Do yo“Chess teaches foresight, by having to plan ahead; vigilance, by having to keep watch over the whole chess board; caution, by having to restrain ourselves from making hasty moves; and finally we learn from chess the greatest maxim in life – that even when everything seems to be going badly for us we should not lose heart, but always hoping for a change for the better, steadfastly continue searching for the solutions to our problems.” /Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
PREVIOUS LESSON RECAP ON CHESS RULES:
Promotion in chess is a rule that requires a pawn that reaches the eighth rank to be replaced by the player's choice of a bishop, knight, rook, or queen of the same color. The new piece replaces the pawn on the same move. The player cannot convert the pawn to another king nor another pawn. The choice of the new piece is not limited to pieces previously captured, thus promotion can result in a player owning, for example, two or more queens despite starting the game with one. Pawn promotion, or the threat of it, often decides the result in an endgame. Since the queen is the most powerful piece, the vast majority of promotions are to a queen. Promotion to a queen is also called queening; promotion to any other piece is referred to as underpromotion.
If the promoted piece is not physically available, FIDE rules state that the player must stop the game clock and summon the arbiter for the correct piece. Under US Chess Federation rules and in casual play, an upside-down rook may be used to designate a queen.
LESSON OF THE DAY: SQUARE OF THE PAWN
1.What is the “square of the pawn”: chess concept used in endgames. It is an “imaginary” square that the opposing king must get into in order to win the foot rate with a passed pawn hat is trying to promote.
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Consider the position to the right:
Can White promote its pawn before the King
reaches b8?
Square of the Pawn Puzzles:
1.King vs. Lone Passed Pawn.
2. Passed Pawn vs. two Protected Pawns
3. Two Passed Pawns vs. two Protected pawns
Checkmate Patterns: Back Rank Mate: Definition of Ranks vs. Files. White Pawns start on the 2nd Rank and promote to Queens on the 8th rank. The first rank is called a back rank. A back rant checkmate occurs when the king is on the back rank, trapped by his own pawns that prevent him from escaping to the second rank in the event of a check.
White to move and deliver checkmate.
Checkmate Patterns: Smothered (to cover someone/something) Mate.
The smothered mate does not occur as frequently as the back rank mate but it is common enough to have its own name. It involved 2 or more moves for one of the players to deliver checkmate. It is called “smothered” because the King is trapped by its own pieces and cannot escape.
White to move and deliver checkmate
in 2 moves.
Checkmate Patterns: Find the Mate in 1 Move (White to Move each time):
Immortal Chess Game
Lev Polugaevsky vs. Rashid Nezhmetdinov
“Nezhmet Kismet” 18th RSFSR (1958), Sochi, URS
Old Indian Defense, Ukranian Variation