Guide

Welcome to chessophia

chessophia is the endgame portal of the chess family: endgames from real games, every verdict from the tablebase.

• The positions come from the games of two large collections – from the classics of the 19th century to today's tournaments. Every game counts once; the numbers are in the statistics.
• With at most five men, chess is solved: the Syzygy tablebase knows the exact result of every position. So you never read “probably” here – won is won.
• No account, no sign-up: what you keep and how far you get stays in your browser only.
• The header puts everything in three areas: learn (lessons, techniques), practice (puzzles, levels) and explore (tree, collections, ECO, openings, statistics). Hover over an item and a menu of its pages opens – under collections all players first.

Solving a position

Above the board stands the task: “White to play and win” or “Black to play and draw”. Exactly one move does it.

• Drag a piece with the mouse or your finger – or tap the piece first and then its square.
• Mostly the board first plays the move of the game that led to the position. Then it is your turn.
• A wrong move counts as a miss; you try again at once. Beside the board stand your misses and hints.
• The light bulb marks the piece that moves; a second click shows its square. Show solution plays the move.
• After the right move the tablebase plays on – best play of both sides, to mate or a part of the way. The arrows play the solution through.
• Beside the board: who played, where and when, whether the move was found in the game, and a link to the whole game on chesstoteles.

Puzzles →

The buttons of the card

Small buttons at the top of the card, below the board the ways to the next position.

• QR opens the code of this position – scan it with your phone or share the link.
• Print puts the position on a sheet: task, board, lines for your solution and a QR code to the answer.
• Video lets the positions solve themselves, one after the other – to watch. Another click stops it.
• The star keeps the position as a favorite. You find all favorites in the settings.
• Focus shows the board in the whole window; the key F switches, Esc ends it.
• The arrow to the left brings back the position before, the one to the right skips one; once solved, go on with Next.

Five levels, special kinds

The positions are sorted by goal and level – from owlet to wise owl.

• Find the win: exactly one move keeps the win. Save the game: exactly one move holds the draw.
• The tablebase measures the level: for a win the way to the next capture or pawn move, for a hold the number of moves that lose.
• The quiet move gathers the positions in which a piece moves quietly – no check, no capture. The king move those in which only the king helps.
• Every level, endgame family, player and opening has a page of its own; the choice stands below every card.

The five owl levels explained → The quiet move → The king move →

Where did it turn?

Positions in which a win or a draw was already on the board – until a move threw it away.

• Here every move that keeps the result counts as right – often there are several.
• The missed win and the missed save have a page each.
• Beside the board stands what was played in the game and what stood on the board afterwards.
• Déjà vu shows positions that came back in several games: who found the only move and who did not.
• All these pages, and Why resign? as well, are under Collections.
• In the master endgames you play through famous endgames of great players move by move, with the value of each position.

Where did it turn? → Seen it before: the same position in several games → Collections → Master endgames →

Learning: lessons, tree, openings

Besides practice, the knowledge: the basic positions and where the games lead.

• Lessons: the basic positions of the endgame – Lucena, Philidor, opposition, the rule of the square and more –, each explained at the board.
• The endgame tree sorts all endgames by family and material, with their results.
• ECO and Openings show which endgames arise from which opening – by ECO code or by name.
• Every page leads to its positions in the trainer.
• Techniques: the tools of the endgame – opposition, shouldering, triangulation and more –, each explained and with positions from real games in the trainer.

Lessons → Endgame tree → ECO codes → Openings → The techniques →

Players and the Big 4

How the greats did in the endgame – compared with their group.

• Every player has a page: the points per endgame family against the average of the world champions, classics or 2700 players – and against any other player.
• Big 4: the endgames of great players, each evaluated by Stockfish at its start – what became of equal, worse and better ones.
• Each of them has a page of his own with the value of Stockfish – and the comparison with his group; to be found through “All players” under collections.

All players →

Worksheet

At the top right of every trainer page, of the pages Puzzles, Levels, Techniques, ECO and Openings and of every page of the collections: a sheet of positions to print or save as a PDF.

• Choose 10, 20, 30 or 40 positions – at random from the page you are on, 10 on a sheet.
• If you like, a page of solutions comes with it, with the moves of the tablebase – for the master endgames the moves of the game.
• Every position has a QR code: scanned, it opens the position on its page.

Puzzles →

Numbers and sources

No number is estimated or set by hand.

• The statistics show all endgames and positions per family, level, player, opening and decade – every bar leads to its positions.
• The page Database tells where the games come from and when a game counts as an endgame.

Statistics → Database →

Settings and favorites

The gear at the top right leads to the settings.

• Design (owl night, paper, black and white), the speed of the play and the language.
• Your favorites with their boards – to solve again, print or remove.
• Back up and take along: as a file or by link and QR code to another device.
• chessophia can be installed as an app – with its own icon, and pages you visited work without the internet.
• Use offline: keeps every page, the analysis board and some of the positions on your device – then chessophia works without internet too.

Settings →

On a phone

chessophia fits the screen.

• The menu at the top right opens all pages as tiles, below them design and language.
• You move with your finger: tap the piece, then its square – or drag it.
• The QR code takes a position from the computer to the phone and back.