Ask HN: Why are chess problems attack oriented?
I'm trying to get better at chess by solving chess problems on Chess.com and Lichess. All problems seem to be attack oriented, not defence. As a result in a chess match I constantly look for ways to attack my opponent, not to prevent an attack from my opponent. Why are chess puzzles not 50% about spotting and preventing attacks? Any advice to train that specifically?
48 comments
One of lichess's criteria for a puzzle is that there must be only one winning move (with an exception for checkmates in 1).
This makes it much easier to select for not terrible puzzles with an algorithm, and to have a good UI for puzzle solving, but it filters out many defensive puzzles both because it excludes positions where there are multiple defenses, and it excludes positions where you just manage to not lose without turning the position into a clearly winning one.
This makes it much easier to select for not terrible puzzles with an algorithm, and to have a good UI for puzzle solving, but it filters out many defensive puzzles both because it excludes positions where there are multiple defenses, and it excludes positions where you just manage to not lose without turning the position into a clearly winning one.
Wouldn’t a puzzle with only one “non-losing” move be equally easy to find? (Assuming this is based on engine evaluation)
These are called "defense" puzzles and the big chess sites have a category for them.
There is a chess training program called "Dr Wolf" which has a learning mode where you play the computer. At certain points it asks you to switch positions to see the weakness in your previous move - it is striking how effective that is to seeing the weaknesses in one's defense.
I am not particularly skilled in chess but the LiChess puzzles are a daily practice on the subway... I think it is my favorite. I really like the puzzle scenarios where you are down material but the correct series of moves leads ot a win. This insight is a confluence with BJJ where sometimes you can be in a bad position and reverse out of it...
I am not particularly skilled in chess but the LiChess puzzles are a daily practice on the subway... I think it is my favorite. I really like the puzzle scenarios where you are down material but the correct series of moves leads ot a win. This insight is a confluence with BJJ where sometimes you can be in a bad position and reverse out of it...
1. Attack puzzle has more clearly defined solution.
2. There is no difference between attack puzzle and defence puzzle, in the sense that mentally you must play both sides - choose optimal moves for the defender.
2. There is no difference between attack puzzle and defence puzzle, in the sense that mentally you must play both sides - choose optimal moves for the defender.
I think for defensive puzzles to really work better, the principle of what's counted as the right answer would have to be flipped on its head. Often in defensive situations there's one move that will end you up in trouble and a whole bunch of moves that will more or less avoid it. Picking what's the absolute best way to avoid the problem can be really hard, whereas just picking one of them is more straightforward. When it comes to attacking, there's usually only one way to get into the winning line, unless you're in an amazing position to begin with.
You could start with positions that are one move away from from mate, then 2 moves, until a practical limit of maybe 4-5. I think with the objective being to avoid checkmate, it might be possible to train combination moves that require the prior repositioning of a supportive piece.
The difference is that in an attack puzzle there is no way to prevent the attack, where in a defence puzzle there is, and you have to find out how. The outcome could be clearly defined, e.g. preventing the loss of a knight
Visually, defense puzzles are upside down/mirror-color from attack puzzles, if the attacking side is the opponent.
To get better you definitely need to prevent giving your opponent winning tactics. It’s important to study being the active side for two reasons:
1) Not always but very often spotting a winning tactic wins the game immediately 2) You develop an intuition about various piece position combinations and geometries and features that usually produce these tactics in a game.
Now consider these a problem, say white to move, and go back one move. Likely, black just made a move which enabled this tactic. It’s hard to craft a puzzle where you are asking what Black should do: the main thing is to not make the losing move, but are all other moves that avoid it just as good? Not at all!
There are lots of books that try to teach and train this, but it doesn’t fit into an efficient package like the “find the tactic” one does.
One exception here is when one side has sacrificed material for a speculative attack. In those cases just avoiding mate is a kind of puzzle that fits. I have occasionally seen some puzzles like this (eg. Attack and Defence by Aagaard) but it’s a lot more work to put together, and occurs much less often in games which is probably why it’s much less common.
1) Not always but very often spotting a winning tactic wins the game immediately 2) You develop an intuition about various piece position combinations and geometries and features that usually produce these tactics in a game.
