How to Beat Anyone At Chess Page 3

  When you place your opponent’s king in check, you can say “Check” if you wish, but this is not required. If your opponent is experienced, she will realize that her king is in check and will go about trying to find a way out. The check itself is the warning. Actually saying “Check” is a reminder and that reminder is not required.

  Checkmate

  Just because you have three possible ways to get out of check doesn’t mean one of them will always be available. Sometimes only two of the possible ways might be available, or maybe even only one. And what happens if none of the possible solutions happens to present itself? What if you can’t get out of check? Then the game is over. Your king is trapped and you lose. This is checkmate (often shortened to mate).

  Checkmate is a position where a king is in check and there is no saving move. Either capturing the checking piece or pawn is not possible or such a capture would leave the king in check anyway. Blocking the check is either impossible or would still leave the king in check from another direction.

  THE KING IS HELPLESS

  The word checkmate may come from the old Persian phrase shah manad, meaning “the king is helpless.” Some think it comes from shah mat, meaning “the king is dead,” but how can that be? The king never dies in chess; he is trapped in a checkmate, not killed.

  It is not as easy to checkmate a king as it is to capture something else. It isn’t enough to simply threaten the king; you also have to make sure there are no ways out.

  The Black king is checkmated. The rook controls the entire eighth rank, while the pawns control the seventh-rank escape squares.

  The Black king is checkmated. The White queen checks and controls all the escape squares except her own, b7, which is controlled by the White king.

  Winning and Losing

  Although checkmate is the goal of a chess game, it is not the only way to end every game. There are at least three other ways to win or lose a game:

  You can win when your opponent runs out of time.

  You can win when your opponent resigns, giving you the game.

  You can win when your opponent fails to show up for a scheduled game, thus forfeiting.

  WINNING WITHOUT CHECKMATE

  In order to run your opponent out of time you have to be using chess clocks, which we’ll discuss later.

  The next way to win without checkmate is the most common of all. Most experienced players don’t wait for checkmate. They can see it coming, often a long way off. So, rather than fight on in a hopeless situation, they will resign the game, which can be done by offering to shake their opponent’s hand or simply saying, “I resign.” Another common gesture of resignation is for the resigning player to tip over his king.

  Finally, there is the dreaded forfeit. This is an unavoidable consequence of large tournaments; nevertheless, nobody likes them. The winner wins because his opponent didn’t show up. The people he advances past with this unearned victory rather resent being beaten out in the standings by someone who didn’t play all his games. And the tournament director has to explain it all and try to make this seeming nonsense make sense. But what else can you do when a player shows up for a game and her opponent doesn’t? So the forfeit has a place in chess and is here to stay.

  HOW NOT TO RESIGN

  A great player once jumped up on top of the table, threw his king across the room, and shouted, “Why must I lose to this idiot?” This is not the recommended way of resigning, however. Nor is the unsportsmanlike trick of picking up and leaving the game while your clock is ticking, thus forcing your opponent to wait until your time runs out in order to record his win.

  NOBODY WINS OR LOSES

  There is another way to end a chess game altogether. It is possible for a chess game to conclude in a draw or a tie, with neither player winning or losing.

  There are various ways to “split the point” (draw or tie). These range from the opponents simply agreeing to end hostilities, to various methods outlined in the rules of chess that cover situations where one player may have an advantage but cannot or will not push that advantage through to a checkmate.

  POINTS FOR A GAME

  In a formal tournament or match, each game is recorded as 1 point for the winner and 0 points for the loser. If the game is a draw, the game is recorded as a 1⁄2 point for each player. Thus two draws are equivalent to a win in a tournament or a match.

  Draw by Agreement

  The simplest form of draw is by agreement. One player offers a draw to his opponent and that player agrees. Anyone can offer a draw at any time during a game, but it is considered bad manners and unsportsmanlike conduct to offer repeatedly after being turned down. During timed games, it is also considered good etiquette to offer a draw on your own time.

  When offered a draw, it is considered courteous to at least acknowledge the offer. You might say, “I’ll think about it” if you’re not ready with an immediate “No!” or “You got it!”

  Stalemate

  This draw is a strange situation. It ends the game, but there is no check. In a stalemate, there is nothing one of the players can do. Although her king is not in check, any move she makes will expose her king to check, and that is not allowed. So a stalemate ends the game.

  With Black to move, the game ends in stalemate. Black has no legal moves available, and is not in check.

  It is a situation that may seem unfair, but that’s only if you are the one who put your opponent’s king in such an impossible position. Perhaps with such a large advantage you could have found a way to herd that lone king into a corner and checkmate him. Thus, allowing a player with a lone king to escape with a stalemate is often nothing more than carelessness.

