Chess Teaching

When looking at the chess position of the next diagram you may notice that White’s bishop at g2 is able to pin Black’s bishop at e6, but this can’t be called a real pin.

If White plays Bd5 then Black can just capture the bishop. In this specific case 33.Bd5 will probably be followed by 33…Nh3+ 34.Nxh3 Bxd5. But detecting this kind of alignment of pieces is still very important. Most of the time pieces are attacked and defended in order to create a kind of balance. This often enables us to replace a piece of the opponent with another piece. In the position of the diagram White is able to play 33.Nxe6. After 33…Nxe6 Black’s bishop is replace by a knight and now White is able to pin this knight by 34.Bd5. At first sight it may even seem that Black is able to defend this knight by playing 34…Kf7, but this will meet 35.Rce1.

Another example of such a replacement can be found in the next diagram.

The h-pawn is pinned and White is able to capture the rook, but the target piece is only a bishop. After 24.Qxg4 hxg4 25.Rxh6 White has gained nothing at all. If White first tries to replace the pieces by 24.Bxh6 Qxh6 then he can capture the rook 25.Qxg4 and now the target piece of the pin is a queen. After 24.Bxh6 Black doesn’t have to play 24…Qxh6, but then White still has captured the bishop for free.

Tags: Chess lessons.
Categories: Intermediate 3 //