A king on an open line, which, however, is not yet in danger of any mating attack, should be regarded as a signal. In this case, we will regard it as the equivalent of an unprotected piece (see signal 2 in the next chapter). Also here, a double attack may be possible, if we give check and attack the unprotected piece at the same time.
A poor position of the king is the greatest possible defect in a position. How do we know in the opening if the king’s position will be safe or not? Well, at first we don’t. But what we do know are many examples of dangerous attacks: when the king is in the centre of the board, there are risks of intrusion by the enemy pieces along the open files. There is also the traditional weakness of the f 7-square – the f2-square in White’s case.
Kennedy
NN
The starting position is unusual, but in the nineteenth century, handicap games were almost the rule. Morphy, for example, used to play with the handicap of a pawn, a knight, or a tempo, and when he came back from his glorious trip in Europe, he refused to play on equal terms with any opponent any more, only accepting handicap games. Sometimes, the ‘handicap’ can prove to be an advantage, notably when a knight is missing. The rook can be brought into play more quickly!
1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d4 Nxe4 4.dxe5 Nxf2
4…Qh4! 5.0-0 Bc5 was better.
5.0-0!?
5.Kxf2 Qh4+ was what Black had hoped for; 5.Qd5.
5…Nxd1
A good appetite! 5…d5 was safer: 6.Qxd5 Qxd5 7.Bxd5 Ng4 8.Bxf7+ Kd8 and Black is much better – though not as much as at the beginning of the game!
6.Bxf7+Ke7 7.Bg5#
Alekhine (see the introduction to his 200 Selected Games) considered castling to be a necessary developing move, which enables one to play with all his men, and particularly with his rooks. From a purely defensive point of view, the king might be safer in the centre than in a corner. Attackers have developed all kinds of techniques to attack it, and there’s always the risk of the famous back-rank mate, the most frequent at all levels of play.
Let’s see a ‘more recent’ game:
Schulder
Boden,Samuel Standidge
London 1860
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.c3 f5 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.d4 fxe4 6.dxe5 exf3
7.exf6 Qxf6 8.gxf3 Nc6 9.f4 Bd7 10.Be3 0-0-0 11.Nd2 Re8 12.Qf3 Bf5 13.0-0-0 d5! 14.Bxd5
White’s queenside-castled king is quite exposed here, as Black’s light-squared bishop on f5 has an open diagonal and the last available square for the king is occupied by the knight on d2. All of this means that the king has no squares to move to if it gets under attack. The rest is well-known:
14…Qxc3+ 15.bxc3 Ba3#
This is the famous Boden’s Mate. The reader should know all the classical mating patterns by heart (see the Introduction to Part II on page 71), so that he will be able to spot them by anticipation, before the position might allow their realization. Here’s why you should learn them:
Kudischewitsch,David
Neiman,Emmanuel
Tel Aviv 2002 (9)
1.d4 d5 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bh4 c6 4.c3 Bf5 5.Qb3 Qb6 6.Nd2 Nd7 7.f3 Ngf6 8.g4 Bh7 9.Bg3 e6 10.Bg2 Be7 11.h3 c5 12.e3 cxd4 13.Qxb6 Nxb6 14.exd4
After this curious opening sequence by White, Black can win a pawn by force. Can you see how?
14…Na4!
Attacking the b2-pawn.
15.0-0-0 Nxc3! 16.bxc3 Ba3#
‘à la Boden’! In the game White kept his king alive, but after 15.Ne2 Nxb2, the c3- and d4-pawns soon fell as well.
How do we detect such a motif? We must look for possible mating chances.
Mating chances
Gligoric,Svetozar
Rosenstein,Julis
Chicago 1963
Black’s king position is not satisfactory, for several reasons. The king is blocking its own rook, so Black’s piece connection is very poor. Notice also the poor position of the d8-knight, which restricts the other rook.
But the most crucial point is this one: there is a mate if the white rook reaches e8. This is how we have to think: look for a possible mate. Here is the position that the experienced attacker will see in his mind’s eye:
We have received the signal. This is the first and most important point. We can now examine the forced continuations that may allow the mate to come on the board. The mate on e8 is defended by the bishop on e7 and the queen on d7. So the solution is clear. We have to try to remove these two pieces by any means: elimination, deflection, decoy, pin, etc. (see Standard Combination Themes, page 71). We begin by looking at checks.
1.Qxe7+!Qxe7
Now there’s only one obstacle left: the queen. We might take it; this is good enough by the way, but not the strongest, because the black king would get some breathing space on d7.
