Archive for the ‘Chess Puzzles’ Category
The Pin
The Pin is a very important tool that every chess player should have in his or her repertoire. The word pin literally means that something cannot move. For example, if a poster is pinned to wall, it cannot move. In wrestling, a pin is when your opponent cant move. In chess, a pin is when a piece cannot move.
Creating a pin in chess can be useful, but it does not always win a piece. Above, the King from A1 can move to B2 to protect the Knight. Whenever you know a chess piece cannot move, it is always a good idea to put pressure on it, and attack it with more chess pieces.
The Bishop from H6 can move to G7 to pin the Knight. The King is expected to protect it by moving to B2. The Black player can then win the knight by attacking it with the pawn on B5 by moving it to B4. The white player then does not have to defend the white knight, and cannot move it either because it is pinned. Remember: when a piece is pinned, take advantage of it by putting pressure on the pin.
CheckMatesUSA Blog is Back
We’ve been upgrading other parts of the website, but now the blog is back! Check Back everyday for new articles and find out more than you ever imagined about chess.
Also, if you have questions about chess would like us to write an article about something particlar in chess, please let us know.
-George Krasnopolskiy
What is a stalemate?
Stalemate is either a relief to you or a huge disappointment. A stalemate in chess is one of the four ways to achieve a draw (a tie game). A stalemate happens when a player cannot make any moves. In chess you are never allowed to skip your turn; therefore, if you cannot move the game is over in a tie. Look at the position below: can you find how white is able to force a stalemate?
If you thought of Queen taking h7 you are correct. Black has no option but to take the Queen and White now cannot move: stalemate. Moving the Queen to g4 or any other square where it can get taken doesn’t work because black does not have to take the queen…therefore the game doesn’t have to end in stalemate.
A stalemate can be a huge relief to you if you are losing but also a huge disappointment to you if you are winning. In a losing position you must know how to force a stalemate. if you are winning, you must know how to avoid giving your opponent a stalemate. You really don’t have to worry about a stalemate until the end of the game. You can practice forcing stalemates with chess puzzles that we have posted online.
Discovery Attack!
A discovery attack is one of the best tactics that a player can use in a chess game. It is a chess tactic that will distract your opponent from your main attack…then if they don’t notice…DISCOVERY ATTACK!
Here’s how it works:
In this position (We are playing as white) we can use a discovery attack to win our opponents Queen and eventually win the game. Our Knight on e3 can move anywhere it wants to without fear or being taken, as our Rook on e2 will be attacking the opponents king and creating the discovery attack. In this instance, it is actually a discovery check, which is the best kind of discovery attack. Can you figure out where we should move our knight?
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If you are thinking f5 you are correct. By moving our knight to f5 we can attack the Queen and create a discovery check with our rook. The Queen is now lost for black, as it can only go to e3 or e6 to stop the discovery attack and both moves will lead to it being taken.
The Basic Checkmates in Sand Castle Art
Do you know the basic checkmates? Knowing the basic mates is like knowing the alphabet. The alphabet of chess. I’m not going to show you all of them here in this article, but what I am going to do is show you one of them in a way so that you will never forget it. I went to Lake Michigan to visit my friend and her daughter. She wanted to learn chess. She wanted to see the basic mates. So we showed her one of them, the one with the rook and the knight. Did you know that if you get your opponent’s king into the corner you can checkmate him with just a rook and a knight? Can you picture how it’s done? Try it on your own with a board first and then watch our video where we did it in sand castle form!
Chess Books for Beginners
There are a lot of books about chess, not surprising considering that chess is over 1500 years old. There are many chess books that would help a child’s chess game, here are a few:
5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games by Laszlo Polgar and Bruce Pandolfini- This is a great chess book that I recommend for players of all levels. This has sooooooo many chess problems in it for chess players of all different levels that you can keep it around for years, solving chess puzzles and going back to it again and again.
303 Tricky Chess Tactics by Fred Wilson and Bruce Alberston- This is a chess book that goes over chess tactics for all different levels. A challenging training tool, these tricky tactical chess problems are not only fun to solve, but great for beginners, intermediate, and expert players to use as tools to improve their chess game. Chess Tactics are presented in order of difficulty, so that players can advance from simple to complex chess positions. Examples from actual chess games illustrate a wide range of chess tactics from the classics right up to the current games. You’ll learn to use pins, single and double forks, double attacks, skewers, discovered and double checks, multiple threat tactics-and other crushing tactics as part of their problem-solving chess challenges.
Earth Vs. Space Chess Match
Wow, I had known that chess spanned across the earth…but now chess is spanning the Galaxy!
Thats right, this is a Earth vs. Space Chess Match (which really is a team vs astronauts, sorry to disappoint all of you hoping to play chess against aliens) which is going on live right now! NASA Astronauts Greg Chamitoff and Greg H. Johnson launched into space on May 16th are playing against the Earth Chess Team.
Who you may ask is on this Earth Chess Team? EVERYONE! Anyone can vote to determine the Earths next chess move by visiting here:
http://main.uschess.org/content/view/11169/629/
On the right side of the screen you should see a chess board. When it is Earth’s turn in the Chess Match, a series of options will appear and chess players can then vote on what they think the Earth Chess Team should do. You can also follow the Earth Vs. Chess Match here as well.
Help Team Earth Win!
The Lucena Chess Position
One of the most important and basic things to learn in chess is the Lucena Position. When you have a pawn, a king and a rook, and your opponent has only a king and a rook, it can still be very difficult to win. But if you can get to the Lucena Position you can win from there. Sometimes the trick is getting there. Sometimes your opponent can stop you from getting there, but if you at least know what it is you are trying to achieve, that is, the position from which you can win, then you will win a lot of games you could have drawn. Take a good look at the position you need to get to in the diagram. It’s White to move. First check the king. If the king blocks the file where Black would check if the king were to e7, then it’s a synch! You can queen the pawn next move. But if the black king moves to the “c” file, then you need to build a bridge. You do this buy letting black check you and moving in front of the pawn. Then you move one square diagonal from the pawn and toward the rook. Then when the rook checks you again you move back in front of the pawn, only this time you leave one square between the king and the pawn. Then when the rook checks you again, you block with the rook. That’s called building a bridge. Now there is no way to stop the pawn. This is named after a man named Lucena who lived the late 1400′s in Salamanca, Spain. They don’t know much about him, but they do know that there is a famous Roman bridge in Salamanca. Who knows, maybe that’s where he got the idea.
Chess Word Puzzles Available Now!
Coming up with new ways to teach chess tactics and strategies is what CheckMates Chess Academy does. Chess Word Puzzles are a exclusive to CheckMates Chess Academy. Chess Word Search Puzzles help kids learn the chess notations on the chess board while doing word puzzles. Make sure you check them out in our Online Resources Section.
Solve the Puzzle Saturday: 4/23 The Pin
Earlier this week I went over what a pin is, in chess terms that is. A pin is when a piece cannot move, remember? Like a pin in wrestling is when a wresler cant move or when you pin a poster to the wall so it cant move (we more often times think of it was beings stuck, which works too). Look at this puzzle from black’s perspective and find the pin, then figure out how to win the game afterwards.
I will put up the answer next Saturday, Good Luck!
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