Now consider these a problem, say white to move, and go back one move. Likely, black just made a move which enabled this tactic. It’s hard to craft a puzzle where you are asking what Black should do: the main thing is to not make the losing move, but are all other moves that avoid it just as good? Not at all!
There are lots of books that try to teach and train this, but it doesn’t fit into an efficient package like the “find the tactic” one does.
One exception here is when one side has sacrificed material for a speculative attack. In those cases just avoiding mate is a kind of puzzle that fits. I have occasionally seen some puzzles like this (eg. Attack and Defence by Aagaard) but it’s a lot more work to put together, and occurs much less often in games which is probably why it’s much less common.
> All problems seem to be attack oriented, not defence.
Probably because it's easier to design puzzles for mating/attacking and people want to attack/mate.
> As a result in a chess match I constantly look for ways to attack my opponent, not to prevent an attack from my opponent.
You will eventually learn to defend too as you play more games. It's pattern recognition.
For example, there are varieties of ways to attack a fianchetto position. Once you feel comfortable exploiting fianchetto positions, you'll notice your opponent attacking your fianchetto positions and act to prevent it. Just like constantly trying to find back rank mates against your opponent will eventually teach you to watch your own back rank. Learning to attack teaches you to defend and vice versa.
Probably because it's easier to design puzzles for mating/attacking and people want to attack/mate.
> As a result in a chess match I constantly look for ways to attack my opponent, not to prevent an attack from my opponent.
You will eventually learn to defend too as you play more games. It's pattern recognition.
For example, there are varieties of ways to attack a fianchetto position. Once you feel comfortable exploiting fianchetto positions, you'll notice your opponent attacking your fianchetto positions and act to prevent it. Just like constantly trying to find back rank mates against your opponent will eventually teach you to watch your own back rank. Learning to attack teaches you to defend and vice versa.
This is definitely a problem. Defensive problems do appear, but much more rarely than attacking ones. I guess their rating gets pumped up pretty fast, because they're much harder to solve - or people are just used to looking for winning variation - so they disappear from lower ratings altogether. Aimchess[1] worked surprisingly well for me to get at least a bit more well rounded training going on.
A lot of defence can also fall under the umbrella of strategy rather than tactics, as in the dream scenario you'd basically only be trying to keep the position in a state that has all the needed defences built into it. Doesn't really work like that in reality. But studying and practicing strategic principles of the positions you're playing could be another thing that could help, especially the pitfalls of those positions. Most positions have a bunch of well known pitfalls that will improve your defensive game quick if you keep those in mind while playing. A lot of these can be found on YouTube.
One other thing to try out is to also play normal tactics, but with the board flipped.
[1]: https://aimchess.com
A lot of defence can also fall under the umbrella of strategy rather than tactics, as in the dream scenario you'd basically only be trying to keep the position in a state that has all the needed defences built into it. Doesn't really work like that in reality. But studying and practicing strategic principles of the positions you're playing could be another thing that could help, especially the pitfalls of those positions. Most positions have a bunch of well known pitfalls that will improve your defensive game quick if you keep those in mind while playing. A lot of these can be found on YouTube.
One other thing to try out is to also play normal tactics, but with the board flipped.
[1]: https://aimchess.com
My 6 year old has gotten into chess in a very unexpected way. He was spending a week with his grandparents and I guess grandad got bored and decided to teach him chess and suddenly my kid wants to play chess all the time.
So I play him one day. Now, I'm not a good chess player, but I know all the rules, even the obscure ones, and I my attention span is a lot better than a 6 year old's. And he almost beat me.
We signed him up for chess classes with an instructor over Zoom. He's beating kids with a lot more experience than him. And I find myself trying to train to stay ahead of him. I sit in the room with him during his classes and pay attention, did all the lessons on chess.com and lichess.org, and am constantly doing puzzles on lichess (even using the training dashboard to focus on areas in having problems). I train probably 5x more than my son.
And he's still giving me a run for my money. I let him do chess puzzles with me and he frequently gets frustrated with how slow I am on some of the puzzles. He "sees" the 1-move and 2-move solutions almost immediately. The only place I have advantage is anything 3+ moves. If he doesn't see the move immediately, he doesn't know how to develop to a position that he can solve. I'm not much better, but I can occasionally get it, and that's the only way I'm staying ahead of him right now.
