The Everything Chess Basics Book (26 page)

Manageable Look-Ahead

By using forcing moves you put your opponent in a quandary. He no longer has the usual forty or so moves to choose from. He must restrict himself to the available moves that get him out of whatever fix you have put him in. That may be as little as two or three moves he will have to choose between. That will certainly make preparing your reply to either of two or three moves by your opponent more possible! Keeping five to ten possible moves in mind may not be easy, but it sure is a lot more possible than trying to keep up with 500 to 1,000 possible moves!

If your opponent isn’t very experienced, he might not know that your move was forcing. In that case, you won’t do so well in predicting his moves, but that will present no special problem because you were counting on good moves from your opponent. If a poor move comes in its place, all the better.

Other Threats

A check is a direct threat to the king. Any move that threatens to capture a piece or a pawn next turn can have a similar effect. If your opponent does not want to lose that piece or pawn, she will have to meet the threat in some way.

White threatens to capture the undefended bishop on b4.

A threat to promote a pawn is also a great way to cut down on your opponent’s possible replies. Since a pawn promotion generally means trading a pawn for a queen, this can usually not be ignored.

There are still other threats that, while not so dramatic as threats to capture or promote, can still be used to cut down on your opponent’s possibilities. These include threats to double or isolate the enemy pawns or a threat to get a knight to a fine outpost square. You can threaten to control the center or to bring more pieces in play than your opponent has available.

Recognizing threats is essential to good chess play. Whether it is a queen or a key square under fire or the possibility of getting one of your pieces tied up in defense, you can’t do anything about a threat if you don’t know it is there.

White threatens to destroy the Black king’s protection by 1. Bxf6.

Anything that helps your position or hurts your opponent’s position or both is generally worth threatening.

How to Meet a Threat

A threat to capture something can be viewed as something like a minor check. As such there are five possible ways to meet a threat to capture something other than a king. The first three are already familiar:

1. Capture the threatening piece or pawn.

The threat is 2. Bxf6. Take care of it by playing 1. ... Rxg5.

2. Block the path of the long-range attacker.

Black’s queen is threatened. Block the path of the b5-bishop with 1. ... c6.

3. Move the threatened piece or pawn.

Black’s knight is threatened. Move it to a safe square, such as 1. ... Nd7.

When moving a threatened piece or pawn, take particular care that the new square is indeed a safe one. It won’t help to go from the frying pan into the fire.

These are the very same devices we use to get out of check. But when the object of the threat is not a king, two other ways to deal with it pop up:

4. Defend the threatened piece or pawn.

Defend the threatened knight with 1. ... d6. If White captures with 2. Bxc5, Black simply recaptures with 2. ... dxc5.

5. Ignore the threat.

The g3-bishop is under attack, but White ignores it and attacks with 1. Ba6+ Kb8 2. Nc6+ Ka8 3. Nxd8. Black’s f7-bishop and d7-knight are now under attack.

Defend

This is something you can’t even think of doing when your king is under attack. But anything else can be defended by setting up a possible recapture. All right, so your knight is captured. As long as you get equivalent value, no harm is done. If the attacking piece is a bishop, you will wind up with a fair exchange after the captures are made.

The same goes if your queen is the piece under attack. As long as you can get your opponent’s queen or some equivalent value (two rooks, two minor pieces and two pawns, etc.) you will have defended the threat successfully.