Category Archives: Attacking tactics

12 chess tactics and how to use those to gain advantage – Part 4

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Posted by ChessMaster on February 1, 2010 – 8:47 pm
Filed under Attacking tactics, Chess Basics, Chess Tutorials, Chess lessons, Chess tactics
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We have already discussed different forms of check that constitute a part of a chess player’s attacking arsenal. We now proceed to discuss the use of Pin as an attacking tactics. Except for checks, this is the most frequently occurring tactics in chess games. So much so that it is incorporated in many chess openings to limit opponent’s move options in the struggle for wresting the control of center.

4. Pin

This chess tactic was discussed briefly in What is a pin in chess. We take it up here more elaborately.

The underlying idea of Pin emanates from the relative values of chess pieces, whereby a player is supposed to gain an advantage if he can exchange a piece of lower value with opponent’s piece of higher value. Naturally, under normal circumstances, no player would like to suffer such a loss and this puts a bind on the defender limiting his options.

The temporary immobility of the “pinned” item to take part in offensive or defensive moves allows a gain in tempo for the attacker and the pinned piece itself becomes susceptible to capture cheaply. Therein lies the value of pin as an attacking tactics.

Any Pin works in a straight (horizontal / vertical / diagonal) line of attack and involves three pieces – one of the attacking player (the attacking piece) and two of the defending player (a target of attack and an interposing piece).

The attacking piece can be Bishop, Rook or Queen (but not a Knight or Pawn), depending on the target and the interposing piece, Of the two pieces of the opponent, the target of attack has to be a piece of higher value than the attacking piece (King facing Queen/Rook/Bishop, Queen facing Rook/Bishop, Rook facing Bishop). There has to be an interposing piece or pawn of the opponent between the attacking piece and the target of attack, preventing immediate capture of the target piece by the attacking piece. Obviously, the interposing item can be any piece or pawn which becomes the “pinned” item and has to be of lower value than the target.

Because of straight line of attack, a Knight cannot be the attacking piece. Neither can be a pawn because of the requirement of an interposing piece. It should also follow that the interposing piece should not be able to capture the attacking piece without suffering a loss, otherwise the pin would not exist!

In a nutshell, a Pin is a situation where the movement of a piece or pawn by a player will expose another of his pieces to attack by a piece of lower value of the opponent.

The defender can remove the pin by

  • moving the target from the line of attack
  • capturing the attacking piece
  • interposing another supported piece (or pawn) in the line of attack

Because of the relative values, a pin works best against opponent’s King as it is the highest in the pecking order. When the King is the target, the pinned piece becomes immobile as the King cannot be exposed to attack (i.e., check).

If the Queen or Rook is the target, the pinned piece can be moved if the defender does not mind his loss of the target piece. In fact, situations which permit the defender to take such action effectively is considered to be a pseudo pin, because such pins do not put a bind on the defender and do not serve their purpose. An attacker must be careful to analyze the defender’s options, otherwise the tables may very well be turned against the attacker. We will see examples of “pseudo pin” later in this lesson.

We now show you diagrams illustrating different types of pins, and you can see how the above principles apply.

You can see that the Queen cannot move away from the line of attack as it will expose the Black King to check by Rook. If the King moves, Rook will be exchanged with the Queen. If the Queen captures the Rook, then Bishop will capture the Queen. Any way, Black cannot avoid the loss of Queen. Had the Black King been away from the Rook’s line of attack, there would not be any pin and the Queen could move to d4, with a check on White King and then capture the Bishop.

The next figure shows three more examples of Pin to make the idea clear to you.

In the first diagram, Black Rook is pinned against the Queen by the White Bishop. Here the pin is not absolute in the sense that the pinned Rook is free to move and can capture the White Rook, but this will mean losing the Queen to the Bishop – a big loss! The Queen could move away but the Rook is lost.

In the second diagram, the pieces involved in the creation of pin are the same as in the first diagram. Here the White Knight is able to attack the Queen with relative impunity because if the Black Rook captures it, Queen falls to the Bishop. But Black has to take care of the additional threat due to his h7 pawn being pinned by the White Rook at h3. A Knight check at g6 would result in checkmate as h7 pawn will be unable to take the Knight.

The third diagram shows a double pin. If the Black Rook moves along its file, Black Queen gets exposed to attack by White Queen. If the Rook tries to move along its rank, the King comes under check by the White Rook.

Now take a look at the following position.

a chess trap

If it looks familiar, rightly so because this was presented in an earlier article Exercise in assessing the position in a chess game where some more examples of this theme are shown. The apparent pin of the White Knight against the Queen by the Black Bishop is only a “pseudo pin” as White easily refutes it by moving the Knight to expose his Queen. As can be seen in that article, capturing the Queen soon leads to Black’s demise! This “Blackburne Trap” is a celebrated example of false pin and you should be careful about setting such pins!

