Game Phases

Home * Evaluation * Game Phases

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=
 * 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

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

Up one Level