The Evergreen Game · 1852
31% of club players play g3 here — and it misses a forced mate in 3
1r2k1r1/pbppnp1p/1b3P2/8/Q7/B1PB1q2/P4PPP/3R2K1 w - - 0 2131% of players rated around 1500 play g3
in this position. It is the natural move, and it is not the best one.
| Move | Played by | Evaluation |
|---|---|---|
g3 the reflex | 31% of 1500-rated humans | mate in 1 |
Qxd7+ the move | 2% | mate in 3 and it is mate |
The move is Qxd7+, which forces mate in 3. The reflex does not — it leaves an ordinary position. — a back-rank mate threat.
How this was checked
The evaluations are Stockfish. The human percentages are
Maia, a neural network trained on millions of human games and
conditioned on rating — so 31% of players around 1500
is a measurement of what people
actually do, not an estimate of what they might. Any tactical motif named above is verified against
the board geometry rather than described.
Paste a chess.com game you played and ChessCast makes a 10-20 minute coaching podcast about it — two hosts on the audio, and a board that moves in lock-step so you can watch the moment it turned. Every claim is checked against Stockfish before it is spoken.