Chess Tactics: The King’s role in attack – part 1

Posted by ChessMaster on September 28, 2009 – 3:10 pm
Filed under Attacking tactics, Chess lessons, Chess tactics, Chess Tutorials
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“The King is a fighting piece. Use it!” is a remark ascribed to Wilhelm Steinitz who is regarded as the first World Champion in Chess. Nevertheless, your common experience may make you think of your King only as a liability, which needs to be protected at any cost and the cost sometimes becomes so high that you give up your efforts! Only when you have been able to survive till an endgame with only pawns around that you possibly appreciate the thoughts behind the remark of Mr. Steinitz!

But a search through chess archives will show you many games where a player did use his King as a fighting piece who traveled all the way into the opponent’s territory to capture pieces and pawns and to provide support to his own attacking forces for delivering checkmate!

I have picked up six such examples and divided those into two groups. In this article, we present three games with a little ironic twist because it was the opponent who was mostly attacking but the fighting King took opportunity of these checks to move where it wanted to go without loss of tempo! The opponent ultimately realizes that he has brought the doom upon himself by his failure to see the intention of the King taking a walk!

In the second article Chess Tactics: The King’s role in attack – part 2, we show another three games where the King boldly stepped out on his own by taking advantage of opponent’s constricted position and took the battle to the enemy King to create a winning position.

First game – position after 31 moves:

32
Bc4+
Kg7

33.
Re7+
Kg6

34.
Bb3
Rg2+

35.
Kh1
h3

36.
Rd1
Rc8

37.
Rd6+
Kf5

38.
Rxa7
Rc1+

39.
Bd1
Ne2

40.
Ra5+
Kf4

41.
Rf6+
Ke3

42.
Re5+
Kf2

43.
Rxe2+
Kf1

White looked at 44. … Rg1# or 44. Rxg2 hxg2# and resigned.

 

Position at the end of Black King’s journey:

 

Second game – position after 19. … Qa3+:

20
Kd1
Nb2+

21.
Ke2
Qa6+

22.
Ke3
Nc4+

23.
Kxe4
gxf6

24.
Qxf6
Qb6

25.
Kf4
Qc7+

26.
Kg5
Bd5

26… Rfe8 27.Kh6 Kf8 28.Qh8+ Ke7 29.Rxe6+ […] Continue Reading…

Online chess helps improve the skills quickly

Posted by on September 27, 2009 – 4:22 pm
Filed under General Chess, Offtopic
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The game of chess is a thinking game. More than providing just fun and entertainment, the game stimulates the mind and trains the mind in such a way that a person can face the life with more confidence, take wise decisions and have a better quality life.

Now with the advent of technology and the spread of Internet at a faster pace across the world, the number of people taking advantage of online chess is on the rise. Online chess has many advantages. There is no need to go in search for a partner as was the case earlier before the advent of Internet.

One more disadvantage in chess in earlier days was that a chess player, in his novice stage, would not get more opportunities to play with other novices and invariably there would be a mismatch between the two players playing in academic and amateur tournaments or games. Lack of encouragement at the early stages of the learning process also diminishes one’s appetite for the game and many people lose out in early stages due to this recurring problem.

It is in this context that online chess comes to the assistance of the chess player. He can find partners across the net at any point of time. He need not worry or go about searching for a partner to play the game. The skill set of the partner can also be decided in advance and such partner who is at par with your skill or slightly better than you can be chosen from the Internet. In this way, you can have a better experience and excitement playing with a player of equal skill than a game involving a mismatch of skill sets.

With online chess, a player can find the right partner to compete […] Continue Reading…

20+ ways Chess is beneficial for You and Your Children

Posted by on September 21, 2009 – 11:09 am
Filed under General Chess, Offtopic
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The numbers are only to draw attention, they do not tell the real story. If you are genuinely curious about it, don’t keep counting but keep reading on …

Several months earlier, we made an attempt to show how chess is beneficial to your mind. But that was aimed at beginners and amateurs so that they may seriously pursue their interest in chess not only for just fun and enjoyment but also for its other beneficial effects. Here we are trying to take it one step ahead to address parents with young children on how playing chess can be good for the whole family.

