White to play and win in an unspecified number of moves.
This is from a real game played by a member of the Ray School Chess Club. Please leave your solutions in the comments section below. I'll tell you how our young colleague did it in another post.
The Two Knights Defense is one of the most popular and playable openings for scholastic players, and here Igor and Gleb give you a nice primer on it. What I like about this video is that the guys don't encourage you to memorize lines; they show you the ideas, how each line works, and where some of the traps and blunders lie. Watch as many times as you like to learn the basics, then move on to books and other sources to learn the opening more deeply. For example, the variation where White sacrifices his knight to bring the Black king out into the open where it is then attacked by the White queen is called the Fried Liver Attack, and it gets very complicated and interesting after the last move shown here, where the White queen forks the Black king and knight.
Click twice on the screen to watch the video.
Michael Goeller is a chess blogger par excellence; it’s hard to think of anyone who plies the craft with more finesse and sophistication. While the rest of us fill our columns with the usual fluff— gossip, cross tables, the odd grip-and-grin photo, and our failures to scale Mt. De la Maza,—Michael’s blog the Kenilworthian is full of real chess, analyses and annotations of important games, openings, variations, novelties and so on. I picture him laboring for hours and even days over pithy posts like “Urusov Analysis - 3...Nxe4 4.dxe5 Qh4,” and “Refuting 5...Nxe4 in the Scotch Four Knights.”
Michael’s latest contribution to high-end content aggregation is a collection of sources and links on the Traxler/Wilkes Barre counter attack, some of which he gets from Dennis Monokroussos.
It’s great stuff; I only wish he’d published it before FM Aleksandar Stamnov sprang the Traxler on me in this game at the North Avenue Chess Pavilion earlier in the summer:
Yes, I know: serves me right for playing the Fried Liver Attack against a master. Notice that every move White (moi) made beginning with 7. Ke2 was not only wrong but probably the worst one possible in each position. Anyone can blunder, even Kramnik, but to do so repeatedly and spectacularly takes a special gift, you must admit.
Thanks, Professor Goeller. I will attend to the lesson promptly.
To improve your chess, practice the things that matter most
There’s a saying in real estate that three things matter most: location, location, location. Many chess experts have a similar maxim about most the important factors in the game. They are: tactics, tactics, tactics. It’s even been said that chess is 99 percent tactics, the quotation being attributed, I believe, to the great Richard Teichmann.
Wanna play?
Whether that’s an exaggeration or not, there is no question that tactics are important. Let’s be grateful, then, to two local chess players, Niles North High School star Ilan Meerovich, and another, screen-named SashaD, with whom I am not familiar, who have posted some online resources for tactical study at Chess4Chicago.com. Go get ’em, and enjoy.
Another area in which all new chess players should be proficient is basic endgames, particularly where you have a rook and a king or a queen and a king against your opponent’s solitary king. These endgames come up frequently, though if you don’t know the technique for delivering checkmate, the game will end in a stalemate, and you will get a draw in a game you should have won. Learning the technique isn’t hard, and all young chess players should master it. Learn about rook endings here and here; queen endings here and here. To practice what you learn in a fun and interactive online setting go to Chess Magnet School.
Sad News. I received word earlier today from Brad Rosen, also known as Chessdad64, that his father, Gene Rosen, died yesterday, quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Brad is a pillar of the Illinois and the Chicago-area chess communities, and many people know him through his blogging, the successes of his son Eric, one of the strongest young chess players in the area, and Brad’s unstinting support for the growth and improvement of chess culture, especially for kids. I consider myself privileged to call Brad a friend, and my thoughts and hopes go out to him and his family at this sad time.
Check out this hilarious film clip.
Of course, the opening sequence commonly known as Scholar’s Mate (1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Qh5 Nf6 4.Qxf7#) is not just a funny video; it is, as Chess Corner observes, “the most common trap a beginner falls into.”
It’s common because it’s an easy way for the attacker to get a fast and, some would say, cheap victory. Scholar’s Mate works by exploiting the weakness of the opponent’s f7 pawn, which at the beginning of the game is guarded only by the King. If you can quickly build up an attack on that square and send in your Queen with protection, your opponent’s King can neither escape nor capture the attacking piece. The heartbreaking result: checkmate on Move 4.
Because Scholar’s Mate is so widely played in scholastic tournaments and chess clubs, it should be one of the first things every new player learns. Learning the right defensive moves is all it takes.
Scholar’s Mate raises ethical questions, most notably: Should you yourself use it when you suspect your novice opponent may not be prepared for it? One could argue that every new player should be on the receiving end of Scholar’s Mate once, just so he or she knows what it’s like and learns to combat it. I won’t pass judgment on the issue, but if nothing else all chess kids should know Scholar’s Mate and how to avoid it. Go here to learn how to do that.
