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Everybody Has Their Answer – What Is the Basic Chess Principle Anyway?
“Mais c’est quoi ce jeu?”
Chess is a product of a complex interplay between chessmen. This complex system is different than sum of isolated pieces that collectively make it up. Through interactions of pieces, entirely new qualities emerge (hence, emergent system). From a relatively small number of pieces and simple interactions between them, based on few basic principles, a surprising complexity is generated and a rich and beautiful world of chess rises up.
However, knowing the basic laws of the emergent system is insufficient for us to fully understand its functioning. Yet, mastering the basic principles in any domain (chess, music, literature, etc.) is the first, indispensable step for us if we really want to get beyond the boundaries of the ordinary and into the realm of creativity. This is what Prof. Csikszentmihalyi is considering as a necessary precondition for any creative enterprise.
So what are the basic principles of chess? If you ask someone about it, you may have very different answers.
In fact, the core principles of chess are contained in:
1) piece properties (power and body effect)
2) elementary piece contacts (representing four functions or duties pieces have: attack, protection, restriction, and blocking)
Surprisingly, that’s all. That’s the foundation upon which the entire edifice of chess resides.
Aside from these basic principles, there is a set of arbitrary chess rules that really don’t change the essential nature of the game (for example, en-passant, castling, stalemate rule, and so on.)
What is this game, anyway? Chess art by Miss Boll
As an emergent system, chess has to be studied as a whole and as a nested network of elementary relationships. It’s top-down and bottom-up at the same time.
Now, when you’re thinking for your next move, some mental functions are at work:
First, by observing the position, you break things down into elementary relationships mentioned above (you “read” the position by help of the four letters of the chess alphabet: A, P, R, B). This should come before anything else. You should analyze these elementary contacts for every piece on the board. We may call this contacts examination, or piece status examination. For example, you want to see whether a piece is under attack, how restricted it is in its movements, is it protected or hanging, etc.
If you don’t see all this basic information, it’s like flying your jet with eyes closed.
Next, out of these separate elements you begin building up the big picture to form a coherent whole. It’s bottom-up part, sort of synthesis that involves putting together the parts you analyzed before, but now combined with other information kicking in, basically your previous knowledge and experience. This is creative and mostly intuitive process. But again, it won’t be possible without breaking things down at the first phase of the process which also runs mostly automatic.
Finally, you evaluate the situation by judging it on scales of relative values.
You make the decision and you act – you make your move.
Chess art by Miss Boll
Again, the above mental process is mostly automatic. Our brain runs largely on autopilot.
The left side of the brain, “the interpreter” is where codes for meaning and understanding of the world around us are stored. Codes serve to convert the visual input of the outside world taken by the right side of the brain, our visual-spatial expert. If the right side of the brain “seeing” a chess position has no language, or code in the left brain, to name it, you can’t really grasp the meaning of the position on the board, you are kind of blind to it.
Imagine that you are trying to figure out meaning of what’s printed on a page of a book written in a language you’re not familiar with. As you’re unfamiliar with the code, in other words, with the alphabet of that language, you’re unable to see the meaning.
The same goes in chess. If you are not familiar with the chess alphabet, which consist of only four letters, A, P, R and B, you’re severely impaired to understand what’s going on on the chessboard. Your chess vision is all but disabled.
You cannot fly your jet with eyes closed.
* * *
All this shows how important it is for elementary contacts to be included in the process of teaching and learning as early as possible (again, Nimtzovich showed that clearly back in 1929). Yet, the entire contacts approach flies in the face of the way chess is typically taught.
Next time we are going to take a concrete chess position and use the contacts method to break things down into elements before building them back up.
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Follow @chessContactI give a 30-minute free consultation on how to get started in chess most effectively to get your game on the fast track. Forget about a boring and confusing 30-page introduction with all those rules on how pieces move, en-passant, 50-move draw, threefold repetition rule etc., most chess books start with.
Let’s go right away to the heart and core of the whole chess thing…
You may contact me at iPlayooChess(at)gmail(dot)com
Genetics of Chess
Chess as a struggle of two wills
The essence of chess is a struggle between two independent and irreconcilable wills, each trying to impose itself on the other. As Karl von Klausewitz put it in his venerable book on war strategy, Vom Kriege, it’s like two wrestlers locked in a hold, each exerting force and counterforce to try to throw the other.
Human will, instilled through your leadership over your chess troops, is the driving force for success in chess. The means of chess war is application of force, the form of organized and coordinated action of your chessmen which pose threats to the enemy and force him to do your will. As in all clashes of interest between two parties, you must act from the position of strength to get things your way and win. It’s a universal law all species obey for survival. To get food; to capture and control territory; or to protect it.
