Chess Teaching Archives

Smothered mate

In a smothered mate the mated king is unable to move because he is surrounded (or smothered) by his own pieces. Therefor a smothered mate can only be delivered by a knight. We have seen an example of a smothered mate before in the lesson about the Blackburne Shilling Gambit.
This lesson deals with the [...]

Fried Liver Attack

The Fried Liver attack is a very nice opening for beginners. It enables a lot of opportunities and is a decent opening unlike the Scholar’s mate attempts that a lot of beginners are playing.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 The two Knights Defence

4.Ng5 This is an immediate attack at Black’s weakest square f7, but White is also moving a piece in the opening twice.
Still it is a rather nice attack and Black has only the move 4…d5 to avoid losing the pawn on f7.

Tarrasch - Allies (1914)

The following game between Tarrash and Allies (Naples, 1914) is one of the most famous and illustrative examples of interfering.

Some very short Scotch games

Learning a chess opening has to include that you know what to do if someone isn’t playing the right moves. Opening traps ans miniatures are very illustrative and help us to increase our knowledge about an opening.
As a follow-up on the lesson about the Scotch game this post will show a combination of some miniatures [...]