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The handicap Stockfish challenge

See how many moves it takes you to get checkmate using this FEN for your board setup. Play as white.

rnbqkbnr/8/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq -

Post your games! I wonder if it will be as difficult for you as it was for me. It felt very different and helped me work on my end games! I'm interested to see what you guys can do...

http://en.lichess.org/HcDWjaJf/white#103
you get the idea, you trade pieces to reach the endgame and avoid necessary complications since u have material advantage,
this type of positions is better to try to promote a pawn and win
instead of doing tactics or going for checkamate, for several reasons first because stockfish has better tactical ability, second because his initial position has a lot of development, its true that his king is unsafe but it has all the diagonals columns to make an attack and take some of ur pieces,
so unless u are very confident I would avoid sharp play and use ur material advantage since after all u have 8 pawns and pawns are difficult to use in tactical shots
as to the challengue of trying to do in few moves, thats difficult
mainly because how stockfish plays that would rather give up his queen bishop etc to last 8 12 moves longer, than keep some pieces to have a playable
position if it has calculated that will last less,
for example stockfish level 6 is very bad in the endgame, stockfish in general is bad in creating counterplay when it has less material
because it does not play tricks a human might try to checkamte u or do some discover attack to win some of ur pieces etc
in general is dull to play against the engine and sometimes even depressing if u put in a high level so I dont recommend it
it just plays chess different in a very dull fashion, so use it sparingly or sporadically
a strong player like im sparklehorse for example u will notice how he keeps the pieces at the board instead of trading
to keep some tension and sometimes playing slight inferior moves if he thinks its more likely that his opponent will blunder
thats not the kind of thinking that we patzers also do but less precisely against other human players
that u will face playing an engine, so u will learn only some type of positions
how to simplify how to play against grinding style
another example stockfish level one or level two, hangs pieces suddenly, its quite unlikely even a beginner patzer will do that
so beating the engine does not imply that u will know how to beat humans or manage time control etc
nevertheless its a good part of the chess training since sometimes u just gotta grind it, because its the essence of the position
and a chess player needs to know how to play all variety of them,
as to the challengue uve put good challengue next u should try to give more material to the opposition the engine in this case once u are more confident
so that it does not feel so easy after the initial moves of the game
because if u survive the first 20-25 moves of the game which is quite likely since u have 8 pawns to defend ur position, unless u dont pay attention
the endgame should feel quite easy since instead of having one pawn as a material advantage you will have 3,4 5,6 pawns and the position plays by itself,
the promotion comes automatically
So what u need to know is how to transition from the early beginning of the game to the middle and then the endgame have a plan or map an idea from move one what u are trying to accomplish otherwise is not that easy and u maybe get checkmated after all u are playing stockfish.
This is a nice idea. I did something similar in the past. It's good for leaning.

However this is too easy:

[Event "Casual game"]
[Site "lichess.org/hWN17KOj"]
[Date "2016.05.02"]
[White "Peristilo"]
[Black "lichess AI level 8"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2252"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "123"]
[Variant "From Position"]
[TimeControl "600+10"]
[ECO "?"]
[Opening "?"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/8/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. e4 Bg7 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Qb6 4. Qe2 Ra5 5. a4 Ba6 6. Bxa6 Qxa6 7. Qxa6 Rxa6 8. c3 Ne5 9. Nxe5 Bxe5 10. h3 Bc7 11. d4 Ne7 12. b4 Re6 13. e5 Kd7 14. Be3 Nf5 15. Nd2 Rg6 16. O-O-O Rxg2 17. Rdg1 Rxg1+ 18. Rxg1 Rxh3 19. Nc4 Bd8 20. a5 Nxe3 21. fxe3 Kc6 22. Kd2 Rh5 23. Kd3 Rh7 24. Nd6 Kd7 25. b5 Bxa5 26. Ra1 Bb6 27. c4 Rh8 28. c5 Bd8 29. Ra7+ Ke6 30. Rf7 Rh1 31. Rf3 Rg1 32. b6 Rb1 33. Ke4 Rb4 34. Rh3 Be7 35. Rh6+ Kd7 36. Kd5 Bxd6 37. Rxd6+ Ke7 38. Kc6 Kf7 39. b7 Rb1 40. Rd8 Ke6 41. b8=Q Rxb8 42. Rxb8 Kf5 43. Rf8+ Ke4 44. e6 Kd3 45. e7 Ke2 46. e8=Q Ke1 47. d5 Ke2 48. e4 Kd2 49. e5 Kc3 50. e6 Kd3 51. d6 Kc3 52. e7 Kd2 53. Qf7 Kc3 54. e8=Q Kb4 55. d7 Kc3 56. d8=Q Kb2 57. Kd6 Kc3 58. c6 Kb4 59. c7 Kc3 60. c8=Q+ Kb2 61. Qe2+ Ka1 62. Qc1# { Black is checkmated } 1-0

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