Game Phases

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The textbook division of game phases enumerates three of them:
 * Opening
 * Middlegame
 * Endgame

In the opening, the focus is on development, in the middlegame - on attack and defense, in the endgame - on pawn promotion and realization of the material advantage.

Whereas this definition is good enough for humans, coding it in a straightforward manner would introduce evaluation discontinuity in many places. For that reason many programs define several game phases, based on the amount of material on the board.

=See also=
 * Development
 * Evaluation Discontinuity
 * Multiple Piece-Square Tables
 * Stockfish Evaluation Guide
 * Tapered Eval

=Forum Posts=
 * From midgame to endgame: help needed by Stephane Nicolet, FishCooking, September 17, 2015 » Stockfish
 * Anomaly of Stockfish eval depending on phases of the game by Kai Laskos, CCC, May 05, 2016
 * is phase a good indicator of game progress? by Alexandru Mosoi, June 23, 2016 » Tapered Eval
 * Early / middle / end game transitions? by notachessplayer, OpenChess Forum, February 19, 2017
 * A different approach: how to avoid endgames with slight advantage - insufficient to win by ig.u...@gmail.com, FishCooking, October 22, 2017
 * mg vs eg eval by Joost VandeVondele, FishCooking, October 06, 2019 » Middlegame, Endgame, Stockfish

=External Links=
 * Outline of chess from Wikipedia
 * Stockfish Evaluation Guide » Stockfish Evaluation Guide
 * Phases of a Chess Game by Mark Weeks

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