I'm similarly frustrated with the training on lichess. When I play games, I find I'm completely lost on the middle game. I play the openings that my kid's teacher has been drilling, then try to sit in a holding pattern of not making egregious mistakes until the other player makes a mistake I can recognize. I'm basically incapable of moving the game in a direction I want, and my simplistic play is easy pickings for a lot of people as they bait me into--in retrospect--rather basic traps.
I've just about resigned myself to living vicariously through my child on this issue. His classes being online, the instructor is often distracted with the other children being noisy to give real attention to training. My son recently moved up to a new class level (and he's now the youngest in the room!), so hopefully that will get better. I try to fill in that in-person coaching by just parroting what his teacher says and pointing out where my son isn't following along quite right.
So I play him one day. Now, I'm not a good chess player, but I know all the rules, even the obscure ones, and I my attention span is a lot better than a 6 year old's. And he almost beat me.
We signed him up for chess classes with an instructor over Zoom. He's beating kids with a lot more experience than him. And I find myself trying to train to stay ahead of him. I sit in the room with him during his classes and pay attention, did all the lessons on chess.com and lichess.org, and am constantly doing puzzles on lichess (even using the training dashboard to focus on areas in having problems). I train probably 5x more than my son.
And he's still giving me a run for my money. I let him do chess puzzles with me and he frequently gets frustrated with how slow I am on some of the puzzles. He "sees" the 1-move and 2-move solutions almost immediately. The only place I have advantage is anything 3+ moves. If he doesn't see the move immediately, he doesn't know how to develop to a position that he can solve. I'm not much better, but I can occasionally get it, and that's the only way I'm staying ahead of him right now.
I'm similarly frustrated with the training on lichess. When I play games, I find I'm completely lost on the middle game. I play the openings that my kid's teacher has been drilling, then try to sit in a holding pattern of not making egregious mistakes until the other player makes a mistake I can recognize. I'm basically incapable of moving the game in a direction I want, and my simplistic play is easy pickings for a lot of people as they bait me into--in retrospect--rather basic traps.
I've just about resigned myself to living vicariously through my child on this issue. His classes being online, the instructor is often distracted with the other children being noisy to give real attention to training. My son recently moved up to a new class level (and he's now the youngest in the room!), so hopefully that will get better. I try to fill in that in-person coaching by just parroting what his teacher says and pointing out where my son isn't following along quite right.
Lichess tactics puzzles are literally what they say, tactics puzzles. You need to read a chess book. There are also lots of videos but I've never liked that medium. https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/wiki/books has lots of book recommendations.
There are also lots of coaches who will work with kids online or (pre-covid) in person, and lots of kids' chess events. I would stay away from in-person events for a while longer though, especially large ones, because of covid.
There are also lots of coaches who will work with kids online or (pre-covid) in person, and lots of kids' chess events. I would stay away from in-person events for a while longer though, especially large ones, because of covid.
We live in a low-risk area, so we actually have him in a daycamp for chess this week while he has spring break from kindergarten. He's not the crazy stories of child prodigies you hear about, but it's really cool to see my little guy take an interest in something and actually grow in skill in it, rather rapidly.
I'll check out these books, but books are a pretty bad format for me. We actually have two kids, and I'm the lead of my project at work, so I don't have a lot of me time. Still, I'd really like to be the person he can count on to ask for help for at least a few more years.
I'll check out these books, but books are a pretty bad format for me. We actually have two kids, and I'm the lead of my project at work, so I don't have a lot of me time. Still, I'd really like to be the person he can count on to ask for help for at least a few more years.
Is it not just perception? And an arbitrary choice (in the POV) in presenting a "chess problem"? Dependent on ranking?
I play defensively so with that underlying mindset I solve chess problems to improve my tactical acuity/prowess ("Beware of that blunder!"). For that I naturally flip the board in my mind back and forth ("What blunder happened?") and at times go through the back-history of moves when I wonder: how the hell did that happen?
I played with some higher ranked player whom I would consider "highly aggressive" but who turned out to be quite defensive players when competing with similar/higher ranked ones, so there is also that ;) Why play defensive if you are way better at anticipating and spotting blunders. So, this comes back full circle at the importance of building a solid base.
I play defensively so with that underlying mindset I solve chess problems to improve my tactical acuity/prowess ("Beware of that blunder!"). For that I naturally flip the board in my mind back and forth ("What blunder happened?") and at times go through the back-history of moves when I wonder: how the hell did that happen?
