Monthly Archives: January 2010

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.

 

12 chess tactics and how to use those to gain advantage – Part 1

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Posted by ChessMaster on January 10, 2010 – 11:21 pm
Filed under Attacking tactics, Beginner Chess Tips, Chess lessons, Chess tactics
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All of us appreciate beautiful chess combinations that occur at all levels – from games between amateurs to those between top grandmasters. A combination is nothing but two or more tactical moves in a sequence that create an advantage for the player who has thought it up. If you examine any such combination, you will find certain elements of tactics have been strung together. At every stage of the game, you should be aware of these tactical possibilities and how these can enable you to get an upper hand on your opponent.

‘Cooking’ up a combination is literally similar to the art of cooking! No matter how esoteric a dish is, its preparation will involve a few of the standard processes of cooking like frying, boiling, steaming, roasting and so on. In the same way, even the deepest chess combination comes out of some standard chess tactics. If you know these techniques, it is up to your imagination to combine some of these to create a memorable combination!

You will notice that at the heart of all chess tactics, there lies some kind of threat or the avoidance of threat. The tactics may threaten the gain of material or a checkmate of the opponent’s KIng, immediately or soon after the move. Your opponent will of course try to counter these threats, but in the process gets forced to create weaknesses in his position which can be exploited by further tactical moves. The build-up of the weaknesses ultimately results in his capitulation.

Though these chess tactics can find use at any stage of the game, they come most useful during the middle game – either for outright win or for steering it towards a winning end game. We will now examine these elements of tactics and see how these are used in games.

1. Check

A check holds importance because the opponent has to attend to it before all else. But check for check’s sake does not achieve anything. Rather, if your opponent can develop his pieces or pawns while refuting the check, it gains him a valuable tempo. Check as a tactics is beneficial when it forces your opponent either to make moves that give him an inferior position or to divert him from his own plans.

In the following position after 25 moves, check is used to force the opponent to defend in a way that exposes him to further tactics threatening the loss of a piece.

26. Qg4+ Kh7 26. … Qg6 does not help as 27. Be6+ will make Black lose his Queen whether he plays 27. … Nxe6 losing support for his Queen or 27. … Kh7 when White replies with 28. Bf5
27. Bd4 Qg8
28. Bf5+ Ng6
29. h4 c5
30. Be5 Resigns Black’s Knight is pinned and will fall when White’s RP advances one more step

 

Following position after White’s move 20. Re3 shows how Black used checks as a tactics to corner the White King.

20. … Nxe2+
21. Qxe2 Nxf3+ If 21. Rxe2, then 21. … Nxf3+ 22. gxf3 Qg5+ 23. Kh1 Bxf3#
 
22. gxf3 Qg5+ If 22. Qxf3, then Black wins a piece by 22. … Rxf3 23. Rxe7 Rxc3
 
23. Kh1 Rxf3 Black now threatens a discovered check on next move
 
24. Rxf3 Qg4 Black creates a two-way pin on the Rook at f3 and White has no way out of it. He resigned as 25. … Bxf3 forces loss of Queen or checkmate.

 

In above two examples, you will notice that other tactical elements like discovered check and pin have been used to exploit the initial check. These and other elements of chess tactics will be discussed later.

Another use of check is to erode the support of one piece for another, making for quick gain of material. In the next position, White plans to exploit Black’s back rank (another tactical element to be explained later) but needs to remove the defensive support of Black’s Rook at c8. He does it by using the power of check.

1. Qc4+ Rxc4 If Black refuses the offer and plays 1. … Kg7 then 2. Qxc8 Qxc8 3. Rxc8 Rxc8 4. e8=Q Rxe8 5. Rxe8 wins for White
2. Rxe8+ Kg7
3. Rg8+ Resigns Black cannot stop the queening of the pawn with mate to follow

 

Sometimes, even the threat of a check is enough to win material as shown in the following typical endgame situation which you must take note of.

check as a tactics - example 4

The only winning move for White is 1. Rh8. If 1. … Rxa7, then 2. Rh7+ or if 1. … Kg7, then 2. a8=Q Rxa8 3. Rxa8. In either case, White wins the Black Rook.

We will continue the discussion of the other tactics in the next part.