Physical and mental forces of a battle
This struggle is characterized by the interaction of physical and mental forces. Your chess pieces possess that necessary critical capability, the power, to help achieve your aim. Their role is twofold. For one thing, they provide combat power for attack. Secondly, they are used for defensive purposes.
The fundamental question is how you use your mental powers to lead your troops successfully in a chess battle. To wage the war effectively you need to grasp complex battlefield situations. As a brilliant general you need coup d’oeil, or power of the glance, an ability to immediately see and make sense of the battlefield in order to be able to make evaluations, calculations, and decisions. You need to plan tactics and strategies.
How do you do that? How do you decode the meaning of the situation on the chessboard? And how you make your decisions by encoding that understanding into your next move?
Key Situation, chess art by Samuel Bak. What is the key to the situation? Perhaps, there is a secret code?
Code
We use codes everyday. A code is a rule for converting a piece of information (for example, a letter, word, phrase, or gesture) into another form or representation.
All languages and writing systems are codes for human thought and ideas. Musical score is the way to encode music. Braille system is a method for blind people to read, based on tactile codes. In chess we have our own code system, the chess notation, to record moves and games.
But there’s another code system in chess that we are mostly unaware of. And this one is vitally important for you to survive and prevail in chess. What is it?
Genetic code
To get there let’s first take a look at DNA’s alphabet to make a useful analogy for chess (as you know, our brain works by analogy and metaphor). Alphabets are also codes and DNA’s alphabet is written in only four letters, A, C, T and G. Genetic code is a set of rules by which information encoded in DNA sequence is translated into proteins by living cells. In other words, DNA code contains instructions for making proteins your body needs for survival.
In our cells, proteins are workforce – they get everything done. They break down food to release energy. They organize transport of chemicals between cells.
On the other hand, proteins are the building blocks for your body structure. In the same way a wall is made of bricks, your body is mostly made of proteins.
Now let me ask you this, what is the workforce in chess? Your chessmen. They get things done. They get everything done for you. They possess the power, the force, as the critical capability for your attack (through power effect – see more under basic piece effects here).
Equally important, through cooperation and integration of forces your pieces represent building blocks for creating a strong protective structure your army needs for defense (through body effect).
Knowledgeable, chess art by Samuel Bak. You don't need to read all these books. You just need to read 4 letters (A, P, R, B) properly to get most of the meaning in chess
Back to our question, how can you grasp complex battlefield situations made from intricate interplay of two armies locked in a hold, for you to wage a winning chess war? How do you develop and use that powerful battlefield vision that is the most prized asset of the brilliant war general?
Chess code
Well, in pretty much the same fashion living cells use genetic code for making proteins, you should use chess code for your pieces to become useful and be managed successfully. You need to train your mind’s eye to read the chess alphabet written in only four letters: A(ttack), P(rotection), R(estriction) and B(locking).
As, Ps, Rs and Bs are written there in every position on the chessboard for you to decode. Cognitive science says it is a basic perceptual process of interpreting incoming stimuli, or converting relatively objective sensory input (e.g., current spacial and functional interaction of pieces on the board as coded in the language of As, Ps, Rs, and Bs) into subjectively meaningful experience.
And knowing the alphabet you will be able to issue the right instructions to your troops (when to attack, or where to protect), very much the same way as DNA issues instructions for making proteins that do every job in your body.
BEEF UP YOUR GAME!! by learning the chess alphabet as early as possible (for best results in your chess kindergarten) and you will read any chess position like you are reading a book without being aware of individual letters in it – but meaning and ideas!!
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Follow @chessContactI give a 30-minute free consultation on how to get started in chess most effectively to get your game on the fast track. Forget about a boring and confusing 30-page introduction with all those rules on how pieces move, en-passant, 50-move draw, threefold repetition rule etc., most chess books start with.
Let’s go right away to the heart and core of the whole chess thing…
You may contact me at iPlayooChess(at)gmail(dot)com
Chess Structure of Hierarchy Levels [originally: How to Build a Better Chess Teacher?]
Why early teaching in chess seems to be so inefficient?
Case in point. Remember the game from the previous post? 1.e4 d5 2.Bd3 Bg4 3.exd5 Bxd1, where both players had been in a chess school program for more than a year?!
What is better teaching?
And how to build a better chess teacher anyway as there is no such thing as a bad learner?
The learner is always as good as we give them the chance to be. (Remember that the human brain is the most powerful learning machine in the known universe. While computer is a moron, your brain is the most amazing thing in so many ways. Stick to it. Use it. Don’t rely on technology which just is to serve you and your brain to make smarter decisions)
How does the Grand Scheme of Hierarchy in Chess Come to Life?
Let’s take a look at the hierarchy of various functional levels in chess in a bit more detail. Below five levels are defined, from basic pieces effects (A) and basic piece contacts (B) to piece cooperation (C) and tactics and strategy (D-E).