  On the other hand, if you are the one with the lone king, you might see stalemate as a fantastic opportunity. There have been combinations played where a competitor, sensing trouble, got rid of his remaining pieces in order to bring about a stalemate to end the game in a draw. These types of combinations are available to those who look for them.

  So don’t disdain stalemate; use it as a weapon. After all, half a point is better than none.

  Insufficient Mating Material

  Here’s a case of a well-thought-out rule. Since nobody can produce a checkmate even if both players cooperate in the demise of one, the game is automatically called a draw.

  EASY CASES

  The simplest case is king against king. Next simplest is king and minor piece against king. These situations are automatic, because the players could play moves until the cows come home and nobody could ever produce a checkmate. Notice that positions with pawns do not qualify. A pawn can “promote” into another piece (how this happens is explained in Chapter 3), so there is always sufficient mating material as long as a single pawn is on the board.

  NOT SO EASY

  When we get to king and minor piece against king and minor piece, however, we start getting into some trouble. A king and knight cannot checkmate another king and knight, and a king and bishop cannot checkmate another king with a same-colored bishop. But a king and bishop can checkmate a king and knight or a king with an opposite-colored bishop. And a king and knight can checkmate a king and bishop.

  All these positions are rather obscure, however. Although checkmates are possible in such positions, they cannot be forced. These checkmates require a cooperative opponent. So for all practical purposes, all such positions are generally abandoned as drawn.

  THE LIMITS OF KNIGHTS

  A king and two knights cannot force a lone king into submission. Incredible but true. It takes a rook or queen, or two bishops, or a bishop and knight to force a checkmate on a lone king. Or a lowly pawn, who can promote into a rook or queen and thus create enough checkmating material.

  Three-Position Repetition

  This one is not always completely understood, even by very experienced players. That is because the rule is a bit dry and players have memorized it in a slightly edited form.

  THE RULE

  In the U.S. Chess Federation’s Official Rules of Chess, this rule is actually called Triple occurrence of position. It runs:

  The game is drawn upon a correct claim by a player on the move when the same position is about to appear for at least the third time or has just appeared for at least the third time, the same player being on move each time. In both cases, the position is considered the same if pieces of the same kind and color occupy the same squares and if the possible moves of all the pieces are the same, including the right to castle or to capture a pawn en passant.

  POSITION, NOT MOVES

  Most players think of this rule as repeating the same move three times consecutively. But you will notice that there is no mention of repeating moves or the same position occurring consecutively.

  Most often, this draw comes about by the players repeating moves in order, since that is the easiest way to bring about a repetition of the same position. But it is possible to throw in other moves or to repeat the same position with a different move order, so it’s a good idea to know the rule as it is stated in the rulebook.

  Here is an example of this triple occurrence of position draw:

  White is in trouble, but the Black king is exposed. So White begins to check. The White queen moves to b8 to check. The Black king moves to g7, and the White queen moves to e5 to check again.

  The Black king has to go back to the eighth rank, but he wants to avoid moving to f8, because then the White queen can move to h8 for checkmate. The Black king moves to g8. The White queen then moves to b8 for check. Note that this is the second time this position has occurred.

  The Black king then moves to g7. The White queen checks at e5. The Black king escapes to g8 and the White queen again moves to b8 for check.

  You no doubt recognize this position by now. It is the third time it has occurred, and the game is therefore drawn.

  WHY THE TRIPLE OCCURRENCE DRAW?

  The intention of the triple occurrence of position draw is that the players are only wasting time if they keep coming back to the same position. The player who is trying to win must make some sort of progress toward a checkmate, while the player who is trying to draw merely has to keep repeating the position.

  Fifty-Move Rule

  This rule is intended to prevent players from wasting time by playing random moves that lead nowhere. Under the fifty-move rule, if no pawns are moved and no captures are made in fifty consecutive moves, the game is declared a draw. In this rule, fifty is defined as fifty moves by White and fifty moves by Black, so that is still a lot of moves.

  In a way this is a very exciting time to be a chess player. It has been hundreds of years since the last big changes in the rules began. Today, thanks to the influence of computers, it is possible we may see another set of rule changes.

  CHAPTER 3

  En Passant and Other Special Moves

  You now know how a chess game is conducted, at least in general, the basic moves of the pieces and pawns, and what you’re trying to accomplish. So what’s next? Why, all those pesky exceptions to the rules known as special moves. There are quite a few, so let’s begin.

  Touch Move

  The rule is simple enough: If you touch a piece or pawn, you must then move that piece or pawn. If you have made a move and let go of whatever piece or pawn you moved, your move is completed.