We firmly believe that any caring and sensible parent will like to see their children growing up to be intelligent, rational human beings who will make a success of their lives and be pillars of the society. The level and quality of interaction between the child and parents have a profound impact on the life and outlook when the child reaches adulthood. Developing an interest in chess and sharing it with children can be one of the ways, an enjoyable one too, which can help in this pursuit. We are trying to put our thoughts on areas where chess can make a positive contribution.

However, only at a few places we have referred to the child, leaving other benefits to be understood by parents and then to be explained by examples to their children. For example, without looking at the board at the start of a game, you can tell the child that if he moves his KP, his KB can go to the white square on the fourth row in front of his QB, from where it can target your black KBP on its white square. The child looks at the board, tries to play it out […] Continue Reading…

Chess Games: Giving up in a Won position

Posted by ChessMaster on September 13, 2009 – 5:23 am
Filed under Chess Tutorials

Have you ever lost a chess game which you should have won? We are not asking about some elaborate chess combination that you could not calculate properly nor about any gross oversight which forced you to capitulate. Rather, we are talking of inability to see a resource that would have completely turned the table in your favor. Though in Chess tactics: Some days are really not yours! we have shown some errors of judgment even at top levels, what we are discussing below are different from such cases.

In all the three examples, the player who resigned was convinced that his position was hopeless. But later analysis showed that if he made a particular move in that apparently lost position, he would have surely won the game!

 

The above position was reached in a simultaneous display by a GM playing as White. Both players had passed pawns on the respective 7th rank. It was White’s turn to play but he thought that while Black’s Rook at d8 prevented his pawn promotion, he had no defense against Black’s threat of … Rc1+ followed by … d1=Q+. He therefore resigned without making any move.

He did not realize that he had a winning move in Rd6!

1.
Rd6!
Rxd6
 
White was threatening to capture that all important Black pawn and Black had to capture with his Rook 

2.
g8=Q+

 
It is White who first gets to promote his pawn with check!

 

All White needed now was to maneuver the Queen to capture one of the Rooks and Black would not be able to promote his pawn. White could then push his f-pawn and Black would have to give up his other Rook to prevent this pawn promotion. White King would capture Black’s d-pawn and with the help of the Bishop would be able to promote one […] Continue Reading…

The World’s Most Nearly Impossible Chess Puzzles

Posted by on September 12, 2009 – 4:15 pm
Filed under General Chess
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1st Puzzle

This puzzle was devised by Dr. Karl Fabel and published in 1949 in “T.R.D.’s Diamond Jubilee” issue of the Fairy Chess Review.
WHITE TO PLAY AND MATE IN SIXTY.
Fen Position

For those of you who are interested in analyzing the position with their favorite chess program here is the FEN Position, you can simply copy it and paste it in Chessbase or you could simple save it in a .Fen file and load it as FEN.

8/4K3/4NN2/p3p3/rnp1p3/1pk5/bp1n4/qrb1N3 w – – 0 1
2nd Puzzle

This chess puzzle by C. S. Kipping was published in the Manchester City News in 1911.
WHITE TO PLAY AND MATE IN THREE.
Fen Position

Compared to the last one this is pretty easy but rather baffling how White goes on with the next few moves, by the way this puzzle is for fun.

k7/8/N1N5/3B4/K7/8/4p1r1/8 w – – 0 1
3rd Puzzle

This puzzle was composed by Hans August and Dr. Karl Fabel, and was published in 1949 in Romana de Sah.
WHITE HAS JUST MADE HIS SEVENTEENTH MOVE. WHAT WAS BLACK’S NINTH MOVE, AND WHAT WERE THE MOVES THAT FOLLOWED IT?
Fen Position

Although you will not need the FEN for this one, I will post it just in case you want to try out something ODD.

2bqkb2/1pppppp1/8/8/N5P1/p3QPR1/PPP1PKPN/R1BQ1B1b b – – 0 1
4th Puzzle

This puzzle is based on a theme by W. A. Shinkman, and the mate-in-three was first solved by Sam Loyd. The puzzle above was published in the Leeds Mercury Supplement in 1895.
WHITE TO PLAY AND MATE IN THREE.
Fen Position

Another easy one but I know there are some who would like to get their engines started and see if the engine can solve but the best way to solve these puzzles is to think and take time, that is how you will enjoy it the most.

8/8/8/8/7k/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQ – 0 1
5th Puzzle

Similar to the 4th puzzle […] Continue Reading…