I played with some higher ranked player whom I would consider "highly aggressive" but who turned out to be quite defensive players when competing with similar/higher ranked ones, so there is also that ;) Why play defensive if you are way better at anticipating and spotting blunders. So, this comes back full circle at the importance of building a solid base.
This is a really fascinating psychology question. because I have been
trying to present the same question in cybersecurity for years now.
The closest I have gotten is that a defensive posture motions toward a stalemate, where as an attack mentality mobilises toward a win.
For peace, a (static/deadlock) stalemate is a good outcome. So at heart, the question is about the difference between a war footing or a peaceable one.
The closest I have gotten is that a defensive posture motions toward a stalemate, where as an attack mentality mobilises toward a win.
For peace, a (static/deadlock) stalemate is a good outcome. So at heart, the question is about the difference between a war footing or a peaceable one.
Basically all these puzzles are trying to train your combinational vision and calculation. An important component of calculation is getting good at executing 'forcing' moves (moves where your opponent has only one or two plausible choices) which are more clearly illustrated in attacking positions or 'Mate in X' positions. Even though the most readily available material is from 'attacking' positions, this skill is transferrable to many other kinds of positions(e.g pawn endings). Defense on the other hand is often more vague with more than one optimal strategy and rarely forcing, so there's just not a lot of good material to draw from.
Yours is an interesting thought. Do you have experience with games like go? My personal experience has been that the attack-oriented style of most chess problems does help you avoid those positions in normal play. That is to say you learn defense at the same time because you have to think of all the lines in your head.
Because control of the center and the edges are in fact attack oriented.
Even the top defenses have an attack basis of whether the prevent the control of the center and the edges.
But the real devious defense to force your opponent into a winning a piece that destroys their position attack strategy.
Even the top defenses have an attack basis of whether the prevent the control of the center and the edges.
But the real devious defense to force your opponent into a winning a piece that destroys their position attack strategy.
Disclaimer: I have little experience with chess but i see good reason for that from a theory of game trees kinda angle.
> Why are chess puzzles not 50% about spotting and preventing attacks?
Chess is a problem where you need to reason about all the actions your opponents can do. Since a lot of chess teaching tradition comes from a linear medium (books) they have a trouble representing how an attacker would attack differently against if different defensive move are played. This problem does not exist as attacker as one can force certain moves on the defender. Thus the branching factor of the puzzle can often be contained. If books would represent the branching reactions, the book will also spoil which moves to pick, finding a solution to a chess problem would be reduced to reading all the replies and pick the most favourable. Another problem is that "defend for 6 rounds" or "defend all material" might allow and train solutions which survive satisfy that criterion but cause the player to loose (a sacrifice would have been the only way to prevent losing) while solutions exists where this isn't the case. In a linear medium it is not possible to handle that well without just printing a solution and say that is the right one.
> Any advice to train that specifically?
You need to leave the linear medium. This is possible very easily by playing certain board configurations against an AI. However generating such a board positions for which there is a few or even one unambiguous chain of moves that constitutes a valid defense is difficult. My wild guess is that they are near the border of endgame libraries for both players. I think a chain of moves would constitute a valid defense if it leads to a state which is in the players winning end game library for all actions the opponent takes however to make this puzzle difficult this chain of move needs to be hard to find and other moves must be actually bad. My proposal would be to search for board positions where the vast majority of moves including some promising moves lead to a position in the attackers end game library while there exists one chain of moves which independent of actions of the attacker lead to a position in the endgame library of the defender. Caveats: finding moves at the border of the two endgame libraries with these properties might be hard. Many positions of these are likely synthetic and would never arise in natural play.
> Why are chess puzzles not 50% about spotting and preventing attacks?
Chess is a problem where you need to reason about all the actions your opponents can do. Since a lot of chess teaching tradition comes from a linear medium (books) they have a trouble representing how an attacker would attack differently against if different defensive move are played. This problem does not exist as attacker as one can force certain moves on the defender. Thus the branching factor of the puzzle can often be contained. If books would represent the branching reactions, the book will also spoil which moves to pick, finding a solution to a chess problem would be reduced to reading all the replies and pick the most favourable. Another problem is that "defend for 6 rounds" or "defend all material" might allow and train solutions which survive satisfy that criterion but cause the player to loose (a sacrifice would have been the only way to prevent losing) while solutions exists where this isn't the case. In a linear medium it is not possible to handle that well without just printing a solution and say that is the right one.
