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Hi there Regarding the matter of cheating, your thoughts are welcome but my hypothesis is very simple. Most of the problem with cheating is one of perception, not reality. So long as there is no money or any prize for playing here at Chess.com, there is no significant motivation to cheat. There will always be a small number, but that number will be statistically insignificant. The only step that I suggest has to be taken is to recognize that some players do want to play with computer assistance and give this form of play it's own ratings category which I have requested and suggested here at Chess.com. If you look on the web, I am not the first to think this is a good idea. Players want to discover how good they are relative to others, computer assisted or not. That is the only possible personal prize here at Chess.com and it cannot be won by cheating. We should remember that on the net we are always simply an alias and so our rating doesn't carry any tangible currency. Our alias existence has no real world existence and so there is no public credibility to our online chess rating even if we have been totally honest. It is just for our own personal growth that we like to know what chess rating we have and what we might be able to achieve. I will argue that computers do not change that objective! If we take the cheating element to be a very small element of human personality dysfunction, then you can think of that element as a constant across humanity. At the same time, that constant will be distributed across all online chess sites across the globe, not just Chess.com. If this cheating element is very small, distributed and constant, then the only net effect is that online ratings will fall out of line with their real world counter parts (neglecting other ways that they fall out of line). However at all times, there is still a relative sense of how your rating is changing with respect to others, and thus the experience of online play is actually not impeded by this small element of cheaters. This is only for so long that there is no online prize money system that has currency in the real world! If there is such a prize, cheating will overnight become the norm. We cannot let that happen. In any case, it is always better to go and join a real chess club even if it is just your local chess club! There you will meet real people face to face and the experience will be much more rounded! It will only ever be possible to eliminate cheating when two players face each other over a real board in a real environment under open scrutiny. Cheers

Hi there Feel free to add more goals for this community. Here is my take as the founder of it: 1) To always formally declare up front that the mode of analysis is Advanced Chess960 (computer assisted). 2) To play our practical and competitive Advanced Chess960 games at http://lss.chess-server.net/info/home where computer assistance is fully recognized, and just to use Chess.com resources to publish our ideas that we gather from these games. 2) To always think independently of the machine for learnings sake and to simply use the machine to check your ideas for blunder. We use computers as a tool to learn more about Chess960 just like an astronomer uses a telescope to learn more about space than is possible with the naked eye. 3) To build a useful Chess960 database that is free of immediate blunders. That database cannot reside here at Chess.com, but it does over at http://lss.chess-server.net/info/home where Advanced Chess960 is fully recognized. 4) To share the new ideas that this form of Chess960 play will find and to teach others about 960. 5) To demonstrate that Advanced Chess960 is still using the human mind, but in a different way. 6) To lobby Chess.com for a legitimized Advanced Chess960 ratings category so that this way of learning can be expanded to actual competitive play. All commonsense points to the logic that there is nothing wrong with competitive computer assisted Chess960 play so long as it is declared up front and recognised. We can even go further and say that recognising computer assisted play may even be a necessary step for the future of online chess play.

Hi there Chess960 is cool because you get starting positions where there are concentrated clusters of small tactics that emerge dynamically as a result of the starting position itself. These micro battles rapidly shift the two central themes of the Chess960 opening between the two players: Which player has the development tempo? White naturally has one tempo at the start of the game because he has the move. Development tempo is a discussion of how many moves it takes to complete development relative to your opponent. If you have two moves to go to complete development while your opponent has three, you are up a development tempo. But which player has the initiative? It is a debatable point whether white has the initiative at move one or not. White has a tempo, but initiative is a discussion about whether tempo can be sacrificed for the sake of undeniable positional or material gain. Here is a great example that illustrates the point very well. Please feel free to comment or to post your own examples: SP045: (Knights together stay together?!) A beautiful example no? It is not the main line from the game however, just a variation to illustrate the point. Be sure to scroll through the comment window to see all the text. Keep a tally on a piece of paper yourself to double check me on how much tempi white has relative to black, and who has the initiative at each move. A simple two column tally like that tells you a lot about how the opening is progressing. If you learn to do this in your mind during the game, you will gain more confidence about how to proceed during the 960 opening phase that has so many side alley ways that sometimes have to be traveled delaying development. Cheers, Enjoy