To round off, we show a position after 10 moves in a game where a series of Checks, Discovered Checks and Pins – or the threats thereof – leads to a quick mate of Black inspite of his being two pieces up!

11. Be3 Qg7 11. … Qxe3+ allows 12. Qxe3 and White Queen cannot be captured by the Pawn because of the Rook’s pin on the Black King
 
12. Bxf4 Nf6 Black tried to block the threat of discovered check that would arise when the Bishop at f4 moved
 
13. Ne4 Be7 13. … Nxe4 was not possible because 14. Be5 or Bh6 dis. check would lose his Queen
 
14. Bg5 Rg8 White mounts pressure on the knight which is immobile because of the pin
15. Qh5+ Qg6
16. Nd6+ Possible because Black cannot reply 16. … Bxd6 as 17. Rxf6+ would lose Queen which cannot capture the Rook, being pinned by White Queen!
 
16. … Ke6 16 … Kg7 17. Bh6+! Qxh6 (17…Kh8 18. Nf7+ loses Queen) 18. Qf7+ Kh8 19. Qxe7 threatening 20. Nf7+ wins. 16. … Kf8 would be better but only to prolong the struggle.
17. Rae1+ Kxd6
18. Bf4# 1-0

 

The above examples should bring out a lesson in basic chess tactics –

Whenever opportunity permits, try to place a piece of lower value with its line of attack towards a piece of higher value of the opponent. Contrarily, scent a danger when your opponent does the same.

In the next lesson, we discuss a variation on Pin known as Skewer, a chess tactic that poses threats in a slightly different way.

 

12 chess tactics and how to use those to gain advantage – Part 3

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Posted by ChessMaster on January 15, 2010 – 5:02 am
Filed under Attacking tactics, Beginner Chess Tips, Chess Tutorials, Chess lessons, Chess tactics
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3. Double Check

From your basic knowledge on chess, you know that when you give check, your opponent has to leave aside all other plans he may have and immediately take action to evade or neutralize the threat to his King.

There are three ways he can do it:

  1. moving the King to any of the adjacent squares where it will not be under check
  2. capturing the attacking piece/pawn that created the check
  3. interposing one of his pieces/pawns in the line of threat between his King and the attacker

If he cannot do any of these, his King is said to be checkmated.

After a double check, which as the name implies is a check from two sides, the problem your opponent faces is that he needs to tackle both with his single move. This is not possible without shifting his King and the other two options 2 and 3 are not available to him. This means that both your attacking pieces are safe from capture by anything other than the King.

The ability of the pieces to attack with a fair amount of impunity and to force the King to move makes double check a dynamite in chess games and you will hardly ever see anyone recovering from its effect! But it is presumed that like any other chess tactics, this double check is also applied with due thought to the opponent’s alternatives.

We borrow the first diagram from the previous lesson after a little alteration to show how double check comes about and the effect it can have.

Just like last time, here also White plays 1. Rd8+. But unlike last time when it was only a discovered check of the Bishop, here the Rook also delivers a check to the Black King. So it becomes a double check and though Black’s Rook is in a position to capture both the attackers, he cannot have both in one move. Even if one were taken out, the other would be delivering check and so Black has no other option but to move his King. But where will he go? In the previous leson, he had at least one move and White had to make a second move for checkmate but here it is a checkmate straightaway!

In the last lesson, we have already shown how Philidor’s mate utilizes the power of double check.

I do not know of any instance, but it is theoretically possible to deliver double check where the piece moved does not give check but exposes the King to attack by another piece (besides the discovered check by the first piece), thereby creating the double check.

This can occur with an en passant pawn capture as shown below.

1. Ba3+ c5 Black interposes his QBP to block the Bishop’s check
 
2. dxc6++ The ‘en passant’ capture by White’s QP removes the interposing pawn to restore Bishop’s check as also creates the Rook’s check, so that it becomes a double check.
 
Note: To show Double check more explicitly, the symbol ++ is used sometimes.

 

You will also appreciate that discovered check through en passant capture is an exception to the general pattern of discovered check by the movement of your own interposing piece as shown in previous lesson.

Here are some examples of double check in master play, the first two being fairly well-known to chess enthusiasts.

