A Beginner's Guide, Part 3, Winning

The goal of chess can be a bit confusing for a beginner.

Basically, the goal of chess is to capture the opponent's King. Sort of.

In the old days, meaning 500-700, this was the goal of chess, or rather, of the early forms of chess. Around 700-800, however, new rules were introduced to make the game more interesting. Hence, Check and Checkmate were developed.

The idea of Check is that if an opponent's King is in danger of being captured, you say Check, informing your opponent of this danger. He then knows that he should move his King, otherwise you will capture it and the game will end. This is basically a courtesy you give to your opponent so that a good and interesting game is not ended prematurely by a foolish blunder.

Eventually, this courtesy was changed into a rule of the game. Now a days, it is illegal for your opponent not to parry the threat against his King. If your opponent does not parry the threat, you do not capture his King and win the game. Instead, you inform your opponent of his illegal move, go back, and he has to make a legal move.

Looking at my Chess Tactic of the Day #3, find the move Ng6+. When the Knight moves to g6, it is attacking the King. Thus, the King is in check and must somehow parry the threat of the Knight. In this position, the only way to parry this threat is to move the King, so the Black King must move.

The Black King cannot move into Check, and so his only legal moves are f5 and g5. He cannot move to e3, e4, or e5 because the Queen is threatening those squares. Similarly, he cannot move to g3 because the Queen is threatening this square. The Bishop is threatening the f3 and g4 squares, so the King cannot move there.

This is how Check works. The King is threatened by another piece, and your opponent must protect his King. He can move his King to an unthreatened square, he can capture the piece that is threatening him, or he can block the threat with another one of his pieces. Dont get hung up on these three things just yet.

Following from this, then, is the idea of checkmate. This is occurs when your opponent's King is in check, ie, in danger of being captured, but he is unable to parry the threat against his King.



This position occurs if Black decides to parry the threat against his King by moving to the f5 square. In this position, it is White's move and he can checkmate Black's King. White checkmates Black's King by playing Qe5#.



First, notice how the Black King cannot capture the White Queen. The Queen is protected by the Knight. Thus, Black cannot parry the threat against his King by capturing the attacker. Second, notice that White's King is defending the White Knight, so Black cannot capture the Knight.

Black must move to get away from the Queen's threat. The problem for him is that he cannot move to a safe square. Black cannot move his King to e6 or e4, as the Queen is threatening those squares. Similarly, the Queen is threatening g5 square. Both White's Queen and Knight are threatening the f4 square. Both White's King and White's Queen are threatening the f6 square. Finally, White's Bishop is threatening the g4 square.

White has threatened all of the squares the Black King can move to, and Black cannot capture the Queen that is threatening his King. Finally, Black has no way of blocking the Queen's attack against his King. Black's King is in check, and he has no way to parry the threat. Thus, Black is checkmated.

Lets go back a second and see what happens if Black had moved his King to g5, instead of f5.



In this position, White can still checkmate the Black king. White can do this by playing Qa5#. White can also checkmate the Black King by playing Qe5#, but lets look at Qa5# this time instead.



Here, again, we can see that the Black king is under attack by the White Queen. The Queen is too far away for Black to even consider capturing. Black has no pieces left that he could otherwise move between the Queen and his King. So, he cannot block the Queen's attack against his King. Thus, once again, Black's only choice is to try and move his King.

However, he has no safe squares to move to. The Knight is still protected by the White King. The White King is also threatening the f6 and h6 squares, so Black's King cannot move there. The White bishop is threatening the g4 square. White's Queen is threatening f5 and h5. Finally, White's Knight is threatening the f4 and h4 squares.

Notice in this checkmate position how each of the pieces has a job, and how well the pieces work together with each other. That is a bit more advanced concept, but spotting this type of harmony between the pieces is always helpful!

One last thing with this position, look how things both change and do not change if Black has an extra piece.



I have added a Black Rook to the position. Here, Black can parry the Queen's threat against his King by playing Rd5. This prevents checkmate, but unfortunately for Black, it only prevents it for one move. White can play Qxd5, and the position is effectively the same as it was with the Queen on a5. Black cannot parry the threat again, and so he is still checkmated.

This position doesnt look all that realistic, though, does it? Chances are, very few of your games will ever reach this position. However, solving these types of tactics can help you get a grasp on piece harmony.

Lets look at one more example though, and this time we will look at something a bit more realistic. This game was played by an interesting massive lego/robot chess board!



Hopefully, if your games look like this you are playing Black! I am going to ignore the opening and skip to move 7.



White's King is under attack by Black's Bishop on f2. The King cannot capture the Bishop, because it is defended by Black's Knight on e4. The King cannot move a piece between the Bishop and his King, because the Bishop is right next to the King. Thus, the King must move.

The King cannot move to the f1 or d1 squares, because his Queen and Bishop are already there. He cannot move to the d2 square, because the Black Knight is threatening that square. His only other remaining square is e2, and so the King must move to e2.



Now, Black's other Bishop is attacking the King. The King cannot capture the Light Squared Bishop on g4 because it is too far away. White is unable to move a piece to the f3 square. If he could, this would parry the threat and he would not be checkmated. White's only other option is to move his King.

His King cannot capture the Dark Squared Bishop on f2, because as noted before, Black's Knight on e4 is defending it. He cannot move to f1 or d1 because his Bishop and Queen are still there. Similarly, he cannot move to d3 because his Pawn is there. He cannot move back to e1 or to e3 because Black's Dark Squared Bishop on f2 is threatening those squares. He cannot move to d2, because Black's Knight on e4 is still threatening that square. Finally, he cannot move to f3, as Black's Light Squared Bishop on g4 is threatening this square.

If you are having difficulty following all this d2, f3, e4 chess notation, that is fine. Just look at the diagram, and try and find all the ways the Black pieces are preventing the White King from escaping checkmate. You can always name the squares later; for now it is good just to see how Black controls them!

Indeed, Black is controlling all the squares around White's King. White cannot move his King, and his King is in check. Therefore, White is checkmated, and Black has won the game.

As a beginner, all the different squares and possibilities for the opponent's King is probably overwhelming. For most beginner games, though, checkmate is achieved in less complicated ways. Here is an example of a simpler checkmate.



This is a fairly common and simple way to achieve checkmate. Black simply has his Rook and Queen take away all the squares along the 1st and 2nd ranks, and the White King has no where to go.



Here is another simple way for Black to checkmate White's King. Black's King defends the Black Queen. The Black Queen attacks the White King while the White King is on the edge of the board, and Black has achieved checkmate.

Checkmates can be achieved in all kinds of interesting ways. At first, you will probably try and achieve these last two simple checkmates. After a while, though, you may try and get more complicated checkmates like the one from Monster Chess.