It's difficult to quantify what we mean by unfair. Suggestions on that would be welcome on this forum. Even in SP518 standard chess, statistics show that white has a slight edge in the probability to win. Is that unfair? I'm approaching the problem from a different angle. Is there even one single position in 960 that is truly unfair to either side, such that their chance of winning is so low that the position is meaningless as a game experience? If we do find such a position, I suspect that Chess960 is we understand it is dead. Chess960 is about playing any and all of the 960 positions. We cannot afford to have even one truly terrible position in the set. Interestingly, we have a genius Chess player that was the originator of Chess960 as we know it today. Bobby Fischer thought Chess960 is the way of the future. Did he feel that Chess960 is balanced as a gut feel? Did he harbour some doubt? Here is how I can initially test what is a huge scientific experiment, to find that one bad starting position that ruins 960 if there is such a starting position at all! This graph shows white's win percentage (vertical axis) in the CCRL database of computer chess from April 2010. The database is a tiny sample of 70,000 games but it will have to do in the absence of any other data. Every SP was played, some more than others. The engines were of various abilities and unrealistic limited search depths but at least some different opening moves were played in each SP. Horizontal axis is meaningless other than a data point counter. The graph does not imply that in SP001 white won nearly 70% of the time, just that there was a distribution of SP's with that statistical result: Note: this data may not be accurate or even correctly collated! It is just preliminary... There are many many issues with this graph. It may be just plotting the inability of the engines to find more wins for white. Who knows. It is also possible that in some SP's black might actually have a better chance at winning because of a really really deep unavoidable situation of Zugswang!? I doubt it but you never know! At least there is some validity to the data. So far it matches with what people are experiencing as they haphazadly experiment with 960 (that no really horribly unbalanced position has been found). A concern with the CCRL data is that for SP518, these are the stats: SP518: Draw: 15.5%? White win: 48.6%? (based on 72 games) Another concern is that there are a few tens of positions where white's win chance is above 60%, the draw chance is around 20% leaving black with a win chance of only 20% (1 in 5). There just isn't enough data and Chess960 needs quality players out there playing it. If it turns out that in 5% of 960 SP's white can win 65% and black win or draw 35% of the time, is that unfair? Sounds ok to me, if that difference is in only present in a few percent of the total set of 960 positions. Another concern is that do seem to be another small number of SP's where white wins 50% of the time, a draw happened 40% of the time leaving black 10% chance of a win. Again, is that unfair? If it turns out that in 20% of games, white can win 50% and black get's an equal chance at a draw and perhaps even a small chance of win, does it seem fair enough to you? All these potentially "unfair" statistics for black could be compensated for in the rules of the tournaments (as they are to some degree today). Matter of fact, I think that if white's clock starts the minute the players are seated, there is a possibility that because black get's to study the position without any cost to his clock (while white has the opening move), that would significantly throw back the odd's to black! It would make it interesting! It feels like the right thing to do from my personal experience. Black get's more initial time and it truly makes game contests interesting and unpredictable. Personally I do not think of a Chess960 game as have an opening. To me it is just a very deep mid game that commences at move one. In that respect of course white's clock should be ticking the moment the players are seated. It put's white in the hot seat! All we really know is that as yet, there is not one SP that a collection of engines can consistently win at with either colour (100% chance of win). If I take a look at the positions themselves that are most likely to achieve a white win from this data, I can see a trend that could be flawed but never-the-less. The queen and bishops tend to aim at the enemy king sooner rather than later. The enemy king is hemmed as close as possible to the corner (making it liable to smother mates for example). Knights tend to exist in positions where they can get to the enemy king quite quickly. If the king is in the centre, then the problem for black is a queen in the corner that cannot contribute to defense of counter attack. Other situations are that in these positions, there is a pawn advancement that very efficiently allows pieces to develop, yet at the same time, the opponent cannot make that same pawn advancement. It is just a first glance: White wins 65-66% (max chances): Either the King or Queen are cornered and a Bishop is next to a queen (meaning one pawn can release both those pieces).... RKNBNQBR NBQNBRKR QRNNBBKR BQRKRNNB QBBRKRNN On the other hand, black's big winning SP's are very difficult to explain, other than problems with the engine's understanding of the SP itself!: White looses 60-63% (max chance): The queens are cornered? Bishops next to a Queen perhaps? QBRNNKBR BRKNQBRN RNKRBBNQ The big warning sign that the data is badly effected by computer misjudgement, is that even in the SP's where white looses more than 60%, the queens are in the corner. Oh well! Back (black?) to the drawing board.... Cheers

