# Chess question **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [January 22, 2017, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-question/777809 "2017-01-22T07:24:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-question/777809/81 "2017-02-01T16:39:30Z")
(bumped thread: I was away from a computer for last week but want to reply to messages aimed at me). > [@RTFirefly](#): > > Here’s how I see it: the position after 4. Nxd5 really isn’t that much different from if Black played with a queen handicap from the get-go. I think we’d all accept that in the latter situation, there’s no win for Black against flawless play by White. No; there hypothetically could be a win for black. Let me state for clarity: **I’d be willing to bet my life that that position is winning for white with CPBS** (correct play from both sides). But of course we can’t actually calculate out the position and give an absolute answer, any more than we could just calculate out the regular chess starting position and say white is at least drawing with correct play. So, if you’re asking an absolute question, like the OP, and some of the other posters here, I have to say “no”; there could be a win for black. > [@](#): > > So _contra_ **Mijin** , yes it would invalidate everything we know about chess if there was a win for Black against perfect play by White. It would all but say that Black’s chances are so much better than White’s that there’s a sure win for Black against perfect play by White, even with a Queen handicap. But for some reason, nobody’s noticed Black’s awesome inherent advantage, in all these centuries that chess has been around. No it wouldn’t. It could be that black _loses_ with CPBS in the initial, even material, chess position, but wins after that particular queen sac. Nothing inconsistent about that – we can easily create chess compositions where the game is drawn or lost for black, but if white accepts a sacrifice a key piece is drawn away and black wins. The rest of your logic is based on this not being a possibility, so it seems to be baseless. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-question/777809/82 "2017-02-01T18:26:18Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > (bumped thread: I was away from a computer for last week but want to reply to messages aimed at me). No prob; welcome back! > [@](#): > > Let me state for clarity: **I’d be willing to bet my life that that position is winning for white with CPBS** (correct play from both sides). I took that for granted; we’re more in the realm of logic than anything else here. > [@](#): > > But of course we can’t actually calculate out the position and give an absolute answer, any more than we could just calculate out the regular chess starting position and say white is at least drawing with correct play. We can’t _calculate_ it out, perhaps, but we can take it as a given that CPBS from the starting position results in either a win or draw for White. The alternative is that from the initial position, there is a forced win for Black. Which makes no sense because, given the first-move advantage, any forced win for Black should work for White too, and one move sooner. > [@](#): > > It could be that black _loses_ with CPBS in the initial, even material, chess position, but wins after that particular queen sac. Nothing inconsistent about that – we can easily create chess compositions where the game is drawn or lost for black, but if white accepts a sacrifice a key piece is drawn away and black wins. > The rest of your logic is based on this not being a possibility, so it seems to be baseless. We can certainly create such compositions, and indeed, some such compositions have happened in high-level play, going all the way back to the proverbial ‘[immortal game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Game).’ But they all involve an attack. The sac either removes a key obstacle to the attack (e.g. the queen captures a piece or pawn key to the defense before it is taken), or as you say, draws away a key piece from the defense. Nothing like that is going on here. The sac hasn’t opened any doors for Black; Black is in a totally flat-footed position. Black has developed one piece and no pawns, won’t be able to castle (unless both Black and White ignore the possibility of Nxc7+), and the initiative is with White due to that threat. If there’s a possibility, however remote, in all the billions of possible lines of play from this position, that Black can make up the deficit of a queen, I contend that there should be _something_ in this position to tip us off to at least _some_ advantage gained for Black relative to White to partially compensate for the queen. But it’s worse than that: if we removed White’s queen from the board at this juncture as an equalizing gesture, the visible advantages are _still_ all with White, and none with Black. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-question/777809/83 "2017-02-01T18:34:19Z")
Missed edit window. In conclusion: yes, it _would_ upend everything we know about chess, because the notion that this position contains advantages for Black that compensate for the loss of a queen - well, it’s not a complicated position. And yet everybody’s missed that it’s such a devastatingly powerful position for Black. Finding a winning line here for Black against optimal play for White would totally change the game. Nobody would play the same anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-question/777809/84 "2017-02-02T00:34:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **RTFirefly** : > > We can’t calculate it out, perhaps, but we can take it as a given that CPBS from the starting position results in either a win or draw for White. The alternative is that from the initial position, there is a forced win for Black. Which makes no sense because, given the first-move advantage, any forced win for Black should work for White too, and one move sooner. Not true: Chess is not Hex. In chess, there’s such a thing as zugzwang, and it’s conceivable that the initial state is a zugzwang position. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-question/777809/85 "2017-02-02T05:22:01Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > In conclusion: yes, it _would_ upend everything we know about chess, because the notion that this position contains advantages for Black that compensate for the loss of a queen - well, it’s not a complicated position. And yet everybody’s missed that it’s such a devastatingly powerful position for Black. Finding a winning line here for Black against optimal play for White would totally change the game. It wouldn’t upend anything because as we’ve said we’re talking about analyzing all lines out to 50 moves or more. “Why didn’t you see this advantage for black before?” “Because we couldn’t calculate out that far” “Oh, OK” > [@](#): > > Nobody would play the same anymore. Sure, and similarly if the game became solved nobody would play the same (they may agree to a draw or resign without playing a single move) but that wouldn’t invalidate anything we know either. * * * The other thing about zugzwang **Chronos** already got there before me. But no, we _don’t_ know the initial position is at least drawn for white, maybe it’s zugzwang with CPBS. ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-question/777809/86 "2017-02-02T16:24:45Z")
Reminds me of a similar thing. In two-move chess (each player makes two consecutive moves on their turn) it’s easy to show that white is at least drawing the initial position: he can just play Nc3, Nb1 to pass the move to black, so it can’t be zugzwang. _Maybe_ there’s some kind of similar proof here, so that enumerating the whole tree of moves isn’t necessary. But I doubt it 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-question/777809/87 "2017-02-02T21:16:16Z")
I wouldn’t be surprised, actually, if two-move chess were solvable in practice, because games would be so short. Once anyone gets a queen developed, it’d be very difficult not to win immediately. Though this would depend on the precise details of the rules for checking in the two-move game. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-question/777809/88 "2017-02-03T12:58:27Z")
Not sure it’s so straightforward (at least for this human) - any move that sets up an attack is also liable to be punished swiftly by the opposition, e.g. 1. e4 Qh5 (both moves by white) is easily refuted by 2. Nf6 Nxh5 (both moves by black). Similarly, 1. e4 Bc4 can be met by 2. d5 dxc4. I don’t think I’ve ever played the game in practice, perhaps others have and can give some insight on the strategy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-question/777809.md?page=4)