Chess for Fun

Last night we looked at a highly contrived ending to a game in which all of white’s pieces (following several pawn promotions) were back on their original squares while also delivering checkmate. This position was taken from a Youtube video by Gotham Chess (if you don’t know it, it’s a very popular site):

https://youtu.be/wPa0EhzvhaA?feature=shared

It’s a long video but if you are curious and don’t want to watch the whole thing, then the last few minutes - from 15 minutes in I’d suggest – describe this scarcely believable tale.

You’ll note that the presenter refers to ‘pre-moves’. In timed games online there is an option to lock in your next move while your opponent is thinking about theirs: the instant that they make their move, your pre-determined move is made automatically. This can save significant time in a blitz game but is risky as you can’t change your mind.

On Monday we looked at an unusual end to a game where the final move was not only checkmate, but a double-check and a discovered check all at the same time.

In a double-check, where two pieces give check at the same time, the king must move. It’s not enough for one or other piece to be captured or blocked because the check from the second piece will remain.

Discovered checks are where one piece moves out of the way to reveal a check by a second piece. They can be powerful attacks, and it’s the piece which moves out of the way that usually does the damage. Here’s a simple example from the Petrov Defence:

1. e4     e5
2. Nf3   Nf6
3. Nxe5   Nxe4
4. Qe2     Nf6
5. Nc6+

The knight moves out of the way revealing check by the white queen. Howsoever black chooses to block the check, their queen is lost to the knight.

Watch out particularly for pawn moves that reveal a check, often with the aim of the pawn then capturing a piece.

At Monday’s meeting we looked at the famous conclusion of a game played in 1966 between two world champions, Petrossian and Spassky, in which Spassky created a devastating knight fork by sacrificing his queen.

Forks are where you attack two pieces at once with the intended outcome that your opponent has to give up one or the other. Knights are particularly good at forks. There are lots of puzzles available online on youtube, chess.com or lichess which can help you to recognise common forking patterns.

For those of us who are relatively new to chess or returning to the game after some years, here are a few guiding principles which might help in navigating the opening of a game.

1. Seek to control the centre of the board
2. Develop your minor pieces (knights and bishops) while avoiding moving the same piece more than once unnecessarily as this will slow down your development
3. Castle to protect your king
4. Join your rooks so that they can work together

Finally, knowing the relative value of pieces can help you to assess whether to exchange them: pawns are worth 1 point, bishops and knights 3 points, rooks 5 points, and the queen 9 points.

^{The Greek Gift sacrifice as a pattern/motif which you are likely to encounter in your games, so it's very useful to be able to recognise it, whether as a threat or an opportunity. As ever, there are plenty of related online videos and lessons available. The Greek Gift is an example of how quickly a game can culminate through a sequence of forcing moves. Such moves - checks, captures or threats of capture - force your opponent's hand, leaving them with few if any choices as you strengthen your position and weaken theirs. So look for forcing moves in your games!}

Mark's useful info: On Monday we looked at a famous chess puzzle, a mate-in-2 problem designed by the American prodigy Paul Morphy (I believe that it’s the only puzzle attributed to him so it’s easy to look up online).

The puzzle illustrated the concept of zugzwang, or ‘the compulsion to move’. Chess is about turn taking, and you cannot forfeit your turn to move. This means that you can find yourself in the position where it’s your move, but any move that you make will weaken your position, perhaps even fatally, nevertheless you must move: that’s zugzwang.
It’s a common feature of king and pawn endgames, where one player’s king is defending a pawn, or trying to block their opponent’s pawn from being promoted to a queen but the king has to move, and its only option is to move away, losing the position. (Note that this isn’t the same as stalemate where you have no legal move available and so the game ends in a draw; in zugzwang, the game continues). There are plenty of examples and explanations of zugzwang positions online if you are moved (!) to find out more.  

A footnote on chessboard orientation: as you know, when setting up the board, both players must have a white square at their right-hand corner. In addition, if your board displays the letters for files A-H and the numbers for ranks 1-8, the white player’s pieces should occupy the side of the board on which the letters read alphabetically from left to right. Otherwise, any reference to square notation won’t make sense. So only white can ever open with the pawn moves e4 or d4, for example – or, as was played on Monday, c4 (the English Opening) or f4 (Bird’s Opening). Provided by our group member, Mark

Another one from Mark: one of the most famous games in chess, the 1858 Opera Game. Its enduring appeal lies in Paul Morphy’s elegant checkmate sequence including a queen sacrifice, but nearly 170 years on it also serves as an object lesson in the advantages of rapid piece development and the risks of under development: black finishes with a bishop and rook which have played no part at all in the game, negating their notional material advantage over white. There are plenty of helpful online reviews of the full game, which is only 17 moves long.