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.
- Seek to control the centre of the board
- Develop your minor pieces (knights and bishops) while avoiding moving the same piece more than once unnecessarily as this will slow down your development
- Castle to protect your king
- 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.
