Chess Teaching Archives

The pin revisited

Before we start with a new lesson about the pin we are going to repeat the four things that we have learned about the pin in our previous lessons:
1. Remember the difference between an absolute and a relative pin.
An absolute pin
Black is not allowed to move the knight on c6.

A relative pin
Black is allowed to [...]

Knight fork exercises

I have created some knight fork exercises. The knight fork is the most common fork, because the way the knight moves makes it more likely that the threat is overlooked.

The evergreen game

The evergreen game is (like the immortal game) another famous chess game from Adolf Anderssen. The game was played against Jean Dufresne in 1852 and can also be found in the ICOFY database that we have used during one of our previous lessons. The name evergreen means something like “Forever Young”.
The whole game can [...]

Finding combinations

Let’s have a look at the next diagram taken from a real game played in 2007. It is White’s turn to move.

Before reading further try to figure this out by yourself.

Smothering the King

In addition to the smothered mate, in which the mated king is unable to move because all the surrounding squares are occupied by his own pieces, there are a lot of mating patterns in which the king is only partly smothered by his own pieces.
Let’s have a look at the next diagram and try to [...]