that is the result, even though white has still not pressed his ticking clock and is about to flag and replacing the pawn on the board with a rook is mate in two”. The winner on board two ended up taking first because of that draw.
You’d initially think a queen is axiomatically stronger than a king, but a queen can’t do 0-0-0 (check) winning a rook that just captured the b2 pawn.
1.At the beginning of the game the forces stand in equilibrium.
2.Correct play on both sides maintains this equilibrium and leads to a drawn game.
3.Therefore a player can win only as a consequence of an error made by the opponent. (There is no such thing as a winning move.)
4.As long as the equilibrium is maintained, an attack, however skilful, cannot succeed against correct defence.
If you go by some modern chess books, there are no longer any hard and fast “rules.” See John Watson’s, “Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy” for examples of rule breaking. The first set of “rules” for chess that I saw were those in Reuben Fine’s little book, “Chess the Easy Way.” But even he noted that the rules had many exceptions and that masters knew how to distinguish among them. The ability to come to grips with the exceptions and paradoxes within the game of chess is a major factor in your growth as a player. Many opening novelties are found through the clash between rules.
I was worrying over the definition of “stronger than…” In chess, sometimes weaker is stronger because of the stalemate paradox? But your point is cheerfully conceded.
I like your counterexample: What about O-O+ followed by Kg1xRh2? (Granted, the Rh1 could have taken the Rh2, but we could invent some position in which that isn’t a good idea, perhaps.)
There are probably trivial axioms about “color” and bishops and knights.
I had 0-0-0+, not 0-0+. The R on b2 (not h2) would not be capturable by the rook on a1. If memory serves me correctly, there was even a GM game where that move was actually played.
Apologies for the telegraphic reply. I understood the original comment and was proposing a different scenario which I’ve never seen IRL (nor should we expect to see).
In the O-O-O+ scenario, only a rook can hang on b2/b7, and in the O-O+ scenario, ditto for h2/h7.
For Douglas Adams’s Deep Thought, yes, eventually. We’re using “axiomatic” as shorthand for something like “axiomatic on its face to mere humans” or the infamous “intuitively obvious.” It’s OK: latrunculi longa, vita brevis
Rules of strategy are generally rules of thumb; rules about how to think are generally rules of thumb…