Hi there This forum is about discussing the many Chess960 starting positions where the two knights stand close to each other in the starting position on one side of the board or the other. The definition of close means that they may be next to each other or just one file apart. I've noticed that in these situations, there are some fascinating little short term interplays between the knights of opposing forces. These interplays are either outright tactics or interplays that cause useful opening moves to be played without cost but with no immediate benefit to the opening development process (even temporarily impeding it). Here is a classic example. It is SP072 where the knights are seperated by one square: In other words, starting positions with knights seperated by one square, have to bear in mind the problem of the pawn fork on them, which can drastically alter the equilibrium of development between the players. This extreme example is designed to highlight this phenomenon. Notice that if black now tries to biff away the c5 knight from it's outpost, that knight quickly transposes to the opposite flank via the e4 square, perhaps to g3. In effect, that knight has rapidly galloped from one side of the board to the other at very little cost. There are heaps more examples, and I'll see if I can't post them over coming weeks. Please feel free to add examples of your own. Cheers

I'll be playing through as many SP's as I can against the latest Stockfish at full strength using Komodo-9 as my kibitzer. Time control is 15/2. The exercise will be to play each SP as black and to keep playing the SP until at least a draw is achieved. I'll play the position twice; first game letting Stockfish decide it's opening move, second game I will play Stockfish's first move and let the game go on from there. I'm hoping to learn more about Chess960 strategies using computer assistance. Feel free to comment but I would prefer if it were relevant to this start position. SP 955 (SP001 mirrored) - Stockfish chooses first move: Attempts = 2, Human moves = 8 SP955 plays differently to SP001 because it is difficult to castle kingside, and castling queenside leaves the a-file exposed. I therefore found it harder to play than SP001. On my second attempt, Komodo and I found a way to draw that in a real life game would be really difficult to pull off.

I'll be playing through as many SP's as I can against the latest Stockfish at full strength using Komodo-9 as my kibitzer. Time control is 15/2. The exercise will be to play each SP as black and to keep playing the SP until at least a draw is achieved. I'll play the position twice; first game letting Stockfish decide it's opening move, second game I will play Stockfish's first move and let the game go on from there. I'm hoping to learn more about Chess960 strategies using computer assistance. Feel free to comment but I would prefer if it were relevant to this start position. SP 001 - Stockfish chooses first move: Attempts = 4, Human moves = 4 What I learned: In SP001 with the two rooks on the kingside, black needs to make sure he is not left short on space especially near his king. I found the ideal opening move combination ...f5/e6 which achieves control over space both in the centre and on the kingside. This is a really tough SP to play as black I found. Black is under constant pressure unless you have experience with this setup.

This forum is for posting examples of the weird and the wonderful that you find in Chess960 games. It is not for deep analysis, just an appreciation of some of the amazing unfolding situations that can occur. Please feel free to post examples or comment. Here is a cracker! In this game, black presses too quickly and then finds that white pushes him back on both flanks almost back to his original starting squares. At this point black is totally fooled by a beautiful transposition of roles. White's dark bishop infiltrates right into the core of black's position, as if it were a knight!: When a Bishop Becomes a Knight! To be fair, black played without computer assistance despite it being an Advanced Chess960 game. It is a very funny example and really amazing how well whites flanking pawns calmly and confidently push back the opponent so deeply allowing the bishop to infiltrate like that. Cheers

It looks as if that in Chess960 there are positions where you can break one of the most enduring rule of chess opening theory: Do not bring out your queen too early lest she comes needlessly under attack wasting time and handing developing moves to the opponent". In Chess960, she can be brought out either in a quick attack (sometimes with the help of the knights) or simply to defend from unusually safe regions of the board. Please feel free to comment! Here is a classic example of black bringing the queen out simply for the role of finding a safe long term region of the board where the queen can act in defense but also to indirectly tempt white to break up the harmony of the position. In this following example, black takes a defensive mentality but with a strong counter attacking approach ready to pounce if white makes the slightest innaccuracy. Bear in mind that black's bishops are honing down on black's queenside so you cannot blame black for trying the following idea: If you play through the other lines you quickly realise that it is indeed true. The queen can spend long periods of time hovering around the a6-a5-b5-a4 squares pestering white's position and preparing a possible strong counterattack if white makes the slightest error, despite that optically she looks like she could get trapped. She is immune except for QxQ variations. In the particular main variation shown above, black has strong pawn defensive moves ...f6 and ...c5 which counter any kingside attack or centre attack that white can quickly prepare. White may gain the long h1a8 diagonal but black's thesis is that it will be of no use. Meanwhile black's knight's are lurking around hanging back waiting to join forces with the queen on a counter attack on the king.... The point is that she can get out early, head for an advanced safe position and stay there, acting like an annoying magnet disturbing white's equilibrium and preparing for a possible counter attack. The only question in my mind is whether in the long run the commitment of her to this small region of the board long term, will weaken the kingside excessively. From my initial impressions, it doesn't look like it! In Chess960, looks can be deceiving! Cheers

