The Everything Chess Basics Book (22 page)

The king often comes out boldly later in the game. When the danger of checkmate is reduced because the enemy doesn’t have many pieces (by then a number have been captured), you can use your king as an added attacking force. Just make sure the danger of checkmate is really significantly reduced!

The Other King

The other part of the first principle is the enemy king. You generally can’t win the game if you can’t checkmate him. But of course most opponents are going to be very annoying about not letting you near their royal leader.

Against a reasonably skilled opponent, you will not be able to put together a quick checkmating attack. So you have to build up your attack, using the other principles to gather your forces for the final blow.

Meanwhile, you have to keep in mind the final target as well as your own king’s defense. It’s a delicate balance, and you’ll be confronted with it throughout any given game.

The Fastest Checkmate

Perhaps you are wondering what is the fastest checkmate. It is referred to as the Fool’s Mate, and it takes a total of two moves! The fool plays White, and the game goes 1. f4 e6 2. g4 Qh4 checkmate.

White used his two moves to expose his king to the maximum, and Black checkmated him.

It takes a little longer for a fool to lose playing Black: 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Ke7 3. Qxe5 checkmate.

Black’s king blocks his own pieces from participating.

Another fast checkmate is called
Scholar’s Mate
: 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Qh5 Nf6 4. Qxf7 checkmate.

The Black king cannot capture the White queen because that would expose him to check from the White bishop on c4.

Greater Force

Look at the checkmates on the previous pages and you can easily see what is meant by greater force. In all of them the poor king got clobbered by an enemy queen. In the first two, the fool opened up lines of attack for the enemy and closed off all retreat or blocking opportunities. In the third checkmate the triumphant queen swooped in with the help of a friendly bishop.

Piece Power

We know the queen is powerful, but just how powerful is she? And how strong are the other pieces and pawns in comparison? In order to compare them all, we need a measuring stick. So let’s take the least powerful of all, the pawn, and use that as our measure. With that in mind, here are all the pieces listed in terms of their average power, expressed in terms of numbers of pawns:

• Knight = 3½

• Bishop = 3½

• Rook = 5

• Queen = 9

• King = infinity

There are several things about this list that may appear surprising or obscure. For instance, how can anything be worth half a pawn? And what is that about infinity?

A rook is generally stronger than a minor piece (a bishop or a knight). This difference is about 1½ pawns’ worth, and is called the
Exchange
. This is not to be confused with the general term
exchange
, which refers to trading one piece for another. Thus you can exchange bishops, or exchange a queen for a rook and knight, but if you trade a rook for a knight you have given up the Exchange.

Unequal Balance

Sometimes this list is represented with the bishops and knights being worth only three pawns. This is not so far wrong, but we get messed up when we take three minor pieces and compare them to the queen. They are significantly stronger than her majesty. And a bishop and knight are generally a bit stronger than a rook and pawn. So the half-pawns are there to make it all come out a bit better.

It’s hard to compare bishops and knights. Knights can cover the entire board eventually, while bishops can cover only half the squares. Yet bishops are long-range pieces and have a lot more immediate power than knights.

Sometimes a bishop is better.

Sometimes a knight is better.

But when you fight with two bishops against two knights or a bishop and a knight, it is usually better to have the bishops. Together they have the long-range power
and
can cover every square on the board.

White is poised to checkmate on g7. Note the power of both bishops.

It’s almost unfair to have this much power.

King Equal to Infinity

But what about the king being equal to infinity? That is in the very nature of chess. You can’t put a value on the king, since he is not subject to capture. Thus all the pieces and pawns together won’t equal his importance. As for his power when there are not many pieces left later in a game, it is something on the order of four pawns.

Greater Force Generally Wins

Greater force generally wins against lesser force. But only generally. In a sacrifice, a player gives up some greater force in order to bring about a concentration of force in a particular area of the board. For an example of a sacrifice, look at the game from Chapter 6. At the end of the game, Morphy gave up his queen for the chance to produce a checkmate.

White plays 16. Qb8+!

Average Power

It is important to remember that these measurements are averages only. Rooks are generally much stronger than pawns, but what about a pawn about to promote to a queen? Bishops are about equal with knights, but what about a bishop locked behind its own pawns with nowhere to go compared with a knight that can hop over the whole board with impunity?

You can think of each piece and its average power as a potential. As long as you keep this in mind, you won’t go too far wrong when exchanging a piece for a supposedly less powerful piece that is doing a lot of damage.

Chess has good bishops and bad bishops. A good bishop is one with open diagonals, many places to go, and pieces and pawns to annoy.