More attention is given to Levels (A), (B) and (C), in contrast with Levels (D) and (E) that are quite extensively covered in chess manuals and publications. Surprisingly, the basic levels are so important to teaching chess, yet one can find very little on the topic (go Google and check out for yourself).
The key to put the beginner on the fast track and start developing a strong board vision is mastering (A) and (B) levels. It’s the alphabet of chess on which the entire edifice rests upon. You can’t build up knowledge on shaky foundations.
Breaking things down this finely into the elementary contacts is indispensable before moving on, ensuring an effective start and better understanding at the micro-level for the unconscious primitive brain. It’s like the foundation of a house – it’s below the surface. And if you want a loftier building, the deeper must the foundation be laid.
Learning is like a ladder. If you miss a step, sometimes you can’t go on. Then you start losing confidence and you simply give up. That’s how chess has been losing a lot of people.
Again, we need to break chess down to its component parts first and build them back up. More than anything else, we love success. As we grow more confident, as we get more excited, we request harder challenges. We love getting to higher levels, like in video games. That way hierarchies emerge and develop. That’s how we become experts.
Hierarchy of chess. Shaky or steady? Dream world, by Jacek Yerka
Some layers below overlap across levels. For example, the piece coordination (C) may well be seen as stretching across multiple levels, from level (B), as protecting contact (B3), then all across levels (D) and (E).
I’d like to put up a call to readers for feedback on what follows, so we together may come up with the best possible scheme of hierarchy in chess.
A. BASIC PIECE EFFECTS
1. Control (power) effect
The effect by which pieces and pawns exert their power over the board
2. Body effect
The effect chessmen produce by mere occupation of squares on the board which reduces the power, activity and mobility of other pieces, both friendly and enemy ones.
3. Rule of capture
B. ELEMENTARY BOARD CONTACTS
The basic contact are made between chessmen of both sides, as well as chessmen and squares. It’s mere geometry, we just need to see and identify two points on the same straight line. It can’t be simpler than that.
This is the critical level for getting on the fast track and to guarantee an effective learning experience in chess. It gives the unconscious brain the meaning of how pieces interact and what roles they have in the chess conflict. Yet, this level seems to be mostly non-existent in early stages the way we teach chess now. And this is where the secret lies in how to modernize chess education to make it more successful for the 21-st century.
Once these basics are mastered by the subconscious brain and have become its second nature, you no more think about it. It stays under the surface allowing your brain to unleash its full potential elsewhere. Your chess vision is now strong and you are stepping into the realm of creativity, intuition and imagination. The most sophisticated and powerful tools of the power brain.
In the parentheses is the number of pieces involved in each elementary contact:
1. Attack, or attacking contact (2)
Contact established between a piece (or pawn) and another enemy unit in its line of fire (this is actually the only contact existing in chess – stay tuned for an upcoming post – but it is more efficient for human brain to talk roles of pieces, such as attacking, protecting, blocking, etc.)
2. Threat of attack (2)
Indirect, concealed attack, or the attack which is one-move away. GM Averbakh considers the threat of attack as one of elementary contacts – it is important to be aware of how enemy attack develops over time and see things coming as it gives you more time to react appropriately and put up your defenses in time
3. Protection (2)
Contact between friendly pieces for mutual support (friendly pieces kind of “attacking” each other)
4. Restriction (2)
Develops when both friendly or enemy units are lying in the line of fire of a piece, thus reducing its activity and mobility. Also between a piece and the squares within its scope of action when these squares are attacked by hostile troops
5. Blocking (3)
Occurs when one pieces is attacked and another friendly chessman shields it by stepping in the line of fire of an enemy piece. This is also known as the pin and may be considered as a combined contact, or double attack consisting of a direct attack on the pinned, or blocking piece and the threat of attack on the piece behind it lying on the same line of attack
6. Promotion square contact (2)
Contact pawns make with the promotion square
C. PIECE HARMONY/COORDINATION
“The main thing is the coordination of pieces, and this is where most players are weak. Many try to attack with one piece here and another piece there without any concerted action, and later they wonder what is wrong with their game. You must coordinate the action of your pieces, and this is a main principle that runs throughout“, Capablanca, My Chess Career.
1. Double attack
This term is broader than a “two-fold attack” where two pieces directly attack. It covers all various ways of attacking and threats of attack, even the combination of two threats (for example, the most famous K+P vs K+P study in chess by Reti w:Kh8, Pc6/b:Ka6, Ph5 is actually double attack consisting of two threats of second order, or two moves away, one being the threat to catch the h-pawn getting in its Berger’s square, the other being the threat to support white Pawn for promotion). Anything from direct attack to strong threats, including mate threats, stalemating and perpetual check threats may constitute a double attack. Basically, double attack can be of two flavors:
1a. Concentrated attack when two or more pieces are attacking/threatening the same target: a square, or an enemy piece.