Chess960 produces some really unusual midgame positions! Sometimes midgames emerge that appear to be loosing except for a specific tactical line that is most unusual. This forum is for sharing these situations. Feel free to add examples or comment. In this example, black is about to loose a rook. The position is really unusual and a human player could easily resign here if they are not in a positive frame of mind. Fantastically though, black has a great resource and is in fact significantly in the lead, winning in fact. White to play: Please note that this position is highly unusual in a standard chess sense! White's bishop is locked in at a1 for starters and this allows one of the good old smothered mates we have grown to love (you should take a look at it in one of the variations). Isn't it beautiful how white's queen and rook are so completely out of the game! Whites best move 37.a3 illustrates this beautifully (please take a look at it in the variation list). All along white's queen and rook do not move, they cannot move! The line indicated is actually only the simplest of the lines in this variation. Enjoy. Cheers

This forum is for showing to you why it is that the current latest generation of computers struggle to play Chess960, and thus why it is that human intelligence predominates. We all know that the 960 computers do not have a human generated database to fall back to and so must struggle to understand an opening pattern that they cannot see because their event horizon is not great enough. Feel free to post examples or to comment. Here is a simple and classic example. This is the very latest and greatest 960 engine trying to decide whether Qxh2 is ok. Please be aware that the computer did not play the opening in this case. This is just an example of a computer analysing a position and not even understanding a medium level tactic! This is Rybka 4 960 running on a dual core CPU and still not getting it even after ten minutes! Rybka thinks that white will only get a small advantage if Qxh2, and so it is ok to play: "Hmmmm 10 minutes later and I think I am not too bad if I take h2 because after c5 I have Nf7 and I should be ok. After c5 I could go to Nc8 but that is probably not as good" !?!? Alright I hear you that in the next passage of play if white takes the knight fxg5...fxg5+ we have Kg1 for example. The position is very comical. It's really hard for the silicon believe me . White's king protection is very weird granted. Chess960 is amazing. Seriously though, I think the computer has a lot of trouble evaluating a position in chess960 mid games when pieces are so terribly trapped as black's pieces are here. This kind of entrapment is nowhere near as common in SP518 (standard chess). In the computers defense there was no alternative but Qxh2 and the computer did not play the opening and on a machine with more cores Rybka would probably understand that ...Nf7 is not a good idea. However I doubt that the computer would ever understand that white has a big advantage after Qxh2. The point is that the computer is not as all powerful as we would believe it to be. Without a safety net of human knowledge to fall back on in the Chess960 opening, it is all just too deep for the computer. If the computer does not quickly understand this medium difficulty situation, how is it to truly understand the 960 opening strategy without human guidance? A genius player like Nakamura or Carlsen would regularly beat the best chess 960 engines of this day because they would be able to achieve winning midgames where the probability of blundering is not great. That is only my opinion. Comments? Cheers

This forum is for discussing any unusual positions that emerge in the 960 midgame. Feel free to add examples or to comment. In Chess960, many starting positions are not actually starting positions. You can think of them as already deeply emerged midgame positions. That is what is so beautiful about 960. The game is already deeply underway from move one. With that in mind, by the time we get into a midgame that we can understand a bit better, we find that in 960 there is no such thing as a genuine midgame for a long time into the game! This is because many starting positions make it difficult to develop our pieces, and so deep into what we understand to be the midgame, there are still pieces remaining on their original starting positions. Therefore there are many situations where you get a mixture between opening and midgame themes. This makes it a real challenge to evaluate some 960 positions. Here is a classic and very beautiful example. It is beautiful because it manages to seperate out the influence of the rooks in the game from the other pieces. Please take the time and try to give an evaluation of who you think is winning and by how much (measured in the value of a pawn 1.00): Black To Move: Did you have any confusion about your evaluation? Was it a bit challenging perhaps? The answer that is computer confirmed to quite a depth, is that white is some where between three to five pawns in the lead (the equivalent of a minor piece)! Black's position is totally lost after a mere ten moves. The rooks in the game play only a minor part. The discussion is mainly about the minor pieces. To dissect the reasons why, we have to have a good understanding of chess theory generally. Here are the most basic reasons: 1) Material count: N+B+P v R = 7 verses 5 2) Black's mate threat is non existent in all lines 3) White's minor pieces will become incredibly cooperative and effective. The bishops are easy to see but the knights are the really beautiful pieces in this position. The two white knights work perfectly together throughout the entire next phase of the game. They can move anywhere on the board and most of the time they work together. Some of the particular paths that they use are: Nf1-d2-c4-d6-e8 Nf1-g3-a5-f6-e4 Nf1-g3-e2-d4 Nf1-g3-e2-c3 Nd1-c3-a4-c5-a6-c7 Nd1-e3 Nd1-e3-d5 Nd1-e3-c2-d4 So when we evaluate 960 midgame positions, we must not evaluate them in terms of our understanding of standard chess SP518. I submit that this position above is actually a deeply immersed midgame position already. Black's pieces are totally ineffective (not even to mention the rooks) and white's minor pieces are extremely well coordinated already. Black does not have a single useful move in the next passage of ten moves, while white has so much scope and opportunity for play. Cheers