> Any advice to train that specifically?
You need to leave the linear medium. This is possible very easily by playing certain board configurations against an AI. However generating such a board positions for which there is a few or even one unambiguous chain of moves that constitutes a valid defense is difficult. My wild guess is that they are near the border of endgame libraries for both players. I think a chain of moves would constitute a valid defense if it leads to a state which is in the players winning end game library for all actions the opponent takes however to make this puzzle difficult this chain of move needs to be hard to find and other moves must be actually bad. My proposal would be to search for board positions where the vast majority of moves including some promising moves lead to a position in the attackers end game library while there exists one chain of moves which independent of actions of the attacker lead to a position in the endgame library of the defender. Caveats: finding moves at the border of the two endgame libraries with these properties might be hard. Many positions of these are likely synthetic and would never arise in natural play.
Today, most professional games of standard chess are draws because of the power of defensive moves.
Go to chesstempo and filter by tag "defensive move" (or something like that).
Or do the mixed set. Really, ChessTempo is great.
Spotting attacks is the basis for defending against attacks. The only way you can actually defend against an opponent is to see his angle and you don't win a game where you only "defend" unless your opponent blunders.
In chess there are two possibilities that give you an advantage material and positional advantage. If you plan on "defending" your position you most likely want to protect your pieces and don't leave them undefened, but that is not enough since you have to take into account forks and binds and more. If you want to play defensive you can try placing your figures in a more defensive style (see hedgehog or similar), but that is not something you can derive chess problems from. So long story short. Chess problems on defending are in essence the same as the attacking once. You have to find the actual threat. If you want to be better at defending just take the time and try to understand what your opponent is planning as well. It is the same thought process in the end and you will get better with time.
In chess there are two possibilities that give you an advantage material and positional advantage. If you plan on "defending" your position you most likely want to protect your pieces and don't leave them undefened, but that is not enough since you have to take into account forks and binds and more. If you want to play defensive you can try placing your figures in a more defensive style (see hedgehog or similar), but that is not something you can derive chess problems from. So long story short. Chess problems on defending are in essence the same as the attacking once. You have to find the actual threat. If you want to be better at defending just take the time and try to understand what your opponent is planning as well. It is the same thought process in the end and you will get better with time.
Usually puzzles start from a position where one side has a clear advantage and a single good move. It depends on your puzzle rating, but many puzzles include an important defensive component (e.g. preventing the opponent from mating you while you keep the advantage). However in low puzzle ratings I believe it's more mate-in-X, material grabs, and other simple attacks.
You can also use the defensive theme on Lichess: https://lichess.org/training/defensiveMove
You can also use the defensive theme on Lichess: https://lichess.org/training/defensiveMove
In Go there is the concept of "sente," [1] forcing the other player to react. This also means having the initiative or controlling play.
It looks like there's the same concept in chess. [2]
This seems like the way to teach initiative. And maintaining initiative.
[1] https://go.fandom.com/wiki/Sente
[1] https://www.chessjournal.com/initiative/
It looks like there's the same concept in chess. [2]
This seems like the way to teach initiative. And maintaining initiative.
[1] https://go.fandom.com/wiki/Sente
[1] https://www.chessjournal.com/initiative/
On lichess at least there are definitely some 'defense oriented' as in finding the move that won't lose you material. At any rate, even the attacking puzzles often have a 'defensive' part as you have to exclude the moves that lead to a tactic for your oponent.
Further, spotting successful tactics for yourself is a very related skill to spotting them for the oponent, you can even just press f (I think) to look at the board from their PoV and look for their tactics that way.
Further, spotting successful tactics for yourself is a very related skill to spotting them for the oponent, you can even just press f (I think) to look at the board from their PoV and look for their tactics that way.
Often when defending you don't want to make the moves with the best evaluation. You want to make those that complicates the game and gives the opponent chances to screw up. A defensive move that changes the board evaluation from -6 to -3 might practically speaking be worse than one that takes it to -9. Afaik, there is no automated way to measure what a "complicated" board position is.
