Queen vs. PawnBy Bruce PandolfiniKing and queen against a lone king? No contest. With the move (it might be important to have the move to avoid stalemate), the force of king and queen wins hands down. But what if the inferior side has an extra pawn about to promote? Is it still a forced win? Well it often is, with some notable exceptions.Having the move, the queen can beat either a center pawn or a knight pawn usually without much trouble, even if the friendly king is a distance away. The winning idea is to give a series of checks, leading to the defending king's forced obstruction of its own pawn. That gives the attacker a tempo, which can be used to bring the friendly king a square closer. … [Read more...]
Let’s Get Critical
Let's Get Critical By Bruce Pandolfini Some say "key squares," others say "critical squares." You say "to-may-toe," I say "to-mah-toe," let's call the whole thing off. If we do, I have a feeling it won't impact George and Ira Gershwin very much, but it could give me an out. That way, I might be able to avoid doing this month's column. Only kidding. Okay, now that we've started with a bit of humor, we can actually talk about the ten examples that follow. They all reflect simple positions in which the black king has to get to a critical square in order to force a win. As with all critical square situations, the defending king in each of these positions doesn't have to occupy a critical … [Read more...]
The Opposition Strikes Again!
The Opposition Strikes Again! By Bruce Pandolfini "The opposition: what's that, the opponent?" How often I've heard students say something like that. Yet many experienced players use "the opposition" to mean something else. They use it to indicate a relationship between the two kings, especially in the endgame. If you "have the opposition," it's essentially the same thing as saying you have the advantage. For the most part, if on the same rank, file or diagonal, the kings "stand in opposition" if they (a) are on squares of the same color and (b) are separated by an odd number of squares. (This is not the place to bring up "the rectangular opposition," "the knight's jump opposition," or … [Read more...]
Outranking by Outflanking
Outranking by Outflanking by Bruce Pandolfini In the opening, when you flank, you develop a bishop to the side and aim it at the center. In the endgame, when you outflank, well, you don't do the opposite. That is, you don't develop a bishop to the center and aim it at the flank. Good old endgame. It's full of all kinds of themes and fancy names to designate those themes. The concept of outflanking: that's a military term in real life, but what's it got to do with chess? Chess experts and theorists seem to use it in slightly different ways. Nevertheless, for many endgame enthusiasts, outflanking tends to refer to maneuvers by which one king, primarily using the opposition, is able to … [Read more...]
Two Against One Leaves None
Two Against One Leaves None by Bruce Pandolfini You can take it back to the Borgias. Hey, you can take it back further, maybe to the Greek City States. You can even get antediluvian. But why do that? You don't have to go back that far. Let's look no further back than the 1960s. I'm especially thinking of that revelatory experience, that game-changing movie, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." So tell me, when the three bad guys faced off in the end, what happened when two ganged up against one? The two won, right? That brings us to this month's offering, the situation of bishop and knight vs. bishop. With nothing else on the board, it's remarkable all the tactics that can emerge to … [Read more...]
Knight Tricks Bishop
by Bruce Pandolfini There is that silly opening principle/maxim "knights before bishops." And everyone knows that bishops are better than knights, right? Well, not always, for either truism. Now it is generally considered to be an easier task for a bishop to trap a knight, say by corralling it, than for a knight to snare a bishop. Perhaps. But knights also have their strengths. They can jump over things, though not tall buildings in a single bound. They can, however, do their special prancing, and that can lead to all kinds of insidious forks. The latter class of stratagem is mainly what happens in this present pack of ten. Just when the bishop thinks it is safe to take a swim, it forgets … [Read more...]
Exchange Power: Rooks Over Bishops
by Bruce Pandolfini If you trade pieces, you exchange pieces, with the word "exchange" being written in lower case. But if you gain a rook for a bishop (or for a knight), you win the Exchange, with a capital "E," as the great Burt Hochberg used to say to me upon editing my pieces, that is, the written kind of pieces. Now in the old days, at least at the Marshall Chess Club, to avoid upper and lower case confusion, chess players would also refer to winning or gaining the Exchange as winning or gaining quality, whenever they got ahead by a rook for a bishop or a rook for a knight. But let's jump to the present. In all ten problems offered this month, however it is phrased, you are presented … [Read more...]
Little King Moves
Let's talk about the king. It is supposed to be a weak piece. Actually, it can be a fairly strong piece, since it guards all the circumambient squares. On its inherent merits, a king is slightly stronger than either a bishop or knight, and slightly weaker than a rook. But it is always on the board, and in the endgame its use can be decisive. Many tactics truly depend on the active help of the friendly king. There can be mating nets, piece traps, and other nasty things once the attacking king gets going. Now the king's involvement does not have to be a big production. Sometimes it makes a small move, which translates to a big advantage. And that is the case here. For each of the problems in … [Read more...]