This forum is for discussing the many fascinating ways that the king can be protected against attack, particular from the point of view of black. Please feel free to post examples or comment. In Chess960, in many positions protecting the king is even more fascinating than in the standard position 518. From chess we are used to building pawn shields around him, or allowing the pawn shield to open if the incoming diagonals or files are protected or blocked. In some hyper modern theories for standard chess, there is more and more examples emerging where the kings protection can be compromised. In Chess960, the whole concept of protecting the king is extended even further. It is possible to protect the king in many more creative ways including indirect logically constructed defenses, simply because the alignment of pieces in the starting position allow it. Here is a classic example. Let me ask you a simple question. Do you think that at any time black's king is under any threat what so ever?: Let me stress that thanks to computer analysis, I can assure you that at no time during this game was black's king safety ever under question. The only absolute imperative is that black MUST either check the king or otherwise give his queen access to the g7 square to neutralise white's discovered attack on the king. So much about Chess960 is perception. We carry the burden of many games played through SP518 and this clouds our vision and biases it in ways that do not necessarily help us to understand the other 959 Chess960 positions. Here is another classic example. Again at no point is white's king ever under any threat. White's evaluation begins at 0.00 and gradually just keeps on getting better!: In Chess960, we have to think more critically. We must question our plans more carefully and cannot assume anything. In attack we must ask the question, "is the opponents king exposed or am I just imagining it?" In defense we must ask the question "Although my king looks unprotected, can I devise a logical method to protect it anyway?" All that we have learned from SP518 is both a blessing and a curse to us now. Cheers

This forum is for giving examples of various unusual opening resources that are available in 960 games that are not seen in the standard chess position 518. Feel free to add to them! The almost general rule in chess that you do not make more than two pawn moves in the opening does not always apply in many Chess960 positions. There are amazing ways to engineer the pawn placements that both block the opponents pieces and provide bullet proof defense for the king despite opening lines against him. Here is a simply great example (follow the many scratch pad lines computer cross checked): Unfortunately black has not used a computer to cross check, however the basic ideas of this position remain intact. They are: A) 3.f5!? It is ok to move this pawn twice! If black takes, white gets an isolated pawn and black must waste time developing his f8 knight into a deployment that is unclear. Can you see how even if pawns are exchanged, black's f8 knight remains trapped! There is a very beautiful idea available to black that can develop the knight quickly: 5...h6 followed by ...Bh7 and Ne3!? utilising the pin of the f-pawn against the king. However the truth is that this knight deployment to e3 is very unclear as to it's final worth. B) 4.c4!? Yet another pawn move by white! Although it is totally unclear whether the move works, the discussion is about unusual resources that are available to 960 players. The point of c4!? is that there is simply no way for black to infiltrate white's king despite the huge hole in white's position at d4 and the open diagonal line against the king. White's idea is that Nc3 shields the king and that the d2 pawn will not be used for a long time (just to keep black's dark bishop locked in). It will also protect against an advancing e-pawn if the position opens. Black may take the outpost for his knights at c5 and d4, but those outposts have no attack targets that can cooperate with his other pieces, particularly the bishops. Black is faced with multiple developmental problems regarding his bishops. The very best idea that I could find in response is 4)c4...f6!? (see the move list). The summary of this example is that multiple pawn moves are ok so long as the opponent's own development is hindered by them. In this example, there is a very deep discussion about how both the bishops and the knights get deployed and how they counter each other which allows these unusual pawn moves. The knights in particular are fascinating. I *think* that this position cancels out all activity of the knights producing perfect neutrality, despite the knight's concrete outposts. But I am not sure. I can feel it, but I cannot actually prove it even with a computer. Cheers