  This rule is sensible and fair—and it is often abused in casual chess. Many players, particularly those who are not very experienced, will notice that something is wrong about a move in the process of making that move or just after making it. Then the temptation to change the move is often hard to resist.

  However, it is simply bad manners to change the move in the process of making it, and even poorer manners to change a move that has already been made. Besides, changing the move is against the rules of chess.

  J’ADOUBE

  There are many foreign terms that have been absorbed into the everyday language of chess, just as foreign terms in music and science have—well, maybe not so many as in science—and in chess, they are treated just like ordinary words. One of these is the French expression J’adoube, which means “I adjust.” It refers to handling the pieces or pawns prior to making a move when you have no intention of moving that piece or pawn. You may want to do this to adjust the pieces so that they are neater, setting in the center of the squares, or you may simply want to pick up a piece that has fallen down and place it on its proper square.

  However, how can your opponent know your intention? If he sees you touch your queen, and he knows that he will win if you move your queen, he may be highly motivated to claim the touch-move rule. But you can circumvent that simply by saying, “J’adoube” (French accent optional) or “I adjust,” the English equivalent. That way, everybody knows you had no intention of moving your queen.

  J’ADOUBE ETIQUETTE

  Say “J’adoube” if you accidentally touch a piece—immediately, if not sooner. If your opponent doesn’t hear “J’adoube” or “I adjust,” how can she know the touch was accidental?

  Promotion

  The basic move of the pawn leaves a rather large hole, which I hope you have at least wondered about. What happens when a pawn reaches the far side of the board and there is nowhere else to go? Since a pawn can’t move sideways or backward, what use is it?

  This is where promotion comes in. Any pawn, upon reaching the farthest possible rank (the eighth rank for White pawns and the first rank for Black pawns) undergoes a metamorphosis. You remove the pawn from the board and replace it with a piece.

  Promotion, by the way, has nothing whatsoever to do with any of the pieces already on the board, or even with any of the pieces captured. A pawn upon promoting theoretically turns into whatever piece you want it to turn into (other than a king).

  Practically speaking, this doesn’t happen, of course. Instead, you must search among captured pieces or get a hold of another set in order to make a second or third queen, for instance. If nothing is available, however, you’ll find a way.

  A NEW QUEEN

  You always have a choice as to which piece you want to turn the pawn into. However, first consider the restrictions: The pawn cannot remain a pawn, and it cannot become a king. Nor can it become an enemy piece (not that you’d even want to make it into one!).

  This choice is most often not thought about at all. The queen is such a powerful piece that almost every pawn that is promoted becomes a queen. In fact, this is often called queening the pawn.

  UNDERPROMOTION

  Nevertheless, there are times when you might not want a queen. In these cases, it’s good to know that the choice is yours. You can also promote to a rook, a bishop, or a knight. As for why you might want to do such a ridiculous-seeming thing, a very simple example will suffice.

  White’s pawn is ready to promote. Should it become a queen?

  Look at the diagram. You are White and it is your move. If you promote the pawn to a queen, your opponent will then checkmate you (by moving her rook to e1) and you will lose. If, however, you underpromote the pawn to a knight, it is checkmate and you win!

  White has decided that greedily promoting to a queen and losing is not the way to go. Underpromotion to a knight produces this checkmate.

  Just keep in mind that the choice is yours every time you promote one of your pawns, and your opponent’s every time she promotes one of hers.

  PROMOTION WITH A CAPTURE

  One of the most spectacular changes you can bring about during a chess game is to capture a piece, let’s say the opponent’s queen, with a pawn while promoting it to a queen. To gain two queens in one move might seem unbelievable, but it is possible.

  En Passant

  Another French term in general use with chess players is en passant. This means “in passing,” and it refers to a particular situation that comes up from time to time. It doesn’t happen in more than one game in ten, perhaps, but it is a rule you should be aware of if you want to play chess or follow the games of others. To understand en passant, you have to go back to the rule about the pawn’s initial two-square option on its first move.

  THE SITUATION

  You are playing the White pieces and have a pawn on g2. You have the option of moving that pawn to g3 or g4. Your opponent has a pawn on f4.

  If you move your pawn to g3, your opponent might decide to capture your pawn with her pawn. Therefore, you decide to exercise your two-squares-forward option and move your pawn to g4.

  But your opponent captures the pawn on g3, just as if you had moved it there!

  This is perfectly legal, and it is a rule you simply have to know about. To repeat, the situation leading up to en passant is:

  A White pawn is on the second rank, unmoved (or a Black pawn is on the seventh rank, unmoved).

  A Black pawn is on an adjacent file on the fourth rank (or a White pawn is on an adjacent file on the fifth rank).