Another idea is to deflect the black queen from the defence of e8, and we can do so with
2.Bd6!
Making use of the pin.
2…Qxd6
Black would be lost after all other moves, because he cannot defend the queen.
3.Re8#
This final position is the one we looked for at the beginning of our exercise: mate one8.
This example was quite straightforward, and Black’s position was so bad that we could have chosen it to illustrate another motif, for example ‘lack of coordination’ (Chapter 7, see page 62).
Let us look at a more difficult example:
Rossolimo,Nicolas
NN
Paris 1944
The position is approximately equal from a materialistic point of view (an exchange for White against two pawns for Black). But Black’s king is dangerously surrounded by the white pieces and the strong pawn on e5.
On the other hand, the white pawn centre (c3-d4-e5) is under threat, and it could vanish on the next move after 1…Nxe5 or 1…cxd4. So White should act quickly, in order to benefit from his provisionary space advantage.
This is the general approach. More concretely put: what mating pattern should we look for?
The position of the e4-knight and the gl-rook should immediately make us think about the following situation:
When an experienced player sees such a position, he immediately spots the following mating pattern with rook and knight, called Arabian or Arabic Mate:
1.Nf6+ Kh8 2.Rg8#
So in our initial position, without the g7-pawn, it would be mate in two. Here we have our signal, and now we must look for a way to respond to it.
An idea would be to play 1.Qxh6+ in order to force 1 …gxh6 and so reach the desired pattern. But the knight on f5 also controls the h6-square. So we start by examining:
1.Rxf5!
Eliminating the defender while clearing the diagonal of the queen.
1…exf5 2.Qxh6+!
Trying to deflect the g7-pawn, or to extract the black king, in order to mate him along our open lines.
2…Kxh6 3.Rh1+ Kg6
Now we have only few attackers left, so it is easier to look for mating chances! Here the black king has no squares, but how to give check to it?
Our hero will be the e2-bishop, which would give mate in 2 if it was allowed to go to h5. Here a strong player dreams of the following situation:
A type of back-rank mate is achieved after two moves:
1.Bh5+ Kh7 2.Bxf7#
Or 1…Kh6 2.Bxf7#.
Let’s move the king forward to threaten our second intended mating pattern:
4.Kf4!
Now Black can only hope for an interception along the h-file, after the king has moved to h7.
4…Qe6
Here the Bh5 check is playable, but unclear, and we must look for another forced variation. The king still being ‘stalemated’ (no available squares), can’t we find a direct mating threat?
5.Rh8!
(5.Bh5+ Kh7 6.Bxf7+ Qh6) and there is no more defence to the mate on h5.
Quite a piece of calculation! I remember that at the beginning of our century, the strongest program (it was probably Fritz 3) was unable to find it on an average computer. Yet a strong gra
ndmaster spots it very quickly, because he will be looking for it. The mating pattern being known, he immediately tries to realize it, and calculates the sacrifice on h6 after the preliminary Rxf5. The rest is accurate calculation, not easy but quite forced.
What are the mating patterns? (1)
Rogers,Ian
Ris,Robert
Gibraltar Masters 2007
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Qb3 dxc4 6.Qxc4 b5 7.Qd3 Bb7 8.e4 b4 9.Na4 Nbd7 10.e5 Nd5 11.Be2 Be7 12.0-0 Rc8 13.Bd2 c5 14.Rfc1 a6 15.Nxc5 Nxc5 16.dxc5 Bxc5 17.Ng5 Qb6 18.Qg3 Ne7 19.Bd3 Rd8 20.Be1 h6 21.Ne4 Nf5 22.Nd6+ Bxd6 23.Bxf5 0-0 24.exd6 exf5 25.Rd1 Rfe8 26.Qf4 Re4 27.Qxf5 Rxd6 28.Rxd6 Qxd6 29.Rc1
In this position we can easily picture a first possible mating pattern for Black: the back-rank mate.
Is there another possible mating pattern? If you look at the bishop on b7, you can hope for a mate with the black queen on g2.
Even if this checkmate looks far away, it is not impossible, if White lets us install the queen on the long diagonal. Why should he? Maybe because he has other problems to deal with, like the back-rank mate.
So the best move here is the charming 1…Qc6!.
Black threatens both to directly take the rook (2…Qxcl), and to give checkmate in two moves on the long diagonal (2…Rxe1+ followed by 3…Qxg2). There is no defence, apart from giving the queen.
What are the mating patterns? (2)
Both sides’ pieces seem to be packed in two units – two on the queenside, and four on the kingside. Black’s initiative looks very dangerous, especially thanks to the poor position of the white king, shut up by its own defenders.
