Topic 24 (Intermediate)
– How to Checkmate Your Opponent (Game Analysis 3)
This Topic will teach you
that one crucial bit of Kung-Fu you’ve been lacking: how to checkmate your
opponent. Checkmating your opponent is something you ought to do every chance you
can.
Let’s start off with:
Chapter 1: Common Checkmates You Usually Miss
It will perhaps be better if
you learn the checkmate on your own, instead of just reading it. So pretend you
are white. Checkmate the black king within 10 seconds in each position below:
#1
White to checkmate black in
10 seconds
#2
Better checkmate black fast!
#3
10 seconds.
#4
White to
mate in 10. Easy
one.
#5
Trickier.
#6
‘nother easy one.
CHALLENGE PROBLEM
Mate black in 25 seconds.
The first person to solve and
post the answers to these 6+1 puzzles in the Shizmoo.com Strategy Forum will
win a surprising prize!
Chapter 2: Devilant Analyzes
a Game
This game is a bit different
from the previous ones because I got totally schooled. Normally that would be
difficult for me to admit but it’s okay because I used
my awesome checkmating abilities to conjure a win out of thin air in this one.
Hopefully you will learn something from it.
Kung Fu Chess Rated Game June 12, 2003
ZeWatcher v. Devilant
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 8 seconds
The first thing you should
note here is that 8 seconds in, I’ve already finished my opening, while Zewatcher has barely moved any of his pieces! He played e4 right away, and then sat around
for 7-8 seconds to see what I was up to before he did anything else. You can tell this game influenced my opening
strategy, as this is basically the exact approach I recommended in Topic 3:
Basic Openings a few months later.
Anyways… he’s a pretty good player and he just sat around for 8 seconds
planning his opening based on what I did—so a good thing to analyze would be the
opening he came up with, eh?
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 12 seconds
You can tell Zewatcher really wanted to play his bishop to f4 as soon as
he saw my pawns on c5, d6, and e6 because the second move he played in the game
was that pawn to h4, protecting against a possible g5.
That h pawn was the first thing Zewatcher
played after he saw my opening. The
idea (I suppose) was to allow his bishop to safely move to f4 in case I
moved my pawn to g5.
So why is that bishop move a
top priority? I don’t really know. If
anyone has a better answer than what I say here, please let me know because it
really doesn’t seem very threatening…
That bishop is attacking my weak pawn on d6, and also
guarding e5, where I would love to place my knight.
Maybe the goal is to stop me
from controlling the e5 square. I guess had I moved my knight to e5, Ze would’ve snagged it with his bishop right quick. Anyways, during the game I decided the bishop
was a threat, and I chose to chase it away with my pawn…
ZeWatcher vs. Devilant 14 seconds
NOOOOOOO! If you’ve been reading my guide at all, you
know why I think this is a bad move. Just terrible. This game is a perfect example of why you
shouldn’t structure your pawns this way. Maybe this is the idea behind Bf4—to
goad me into playing e5?
Anyhow, despite that h4 pawn,
g5 is a much better choice for attacking the bishop:
If he takes it, I respond
like so and I think I’m in fine shape:
So, back to the game:
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 24 seconds
My pawn move to e5 has
another downside: I’ve opened up a long diagonal for ZeWatcher
to control with his bishop on h3.
Sweet! Also, I’m running into the
same problem as the poor guy playing black in the Topic 3 example: thanks to my pawn structure, I have no way to
attack. You can see I’m trying some
feeble non-threatening stuff like knight to a5 and later b5. That’s a great move—I’m threatening
absolutely nothing. I can’t attack with
something like f5, h5, Bf6 because that just loses a pawn for nothing:
Or
something similar. If I want to try an attack like this, I need
to wait until ZeWatcher can’t counter as shown.
So I’m just a sitting duck
now. How does white begin his attack?
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 39 seconds
Ze advances on both sides of the board at once—an
excellent example of how to use your pawns.