I'm not really sure what the difference is. The best defense is a good offense, no? I'm only about 600 puzzles in, on lichess. Sometimes you must out-attack (race to checkmate), other times you just want to get ahead before you disable their attack.
Maybe you like the Quiet Move type puzzles? Those are a weak spot for me.
Maybe you like the Quiet Move type puzzles? Those are a weak spot for me.
> The best defense is a good offense, no?
Not exactly. E.g. your opponent offers a material sacrifice and gets a big attack if you accept. If you survive the attack, then you are ahead material because of the sacrifice, and you probably win. So it's about whether you can wriggle your way out of a lot of possible attacking lines. That's a bit different from attacking, which in these puzzles is usually about finding a single forcing line.
Not exactly. E.g. your opponent offers a material sacrifice and gets a big attack if you accept. If you survive the attack, then you are ahead material because of the sacrifice, and you probably win. So it's about whether you can wriggle your way out of a lot of possible attacking lines. That's a bit different from attacking, which in these puzzles is usually about finding a single forcing line.
The "mixed" set of problems on ChessTempo is an excellent problem set with a large fraction being defensive. ChessTempo has some of the most interesting/instructive problems, and the community commentary on each problem (viewable after you fail or complete a problem) is priceless.
AimChess.com has a "Blunder Prevention" training category. It offers you two moves and you have to pick the better one.
Usually both moves are superficially winning or neutral looking, but one of them fails to win or loses material/mate.
It's due to how the puzzles are generated. Positions that have a jump in centipawn evaluation are used as puzzles. If you're under 1500 then stick to the basics. Analyze all your games. The only way to improve is to practice and study.
Would be interesting to write an algo to generate defensive puzzles, seems like you could look at positions where the delta between the best move and the next best move is very high in terms of centipawn loss.
I'm thinking something like this: Evaluation of the position is even. All moves except one lead to high centipawn loss. Some of the moves look solid when evaluated superficially (too simplistic evaluation heuristics / not thinking enough ply ahead).
Lichess, chesstempo etc don't do a lot on the "superficial evaluation" - that's generally a hard problem to solve algorithmically.
Instead the main approach is to just mix new problems into the pool and let users try them. If there are no plausible alternatives, everyone gets the right move and the problem quickly becomes too low-rated to be shown to most players. If there are tempting alternatives and the correct solution is hard to calculate, it will become high-rated and only shown to stronger users.
Instead the main approach is to just mix new problems into the pool and let users try them. If there are no plausible alternatives, everyone gets the right move and the problem quickly becomes too low-rated to be shown to most players. If there are tempting alternatives and the correct solution is hard to calculate, it will become high-rated and only shown to stronger users.
You may be right about this. In some cases to turn an attack puzzle into a defense puzzle, I think it would be sufficient to use the same problem, but one turn earlier and switching sides. Then it may be possible to prevent the attack and the challenge becomes to spot and prevent it.
It’s not necessarily a problem, but that kind of challenge would likely have many correct answers and one wrong one. It may be less clear when you get it right why that was the case.
You shouldn’t ever play “defense”, its just not how you play. You need to actively attack your opponent.
If you are trying to come up with some sort of passive turtle strategy you are going to get crushed.
If you are trying to come up with some sort of passive turtle strategy you are going to get crushed.
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There are some good midgame books, if you can find a copy of Lisitsky that's one
Problems are attack oriented so that there is a forced solution
Just play more
[Not a chess god but reached ~2170 USCF back in the day]
Problems are attack oriented so that there is a forced solution
Just play more
[Not a chess god but reached ~2170 USCF back in the day]
I can't find any chess books by Lisitsky or Lissitsky.
Did you perhaps mean Lipnitsky ("Questions of Modern Chess Theory - A Soviet Classic")?
There's also Lisitsin/Lisitsyn ("First/Second Book of Chess Strategy").
Did you perhaps mean Lipnitsky ("Questions of Modern Chess Theory - A Soviet Classic")?
There's also Lisitsin/Lisitsyn ("First/Second Book of Chess Strategy").
There is definitely an iOS chess app that deal with defensive problems. Usually an obvious move where you had to do to avoid checkmate or loss of material
Because chess is 99% tactics and those involve getting ahead in material or mating in max 4 moves or so.
When I was a boy I regularly played against myself. You should try it, it really helps for learning how to defend.