Tuesday, December 5, 2006

chess for dummies

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 A terrible move. 2...f6 does defend the Black e5-pawn, but the f6-pawn is taking the square that the NF6 shoud be using for its development. There are many good moves for white here. Candidate moves: 3.d4, 3.Nc3, 3.Bc4 look good. But white has a very strong move here! 3.Nxe5! fxe5 [3...Qe7 This is better than PxN, but white is still much better after... 4.Nc4 Qxe4+ 5.Ne3 Nc6 6.Nc3 And just what is that pawn doing on f6? White will develop normally here with d4 and Bc4] 4.Qh5+ Normally, we do not want to bring out the queen early, but it's great here! 4...Ke7 [4...g6 5.Qxe5+ Qe7 6.Qxh8 Nf6 7.d3 And white will be able to get his queen out of the corner with Nc3, Be2, and h4-h5] 5.Qxe5+ Kf7 6.Bc4+ Kg6 [6...d5 7.Bxd5+ Kg6 8.h4! wit the threat of h5, driving the king to the dark square on h6 (which would allow d4 CHECK). 8...h5 Qf5 would be mate except for the Bc8, so... (8...h6 9.Bxb7 Bxb7 10.Qf5# ) 9.Bxb7 Black must lose the rook, because 9...Bxb7 10.Qf5+ Kh6 11.d4+ g5 12.Bxg5++- ] 7.Qf5+ Kh6 8.d4+ A nice discovered check, so take the center rather than just d2-d3 8...g5 White has two attacks on g5. Black has two defenses. There are two candidate moves to make the third attack: h4, and f4. Which is your choice? 9.h4! threatening both Bg5+ and hxg5++ 9...Be7 10.hxg5+ Kg7 11.Qf7# *