After 20 moves in this reputedly “evergreen game”, the play continued as follows:

21. Qxd7+ Kxd7 White made the Queen sacrifice to set up a double check and a quick mate
22. Bf5++ Ke8
23. Bd7+ Kf8
24. Bxe7#

 

The second well-known game in this genre was played at Vienna in 1910 between Reti and Tartakower, two top grandmasters of those times. We will not repeat the play as you can see it in Chess Tactics – some days are really not yours, where White makes a Queen sacrifice at move 9 to set up a double check on the next move. The game ended after another two moves!

In the next position after 20 moves had been played, White maneuvered to set up a double check preceded by a Queen sacrifice!

The game proceeded as given below.

21. Be7 Bxe7
22. Qxe7 Qd6 White’s Queen move attacked Black’s Queen and the Bishop and Black defended in the way expected by White.
 
23. Rxf7 Qxe7 White gives up his Queen to get the double check as his Rook at g4 now comes handy!
 
24. Rfxg7++ Kh8 The double check at last!
25. Rg8+ Rxg8
26. Rxg8#

 

In the next lesson, we will discuss about the use of Pin as a chess tactics.

 

12 chess tactics and how to use those to gain advantage – Part 2

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Posted by ChessMaster on January 12, 2010 – 6:10 pm
Filed under Attacking tactics, Chess Tutorials, Chess lessons, Chess tactics
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2. Discovered Check

In the first part of this series, you saw the tactical use of checks. We now take up a type of special check known as discovered check which is a much more potent weapon than simple checks.

In simple checks, you just attack the opponent’s King with a piece or pawn. In discovered check, you not only attack the King but possibly (though not always) another piece or pawn of your opponent. Even when the latter part is absent, you can gain some advantage of space or position if planned carefully.

To create a discovered check, you must have the opponent’s King in the line of attack of one of your pieces, but there is no check as yet (or we may say that the check is ‘hidden’) because another of your pieces or pawns (which by itself is not attacking the King) is standing between the King and your attacking piece. If you now move the interposing piece or pawn from the line of attack, the hidden attack is exposed or ‘discovered’ and the King will be under a ‘discovered check’.

Note: There is a sole exception to this pattern as you will see in next lesson.

The following diagram explains the mechanism of discovered check.

The Black King is in the line of attack of the White Bishop but not in check because of the interposing White Rook. If White now moves his Rook, the Black King will be under a ‘discovered’ check of the White Bishop.

You can see that the discovered check will arise irrespective of where the White Rook is moved. The power of the check comes from your freedom of placing your Rook at a position where you can reap the maximum benefit from this check, while the opponent is busy in defending his King.

In the above diagram, a little study will make it clear that you will gain most by playing 1. Rd8+. As the checking Bishop cannot be captured by Black and the Black Rook, being under Pin, cannot be moved to f7 to interpose, Black has no other alternative but to move his King to h8. Thus, the subsequent moves will go like 1. … Kh8 2. Rxf8#.

You should realize that a discovered check is not possible where the check is to be delivered by a Knight or Pawn though they may very well be in the interposing role. The check has to be by Queen, Rook or Bishop.

In certain positions where the attacked King has only one escape hole, a series of checks and discovered checks can have a devastating effect. This kind of shuttling is often referred as ‘windmilling’ or ’see-saw’. A very famous example is shown below where White went to the extent of sacrificing his Queen to create this type of position as he was sure to recoup with interest!

25. Bf6 Qxh5 Black had to accept the offer as otherwise he would lose his own Queen
 
26. Rxg7+ Kh8 A normal check and Black King has only h8 square available
 
27. Rxf7+ Kg8 A discovered check and the King has only g8 square available so long as the White Rook occupies the 7th rank
 
28. Rg7+ Kh8 Back to the normal check!
 
29. Rxb7+ Kg8 A discovered check again!
 
30. Rg7+ Kh8 Repeats the normal check
 
31. Rg5+ Kh7 The King gets some option at last but his Queen gets caught!
 
32. Rxh5 … White won after another 11 moves

 

You should also be aware of another special situation where a discovered check, coupled with a double check leads to a smothered mate (King being hemmed in by his own pieces when the last check is delivered). This type of situation has been coming up off and on over the last five centuries and is known as Philidor’s mate. The basic idea is shown below.

1. Qd5+ Kh8 Simple check
 
2. Nf7+ Kg8 Simple check preparing way to a discovered check
 
3. Nh6+ Kh8 Discovered and double check combined
 
4. Qg8+ Rxg8 King cannot capture because of Knight. So Rook has to capture, hemming in (’smothering’) the King in the corner
 
5. Nf7# Smothered mate by the Knight check

 

You can see more illustrations of this theme in Chess Tactics using opponent’s pieces to mate the king! and Chess Tactics: the Old but Evergreen Philidor’s position.

We take up double check in the next part.