What is offered? The chess contest consists of 220 problems (only 202 are currently activated) in the disciplines openings, tactics, positional play, endgames and general chess knowledge. The first 181 tasks can be used to establish a rating and get the "look and feel" of the contest. We recommend that you play 10-30 of these problems before you switch over to the "real" contest. You must login anew to change from practicing to contest mode. However even new visitors can jump right into the contest.

How can I participate? Everybody is invited to this contest (it's free!). Just fill in an arbitrary user name and a password into the login form. Both are case-sensitive and must be remembered for your next login.

How do I play? In each task you select one of several proposed answers. On the right you see an example of such a task. Simply click into the small circle next to your preferred answer. Then click onto the "Submit" button.
After every single task you'll see if your answer was correct and your current standings are displayed. Then you can decide if you want another task or if you want to finish the test.

What does this strange notation mean?. We use the standard algebraic notation (SAN). It is very important to understand that notation, since some tests ask you to enter the move of your choice as free text (no choices are offered then!). In these cases you must enter the move in SAN yourself. Any move details, however, are optional. That means that instead of e.g. Bxg5+ you can simply enter Bg5, Bxg5, Bg5+ or even bg5. See our Notation Page for more details.

Do I need a Java enabled browser? Not neccessarily. However, most tests are performed under time control, which requires that Javascript is enabled. If your browser does not support Javascript (very old or odd browsers only) or if you do not enable it, you will not get any bonus points. The rating calculation would then assume that you were thinking infinitely long for every problem and underestimate your rating systematically.

I forgot my user name and password - what should I do? If you forgot your user name and/or password do not enter the contest with a new user name, but send us an e-mail with a (approximate) description of your user name - most probably we can find your user name and password in a very short time. If you enter under a new user id you would repeat all the tests you already made (how boring!). So please be patient and give us a chance to help you!

How many points do I get? In each task you get up to 100 points for the correct solution. Some tasks offer more than one solution (with different points). If your solution is at least partially correct you may get up to 18 additional bonus points for a quick answer. The more difficult the problem the more bonus points can be won. For really "tough" problems you may get bonus points even after 4 minutes.

How is the rating calculated? The rating is calculated using the official FIDE algorithm. Every problem is handled as a "virtual chess player" with a dynamical rating. The initial rating of a problem is calculated as

rating_init = 1000 + 20*points

but changes every time this test is played by someone. Similarly the rating of the human player (initially 1600) changes with every test. Into the rating calculation of the player enters the current test rating. The more experience a player (or a test problem) has, the smaller are the changes in his/her rating number.

I answered correctly, but my rating dropped - why? The rating calculated is actually a blitz rating. The time you need to find the correct answer strongly influences the (bonus) points you get. The rating is calculated from the number of total points you achieve for this problem:

performance_Test = (points+bonus) / (maxpoints+maxbonus)

From this formula it is easily seen that your performance might be only 70% - even if your answer is completely correct (points = maxpoints, but bonus < maxbonus).

If your rating is much higher than the rating of this specific problem, it is expected from you to achive a high performance (say at least 90%). If you do not achieve this goal, your rating will decrease.

Since we calculate independant ratings, it is even possible that some of your ratings increase while others drop.