What patterns can we look for? The first one is obvious, and nearly winning by itself: a smothered mate with …Ng3 looks possible to engineer, because the only defender, the queen on f2, might be deflected from its defensive duty.
Yet, instead of looking immediately for a winning tactic, we should delve a little deeper, and look for another mating possibility. Can you see one?
If the queens weren’t on the board, we would have the possibility of a knight sacrifice on g3, and a kind of ‘back-rank mate’ along the h-file with the rook. Have you seen this possibility?
You are approaching the right solution. There is a third possible mate:
1…Ng3+!
Against 1…Qe3 (1…f4 is too slow, as White can defend with 2.h3) the accurate 2.Ndl! defends, because after retaking the queen on f2, the knight is able to reach the h3-square, thus saving the king (however, 2.Qxe3 loses after 2…Ng3+ 3.hxg3 and here not 3…Rh6+? which fails to 4.Qxh6, but 3…f4! enables Black to force the mate).
On 1…Qd2 2.Be2 (2.Qxd2 Ng3+ 3.hxg3 f4! and the mate cannot be averted) 2…Qxb2 Black is better, but the game is still quite unclear after 3.Rc4.
2.Qxg3f4 3.Qe1
Now the killer is the brutal
3…Qxh2+
4.Kxh2 Rh 6+ 5.Qh4 Rxh4#.
Chapter 2
Unprotected Pieces
An unprotected piece or square creates the possibility to attack something, like giving check, threatening mate or attacking a piece. This constitutes our second signal.
It must be possible to attack the unprotected piece. For example, at the beginning of the game, the rooks are unprotected, but this does not matter because they are not subject to attack. On the other hand, as soon as we are playing a pawn (b- or g-) in order to fianchetto a bishop, the opening of the diagonal might be dangerous for the rook, and we have to be able to deal with it.
So an unprotected piece is a piece without protection that is placed on a square that the opponent might attack (on an open line, or at a knight’s distance). Here is a basic example.
Filipovic,Braiiko
De Filomeno,Simone
Biel 2010 (4)
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 4.0-0 Bg7 5.Nc3 Nd4 6.Nxd4 cxd4 7.Nd5
7.Ne2 was better, with equality.
7…e6 8.Nf4
White now has two unprotected men: the bishop on b5 and the knight on f4. How did Black win one?
8…Qg5!
And Black won.
A double attack is the usual punishment for keeping your pieces unprotected. And the queen is most often the executioner, thanks to its unique mobility, and its capacity to attack all parts of the board in various directions.
A piece is also unprotected and subject to attack if it is attacked by an enemy piece and protected by one of its own – then a new attack will be a direct threat.
Double Weakness
Savic,Miodrag
Miljkovic,Miroslav
Neum tt 2011 (7.1)
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.c3 Nf6 4.Bd3 d5 5.e5 Nfd7 6.Bc2 b6 7.0-0 Ba6 8.Re1 Nc6 9.d4 Rc8 10.a3 Be7 11.Be3 Qc7 12.Ba4 b5 13.Bb3 cxd4 14.cxd4 Na5 15.Nc3 Nxb3 16.Qxb3 Qb7 17.Bg5 Bxg5 18.Nxg5 h6 19.Nh3 Rc4 20.Ne2 b4 21.Nhf4 0-0 22.Nh5 g6 23.Nf6+ Nxf6 24.exf6 bxa3
Another important way to take advantage of an unprotected point is the ‘intermediate’ move, or ‘in-between’ move. Attacking an unprotected point will allow us to provoke some favourable change in the position. Here the bishop on a6 is potentially attacked once by the al-rook and defended once by the queen. Another undefended point is h6.
25.Qh3!+−
The threat of the queen entering on h6, with unavoidable mate, forces the king to protect the pawn. Hence the final double attack is prepared by an intermediate move that attacks a third object.
25…Kh7
If 25…h5, then the intermediate move 26.Qe3! forces the king to abandon the defence of the f8-rook: 26…Kh7 27.Qxa3+−.
Now we deal with one unprotected piece (the rook on f8) and one insufficiently protected piece (the a6-bishop). The winning double attack is
26.Qxa3+−
There followed a bid for a counterattack:
26…Rb8 27.Qxa6 Qxa6 28.Rxa6 Rxb2
Threatening to take on e2, with a back-rank mate to follow…
29.h4 and White won.
The possibility of a check on a protected square is equivalent to an unprotected piece with the opponent.
