ReneDescartes wrote on 01/25/23 at 23:41:32:

Even those exceptions can be encoded as properties of the current position. The FEN string in a .pgn file does precisely this. For example, in Kerangali's position 
[FEN "r3k3/P5P1/1P1P1P2/3PpK2/8/8/6B1/8 w - - 0 1"] 
the additional fields have these meanings:

• w : white to move 
• - : no castling rights
• - : no en passant captures available
• 0 : no half-moves have been made since the last pawn move
• 1 : next move is move number 1

ReneDescartes wrote on 01/25/23 at 23:41:32:

I don't think you are missing anything. But people can't play very much like engines, so the psychology is important.

ReneDescartes wrote on 01/25/23 at 23:41:32:

By relentlessly calling puzzles "shot puzzles", Milener reveals that he is overly focused on the "win" aspect of puzzles. I infer he thinks other people think the value of puzzles is learning "how to win" via: first, get the kind of position in the book; second, play the appropriate combination. Probably he was abetted in this misapprehension by de la Maza and the internet.

Botvinnik could certainly make deep and surprising combinations of the type found in puzzle books. He could also do the same deep and surprising game with openings, strategy, theoretical and practical endings, you name it. I remember a comment Botvinnik made about Reshevsky, saying Reshevsky excelled at two- or three-move mini-combinations and he (Botvinnik) needed to up his game in that department. This is the simple "I go here, they go there" aspect of calculation which is practiced by doing puzzles, along with the pattern learning which is also practiced.

Milener's complaint that "shot puzzles" account for only 4% of chess game positions overlooks that "I go here, they go there" accounts for 100%.

ReneDescartes wrote on 01/25/23 at 23:41:32:

The reason I brought up future moves is because of the logic. Just picture the current position as a sliding window on a sequence of moves. Logically if a previous move has an impact on the current move (kinetics), then the current move has an impact on the subsequent move. After all, where did the previous move come from in the first place? It came from you, back when it was a current move!?

Note I am not saying this is a correct way to play chess. I am just wondering why a chess philosopher didn't mention it.

This whole kinetics thing has an air of Emerson's foolish consistency. Or the Russian saying "Having said A, you must say B." (Maybe a Russian could chime in on whether this aphorism is sardonic, which is the only way I can make sense of it. And I note someone else has my question: https://www.reddit.com/r/russian/comments/7pgceb/having_said_a_one_must_say_b/)

In fact, having said A, you are not at all required to say B. What you should do is consider everything that happened after you said A, and then say the most sensible thing that comes to mind.

@AOC: Thanks for interesting points!
re stateless: I have a fair share of horrible losses due to blindly following foreseen variations. To counter that, it helps to stand up and go look at the position from the opponent's side for a useful refresh.
re Smullyan: He was a logician by trade, multi-talented and probable chess hobbyist. He made great logic puzzle books in the 70s up to the 90s, including classics like To mock a mockingbird and one on chess retrograde analysis The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, 1979 where this problem comes from. He certainly was not aware of the rules/conventions you quoted, neither was I.

In his memory, one can argue that:
A) by rule 1, castling is legal since we can get the problem position by preserving Black's castling rights
B) by rule 2, en-passant is not legal since it cannot be proved that Black's last is ...e7-e5.
C) but if castling is legal, then en-passant becomes legal !?

Seems these rules don't blend nicely when the legality of en-passant depends on the legality of castling, as is the case here.
If I get you right, the solution with 0-0-0 is possible but not valid because it breaks rule 2, whereas the other solution is valid because it breaks no rules?

re Milener's book: I'm not too fond either of moves being mostly reactive and not proactive. The classical definition of initiative (when player B has to react to player A instead of making his own threats) is quite workable. Also, "reacting to one's own moves" can be mistaken for "rolling out a plan with connected moves", or else it's just 1-move depth?

I can see what Smullyan is getting at. However, I don't think it's a deadlock as he says. According to the "rules" of composition:

1. Castling is legal unless it can be proved either the king or rook moved earlier in the game.
2. En passant is not legal unless it can be proved the last move must have been a two-step pawn move.

The key is the proofs in (1) and (2) are fundamentally different -- one defaults to true, the other defaults to false. It's not possible to prove that black's previous move was ...e7-e5, therefore en passant is not legal. Given that fact, black's last move must have been a king or rook move, therefore castling is also not legal.

That example sounds both totally wrong-headed in principle and incredibly accurate in practice 

His rating is relevant. However, I'm not a fan of deciding if a book is any good solely by the rating of the author. There are some pretty smart 1100-players out there, Milener might even be one of them. He has put a lot of thought into this. He's likely wrong about a lot of chess things, but he might be right about a few things. Anyway, when I look at books aimed at beginners or club players, my interest is mainly in teaching material, secondarily in teaching methods. Even mistakes can be the basis for a good lesson.

Gene Milener (2018) Kinetic Patterns in Reactive Chess 
https://www.amazon.com/Kinetic-Patterns-Reactive-Chess-Milener-ebook/dp/B07C9RT1...

This is a thought-provoking book. Probably I'm oversimplifying, but the author considers statics to be diagrams/puzzles without reference to preceding moves, and kinetics to be the use of preceding moves to inform play in the current position. Not explained is why future moves from the current position don't involve kinetics.

Milener takes the diagram from Soltis (1975) The Art of Defense in Chess. 

Kupchik - Capablanca, Lake Hopatcong 1926 
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1270313



Quote:

It's a beautiful piece of ex post facto reasoning: Capablanca wanted to play 19...h5 because it was allowed by 19.Rf3. It's similar to the flawed logic a cat uses when deciding to bolt through a closing door: it's now or never!

The problem with looking for clues in kinetics is that every move has numerous effects and side effects: capture, check, promotion, creation and destruction of both offensive and defensive contacts, various line openings and closings, and maybe I am forgetting some. Capablanca knew ...h7-h5 was a desirable move whether or not it was feasible in any given position. Probably the reason Soltis considered it instructive is because black is stronger on the queenside, and usually we would not make any pawn moves on the other side, since pawn moves waste time and create weaknesses, both of which our opponent can typically use to create play.

There are no page numbers in the Kindle preview, but earlier in the section Relationships between Two Consecutive Moves:
Quote:

The first sentence makes me a little queasy. True, at every turn we should take account of what our opponent did last, but only as an indication of what they will do next. As for the rest of the paragraph, I feel like Milener made a brand new round hole and has set out to hammer all sorts of pegs into it, both round ones and square ones.

Despite my criticisms, I might buy this book to see what else is in it. As I said, it's thought-provoking.