Let’s consider the attack on the right first. What happens if I just capture?
Ze would probably recapture with his rook, and
concentrate all his firepower on my resulting weak, isolated h pawn:
This is really bad for
me. Ze can
bring his knights and the g pawn into the attack here also. I’m going to lose my h pawn. See my Topic on pawns for more examples of this
sort of thing.
So capturing the pawn is
out. How about just pushing it?
I don’t particularly like
this either. I’ve just created another
hole in my pawn structure, my dark squared bishop is now totally blocked in by
my own pawns, and my h pawn is once again weak.
Pushing the pawn would work much better if I hadn’t played my pawn to e5
earlier. In the game, I ended up just letting Ze
capture my g pawn, but this actually led me into trouble because of Ze’s attack on the other side of the board.
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 52 seconds
I retreated
my knight and bishop (they weren’t threatening anything anyways), but I needed
to capture his b pawn here, because (as happened in the game) if I don’t, he
can capture my c pawn:
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 60 seconds
After recapturing, my e pawn
is all by itself in the center of the board!
Yikes. It’s only a matter of time
before I lose it now. In fact, my pawn
structure is completely shot—my pawn on c5 is defended only by the queen and
the pawn on e5 is isolated. Ze, on the other hand,
has a strong group of 5 central pawns.
Ze’s plan now is to swing his knight from e2->c1->b3
and then capture my c5 pawn with the bishop.
I know I’m in serious
trouble, so I try a desperate attack:
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 74 seconds
The idea here is very
simple. I am hoping to simply win the
bishop. If he panics and dodges the
bishop to f3, I just take it with my rook.
If he dodges correctly to h3 (as he did in the game), I haven’t lost
anything because I’ve positioned my rook on the open f-column. If Ze captures my
bishop and defends with his f pawn, I have the counter already in place and
I’ll win a pawn:
This is actually a pretty crafty
unreliable move; I don’t care if he dodges my attack! (see
Topic 23: Unreliable moves).
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 80 seconds
Of course, it’s no longer a
good move if I block my own rook from attacking the f pawn, right? Right, but it’s not as simple as you might
think. In the game, Zewatcher
still lost his f pawn!
ZeWatcher seized the opportunity and advanced his f pawn. It will recharge before my rook can capture
it. However, ZeWatcher
needed to play this move to keep his pawn:
This rook move forces me to
capture the bishop before my rook captures on f3. Since ZeWatcher
didn’t play this move, I was able to attack the f3 pawn, and wait to take the
bishop with my h pawn until the rook captured on f3!
Even though white’s f3 pawn is recharged, it doesn’t
save his bishop because black waits until the rook arrives before he grabs the
bishop! White must play Rxh5 to
force the pawn to take the bishop earlier.
I haven’t mentioned my knight
move to d4 yet—this was simply a mistake. My intent, I assume, was to block his bishop
from attacking my c pawn. Ze was threatening to capture my c pawn with his bishop,
defending with a knight on b3. But it is
far better to just push the pawn to c4 if he tries to do that because this
knight move leaves me in bad shape:
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 94 seconds
This is well played. The knight on e2 defends white’s g3 pawn from
my rook’s attack, and I would like to capture that bishop with my isolated e
pawn (un-isolating it), but Ze threatens a counter:
I just noticed I have a
counterattack here:
Actually…this seems ok. I wish I’d seen this in the game! I saw ZeWatcher’s combination,
so I didn’t analyze this position any further and instead captured with the
other pawn. That’ll happen when you only
have 10 seconds to decide what to do.
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 90 seconds
Not only does this pawn capture avoid ZeWatcher’s combination threat (shown above), it also
opens up my bishop for an attack on ZeWatcher’s a
pawn—another reason I mistakenly chose this capture over taking with the e
pawn.
Now ZeWatcher
is attacking my d pawn with his c pawn and both his knights. I’m going to lose a pawn there. However, I was threatening ZeWatcher’s a pawn with my bishop, so all is not lost.
