Anarchist Chess @anarchist-chess - Tumblr Blog

I can't believe it's been two years already! I forgot I followed this blog and had notifications on :,)

Two years yeah! As it turns out, I ended up with an exceptionally busy few months there followed by a busy 2025, and then started running cataphract (the play by post dozens-of-players-large logistics-oriented wargame) which ate up a lot of my free time to run projects like this, so I never did run a second iteration of this.

#not a move

How many people were playing? What moves had the most and least votes? Was there any correlation between how many people voted on a move and how good the move was?

a little over twenty people voted total, though in general most positions got between 6-8 votes, with probably about 10-12 people playing throughout most of the game. Moves tended to be better when more people voted, though were pretty consistently good anyway barring a few specific mistakes, so it might not be a very strong correlation. My speculation is that a larger voting pool would mostly reduce mistakes, rather than directly increase move quality. After all, move quality can only go so high.

The move with the most votes was the post that got blazed (move 10 or 11 I think), I think it had 18 votes. The one with the least was move 51 or 52 (I forget which, it was one of the last moves), which got 3.

#anarchist chess #wrap up asks

Could you post the full game? I’d like to take another look at it, but don’t feel like sifting through months of posts to find all the moves.

The Image Limit on tumblr posts does unfortunately make it impossible for me to post screenshots of every move, however, thanks to Captious-Solarian, we actually do have the complete notation, so here it is.

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. e5 d5

6. Bb5 Ne4 7. O-O Bc5 8. Nxd4 Bd7 9. Bxc6 bxc6 10. Be3 Qe7

11. Nd2 Bxd4 12. Bxd4 Nxd2 13. Qxd2 c5 14. Be3 d4 15. Bg5 Qe6

16. b3 O-O 17. Rfe1 Qb6 18. f4 Bf5 19. Rad1 a5 20. a4 d3

21. cxd3 c4+ 22. d4 cxb3 23. Be7 b2 24. Rb1 Bxb1 25. Rxb1 Rfb8

26. f5 Qb3 27. f6 Qa2 28. Qd1 Qd5 29. Qg4 g6 30. h4 h5

31. Qf4 Kh7 32. Qd2 Qa2 33. Qc2 Qb3 34. Qxb3 Rxb3 35. d5 Rab8

36. e6 Kg8 37. d6 cxd6 38. Bxd6 fxe6 39. Bxb8 Rxb8 40. Kf2 Kf7

41. Ke3 Kxf6 42. Kd3 Kf5 43. Kc3 Kg4 44. Rxb2 Rxb2 45. Kxb2 Kxh4

46. Kc3 Kg3 47. Kd4 g5 48. Ke5 Kxg2 49. Kxe6 g4 50. Kf5 Kh3

51. Kg5 h4 52. Kf4 g3 53. White Resigns, 0-1

#anarchist chess #wrap up asks

The Game:

With a resignation on move 53, the game has ended.

With an accuracy of 86% relative to computer analysis, this is an extremely solid playing level. (The computer managed 93%, which I naively estimate puts our collective rating somewhere around 2000.) As I suspect we had no candidate masters or actual master players, this is a marked improvement over the individual players, who probably cap out at around 1500, with most lower than that.

The most important move was probably 20. a4. Before then, the game may have been a draw or a victory for white, but after that, it became a draw or a victory for black because of how it weakened the queenside. (The computer, as seen here, suggests h3 as the alternative, which I guess is reasonable.)

Incidentally, the correct response to 22... c4+ was not 23. d4, which allows the c pawn to come to sit on b2, where it annoyed us for a long period of the middle and late game, but to offer a trade of queens with Qf2.

This actually was a pretty common thread, where the weak moves would be made in very positional situations, and would be followed by an unwillingness to offer trades. This is actually pretty interesting, because some of the best play from the collective was during tactical positions (Aside from move 24 where we exchanged a rook for a bishop instead of recognizing that the b2 pawn promoting was not actually a threat yet and capturing the f8 rook instead), but the collective's votes also tried to get us into much more cautious and strategic positions, occasionally to our detriment.

This implies that a more tactical opening is actually desirable, perhaps the scotch game or a king's indian attack, rather than the weird hybrid italian-scotch opening we ended up with. However, that might be too risky, as a single mistake in a tactical situation could be devastating.

Overall, the period from move 20-24 was the most damaging to our game, but the overall decline was pretty slow. The position wasn't basically-unwinnable until move 37. d4, which would eventually break our kingside pawn structure.

At the time of resignation, there was a forced checkmate. With fairly accurate play, we'd have been checkmated on the 8th rank by two queens promoted from the h and g pawns. It might have looked something like this.

Thus it goes. And remember, you can send questions to the ask box if you'd like! Also, Anarchist Chess will probably return for a second game (though probably not this month.)

#anarchist chess #wrap up posts

Was there a particular blunder that kicked us from "can force mate" to "will definitely lose", or was our loss more gradual than that? ... is that even a thing in chess i never played it all that seriously

While at no point were there any forced checkmates for us (or indeed against us until near the end), according to the computer, we maintained an effectively even position until 20. ...a4 which loses a pawn, and while that was salvageable, we then failed to capture the rook with bxf8 with move 24. ...Rb1? which loses a rook for a bishop. As it turns out, the pawn promotion was not actually enough of a threat to go down the exchange with a rook for a bishop. It all slowly deteriorated from there, with few opportunities for recovery.

However, the game was even until then, which is pretty impressive, I think, as it means we were consistently playing the best or close to best moves before 20. a4.

In general, outside of beginner chess, a player doesn't switch from "about to win" to "doomed" particularly quickly. (This isn't to say very skilled players don't make bad moves that immediately change the entire course of the game often, but it's much rarer, and more commonly what they do is accidently cause a draw in a game they should have won.)

#anarchist chess #wrap up asks

The Most Popular Move was... Resignation, Ending the Game.

Black Wins. The game lasted 52 moves. There was a forced checkmate against white in at most 15 moves. The final position is below.

That was fun! Some time later today there'll be a more in-depth look into events during the game, including some analysis and figuring out where things went wrong (from what I can tell, surprisingly late) The ask box is open for questions, which I'll probably answer. Maybe we'll even see if we can approximate how much better the collective played than the individuals in it!

#chess #anarchist chess #the end of the game

anarchist-chess

The Most Popular Move was... Kf4

To which the computer responds... g3

I have on multiple occasions got questions about whether resignation is an option, and how to go about it if so. To clarify, resigning is considered a move and must be submitted as such. If it defeats all other options in popularity at the time of the count, that is what will happen.