This forum is dedicated to all those 960 starting positions that seem to be dreadful for black to have to live through! Feel free to add to the list of examples. All is not lost! It is just that black must be highly resourceful. Often black needs to be extremely tuned into counter attacks if a chance emerges. For a counter attack may be black's only way to defend! Here is a brilliant example of a strong defensive construct. In this starting position, white looks to be staring the black king down the barrel of a gun before the first move! Black has a way to defend but great resourcefulness and creativity is required. You would think that black's big problem will be a vicious diagonal attack using white's queen and bishops. However black has a way to build a defensive structure against it. With a nice twist in the plot in this wonderful game, with the same simple defensive construct, black managers to deal with white's diagonal attack potential and a potential swarm attack on the black king with both white's knights. The simple yet beautiful constructed defense d6/Nb6 seems to cover all these issues at least for a while! If you look at move two in the sequence 2.....Nb6, you begin to appreciate how white's knights are stalemated straight away! All the important squares that white's knights want to occupy to unleash the swarm attack are defended. The couple of squares that are not defended, are of no use to white's knights. Let's go through the list of those squares: Immediately defended: d5, c5, c4 Defended by an absence of resource: a5, b4, d4 As you can see in the example above, the white human player (computer unassisted) is drawn to sitting a knight on a5 so as to weaken b7 to the point of collapse, but that is just not possible in reality. Beautiful stuff. To defend as black, you have to find an engineered construct that forms a physical defense, but also an indirect defense at the same time. One or the other is not good enough. In the example above, black now has a chance to produce counter attacking threats (as 3....g6 already did). Cheers

This forum is to discuss and demonstrate wing attacks that evolve rapidly, on either one wing or both! In some 960 starting positions, an opening inaccuracy by either side can have dramatic effect. In the following game, white chose to play computer unassisted and thus it gives us an opportunity to see how quickly black can capitalize by seizing the initiative with an amazing double sided wing attack after white's inaccuracy 3. Bc3?! The first point is regarding black's move 1. ...g5. That pawn is fine on that square and it does a lot of work! It allows development, claims space and white seems not to have any simple way of contesting it! Normally we would expect that a double pawn first move by black, could easily be the subject of focused attack and weakening. But here it seems simply not to be so. In The 960 midgame phase, notice that black leaves the centre three pawns unmoved and that castling is not required! Also notice how both long diagonals are being contested by both players as a result of all that space in the centre. Who has rights to the diagonals? In this game, it is black not white that seizes both of them! Other stand out features is how black uses undermining to seize the kingside with the g-pawn push and how white's plans to counter attack on the queenside are simply totally stalled for the energy that is occuring on the other wing. So tune yourself in to openings with rooks on the b and g files for the possibility of such a rapid attack either to enjoy or to suffer against. Cheers

A forum to discuss 960 opening gambits. In 960, there will be opportunities for pawn gambits as there is in SP518. The main difference is that some of these gambits can be more extreme especially for the white player, because rapid positional gains can emerge from specific initial piece placements. Here I think, is a classic example: Unfortunately the black player chose to play without a computer and so we cannot find out how brilliant this gambit is. Certainly black's next move is to withdraw the bishop, but Bg6? and black's dark bishop is entombed. Any other move and it appears that black's development is delayed or even obstructed. Have a look at some of the alternatives in the move list as an initial starter for this gambit. They are a quick scratch pad of ideas. Mere scribbling. The central plan white has is to pawn storm on the kingside. White has a little trap that can be activated at any time, so long as white does not initially move the dark bishop nor obstruct it's access to the h6 square. As soon as black decides to develop the dark bishop with g6, white plays Bc1-h6 and the coming exchange snares the black king or rook onto the g7 square. The subsequent white pawn storm on the kingside then takes advantage of black's crippled king or rook. The only necessary move white must play is Nc2, but within no time at all that piece is active perhaps even on the kingside itself. It would even be interesting not to castle the white king if possible so as to utilize black's c4 pawn which conveniently obstructs diagonal attacks on the king This gambit is going to need a lot of work to establish it's validity. Unfortunately the computer is completely useless at this early stage because the position is too deep for it to calculate a positive plan. Cheers