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 105 seconds
I made the mistake here of
pushing my a and b pawns in defense of my attacking
bishop. ZeWatcher
just pushed his pawn forward and out of danger, and now I’ve trapped my own
bishop in the corner of the board. It
cannot move anywhere safely now (and won’t for the rest of the game). Another problem with this attack is that my
bishop had been defending my g5 pawn, which now gets captured.
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 115 seconds
Material is actually still
level, but I’m playing without my bishop and I’m under too strong of an attack
now to defend. ZeWatcher
is attacking my d pawn with both his knights (I’m defending with only the
queen), and he is also attacking my g pawn (undefended!). If ZeWatcher plays
like so, I am totally sunk:
He needs to capture with the
knight on e2 (and to defend the g pawn with the rook) because if he uses the
other knight I have a saving move:
Bam! Black can now capture both knights at once,
and white cannot stop it after these defensive moves:
White has lost here. Black has defended everything and his knights
are about to be combo-captured!
So, let’s get back to the
actual game:
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 118 seconds
Oops! He screwed up but I missed the winning shot.
ZeWatcher also plays the necessary defensive move Rook to b3,
defending against this potential attack:
Note that the rook must go to b3 to defend the d
pawn. Playing rook to d1 allows
black’s bishop to escape by moving to b2!
Notice how white’s rook move not
only defends the d pawn, it also continues to trap my
bishop in the corner. My bishop has no safe squares to move to. Good play.
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 121 seconds
Now I hung my queen. I’m a good player.
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 125 seconds
I quickly realized he could
just take my queen and defend with the d pawn, so I was forced to
block/sacrifice with my knight.
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 131 seconds
Ouch. I could’ve played my king to d5 here to catch
his queen, but he would’ve just played rook to h5 to defend.
Anyways, I’m getting
slaughtered here, but I didn’t give up.
Earlier in the game when I was about to fold, I found a tricky
unreliable move to save myself. Here I
found another one!
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 140 seconds
Or at least, I almost
did. I faked a capture on his b3 rook,
because the rook has to move 2 squares to dodge safely. It’s like an attack on an undefended knight. I have no idea why I played a fake here,
especially since his knight can now just take my rook… and the actual capture
is safe. Just a stupid play. Maybe a misclick.
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 146 seconds
Now ZeWatcher
goes for the kill shot, attacking both my rook and bishop at the same time
(because my pawn is defending both of them).
I dodged away, of course, but there was no harm for Ze
to try to end the game immediately because he was winning by so much. I’m still losing after I capture a knight
with my pawn:
The threat is he can just
take my bishop and pawn. The only thing
to watch for would be an inmove capture attempt by me
on his queen by playing queen takes e4.
Now I played my rook to f3,
and I guess ZeWatcher saw it and thought he could
catch my rook with his king and queen because he played king to e3.
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 154 seconds
I guess he thought about
something like this to win the rook?:
But you can see the problem
now I think, and it brings me back to the whole point of the Topic. I have a checkmate!
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 156 seconds
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 158 seconds
One thing to remember after
you’ve checkmated your opponent is that the game isn’t over yet! You still have to keep playing until you
actually take your opponent’s king!
ZeWatcher v. Devilant 161 seconds
You have to make sure your
king survives long enough for you to actually capture the opponent’s king. I’d actually rather move the king to d7, as
there is absolutely no danger in that move.
Anyhow, I win!
ZeWatcher v. Devilant Final position
Obviously the majority of
this game had nothing to do with checkmating (though I hope it was
interesting), but the main lesson to learn here is that no matter how hopeless
your position seems, you shouldn’t give up as long as you have enough pieces
left to checkmate your opponent. Once
you know the basic mating patterns, you can often salvage a game by finding a
checkmate, even against the strongest of opponents. The best players are
constantly making major, game-losing mistakes, as you just saw!
Check the shizmoo.com
strategy forum for the answers to those puzzles, as well as a potential youtube link to watch this game in action!