Double weakness
Caruana,Fabiano
Vachier-Lagrave,Maxime
Biel 2011 (1)
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 h6 8.Bh4 Qb6 9.a3 Nbd7 10.Bc4 g5 11.Bf2 Qc7 12.Qe2 Nb6 13.Bb3 gxf4 14.0-0-0 Be7 15.Rhe1 Rg8 16.g3 fxg3 17.Bxg3 e5 18.Nf5 Bxf5 19.exf5 Rg7 20.Kb1 0-0-0 21.Bf2 Rd7 22.Bxb6 Qxb6
How did White win a pawn, using a double attack?
Firstly, we can see that the black king is located on an open file, which makes a check on c4 possible. Secondly, there’s another weakness in Black’s position: the f7-pawn, defended by the rook and attacked by the bishop.
So White can win the pawn with
23.Bxf7! Rxf7? 24.Qc4+
The double attack wins the rook, and White is better. In the actual game, Black did not take the bishop and managed to draw from this bad position.
A threat to give mate is also equivalent to an unprotected piece: a double attack might be possible (threatening mate while attacking a piece at the other side), or an intermediate move that allows you to relocate a piece to a favourable position. For example, in the following game:
Rivera,Diego
Fischer,Robert James
Varna ol 1962 (9)
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 d5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c5 7.Bd3 dxc4 8.Bxc4 Qc7 9.Bb3 b6 10.Ne2 0-0 11.Bb2 Nc6 12.0-0 Na5 13.Ng3 Bb7 14.Rc1
Let’s look at White’s weaknesses here. First we should notice that both his bishops are located on unpleasant positions, one being unprotected (the b2-bishop) and the other one being attacked by the knight and defended by the queen, which is the equivalent of an unprotected piece.
Apparently, the bishops are safe because they are not positioned on an open file. But Fischer shows that this is not really the case, thanks to an intermediate move that threatens mate. This virtually allows the queen to make two consecutive moves.
The third motif is the weakness on g2, attacked by the bishop and only defended by the king. So a piece
is won after
14…Qc6! 15.f3 Qb5
A simple, yet beautiful concept.
16.Ba4 Qxb2
0-1
Chapter 3
Alignment
Pin, skewer, discovered attack, line opening – nearly all the basic themes in tactics relate to the fact that several pieces (friendly or enemy) are on the same line (vertical, horizontal or diagonal). So we deal with a crucial signal here, which we should consider carefully during phase 2 of our thinking process (analysis).
Pins
Alexandrov,Alexey
Vaisser,Anatoly
Aix-les-Bains Ech 2011 (2)
1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bf4 0-0 6.a3 b6 7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.Nxd5 Qxd5 9.Bxc7 Nc6 10.e3 Bb7 11.Be2 Rac8 12.Bg3 Na5 13.0-0 Qb3 14.Qb1 Nc4 15.Bxc4 Qxc4 16.Rd1 Qb3 17.Ne1 h6 18.Rd3 Qb5 19.Qd1 Ba6 20.Rb1 Rc4 21.h3 Rfc8 22.Rd2 Qc6 23.f3 Bg5 24.Bf2 Qd6 25.Nd3 Bf6 26.Qe1 Bb5 27.Bg3 Qd8 28.Qf2
We can notice one big defect in White’s position: the queen is on the same diagonal (a7-g1) as the king. Once we have established this, the winning combination is not surprising.
28…Rxd4!
Two pins are now on the cards: the possible pin of king and queen, and the pin of the d3-knight against its rook on d2. White has to give up material.
29.exd4 Bxd4
and Black won the game a few moves later. The combination of the two different pins turned out too much for Black.
Giri,Anish
Spoelman,Wouter
Boxtel ch-NED 2011 (9)
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 e6 4.e3 Nf6 5.Nf3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.Bd3 0-0 8.0-0 dxc4 9.Bxc4 a6 10.Rd1 b5 11.Bd3 Qc7 12.Bd2 c5 13.Ne4 c4 14.Nxd6 Qxd6 15.Be2 Bb7 16.b3 Rfc8 17.bxc4 Be4 18.Qc3 bxc4 19.Qa5 Rab8 20.Ne5 Bd5 21.Nxd7 Nxd7 22.f3 Rb5 23.Qc3 f5 24.Rdc1 Nb6 25.a4 Rb3 26.Qa5 Nd7 27.Bd1 Rb7 28.Be1 e5 29.Bg3 Qe6 30.dxe5 Nc5 31.Rab1 Rxb1 32.Rxb1 Nb3 33.Qc3 Bc6
Tune Your Chess Tactics Antenna Page 3