“There is no higher and simpler law of strategy than that of keeping one’s forces concentrated. In short, the first principle is: act with the utmost concentration”, Carl Von Clausewitz, On War.
1b. Multi-target attack . One piece, or pawn is attacking two enemy units (fork), or two pieces are attacking two or more targets (discovered attack).
The multi-target approach has obvious merits – instead of striving for single targets, strategy simultaneously aims at multiple aiming points. Very rarely can the opponent defend multiple targets successfully.
2. Combined attack
Coordinated attack against hostile army where one piece or pawn is attacking, while the other pieces of the attacking army restrict freedom of movement of the side under attack.
Averbakh points out that all chess combinations basically depend on double and/or combined attacks.
3. Protection
This is mutual protection established between friendly units, basically the same as the basic protecting contact (B3)
4. Tactical cooperation
The three ways of piece coordination above are relatively simple. However, the coordinated action may be less obvious and show itself in a more or less complex set-up. Tactical coordination may be quite complex and disguised in the form of an indirect attack or protection of a key square. Here is a simple example of the tactical cooperation.
Tactical piece coordination
At first sight, the white pieces are dispersed and not well coordinated. But tactical coordination helps one of the pawns get promoted without the white King helping out. For example, 1. g5 Kf5 2.c5! and so on.
5. Strategic cooperation
Let’s use an example to demonstrate:
Strategic coordination. Smyslov - Rudakovsky, 1945, after 13.f5 Bc4
White’s strategic plan aims at creating an outpost at d5 for the Knight. Strategic coordination here is ensured by coordinated action of white Bishops in two different directions with the idea of removing defenders of d5-square (exchanges at c4 and f6) with its consequent occupation by white Knight.
14.Bxc4! Qxc4 15. Bg5! Rfe8 16.Bxf6! Bxf6 17.Nd5 and White created a strong outpost in the center which would soon serve for a direct attack on the black King.
D. TACTICS
The tactical devices are well-known. Some are listed here:
1. Double attack (pin, skewer, discovered attack are all forms of double attack)
2. Drive-on (attraction)
With the aid of this tactical device a piece (or pawn) is pulled onto a particular square (the motives behind the operation may vary)
3. Drive-off (decoy)
A tactical device that forces the opponent’s piece or pawn to leave its position and give access to an important square (or line)
4. Removing the defender
5. Square and line clearing
6. Line closing and blocking
7. Giving over the right of move (zugzwang) etc.
8. Perpetual attack
E. STRATEGY
The main principle of strategy is to forestall the enemy plans. Whatever they try to do in the battle, you need to see it in advance, frustrate it from the onset, make it of no use for them and suppress it. Once enemy pieces under (some) restraint, you achieve the freedom and activity for your men to be able to gain some advantage and prevail.
A few other major strategic ideas are given below:
0. Selection and maintenance of strategic aim
1. Effective mobilization of pieces and central pawns (in the opening)
2. Improving position of pieces
Means increasing qualitative value of pieces, such as:
i. Mobility (freedom of movement)
ii. Activity (occupation of the center, important squares, open lines)
iii. Stability (vulnerability) of pieces on their posts
iv. Vicinity to critical battlefield sectors
v. Cooperation with other team members (see (C))
3. Stalling the enemy plans to achieve (2) above
4. Exchange of pieces
Trading your “bad” pieces for the enemy “good” ones.
“The process of chess is based essentially on interlinking exchanges. The objective of these interlinking exchanges is a relative gain of material or positional value. There are no other and cannot be any other objectives. At the end of the game these exchanges must lead to a gain of infinitely large magnitude (to checkmate)”, Mikhail Botvinnik
5. Strengthening the position
a. Creating strong points and their protection, and
b. Protecting or eliminating weaknesses in your position are important strategic tasks.
There may even be few weak points in your position, but without strong points no position can hold. You should always act from the position of strength. It’s your-strengths-against-their-weaknesses game as in any struggle, or conflict.
6. Weakening of the enemy position
7. Eliminating the opponent’s counter play, etc.
* * *
Again, I put up a call to you, the reader, for feedback on this. We must change things for true progress in how we teach chess. We need to bring more people to this wonderful absorbing game. But that’s impossible with rotten teaching we have in place.
No more 1.e4 d5 2.Bd3 Bg4 3exd5 Bxd1 games!
We can do better than that!
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Comments and suggestions welcome.
I give a 30-minute free consultation on how to get started in chess most effectively to get your game on the fast track. Forget about a boring and confusing 30-page introduction with all those rules on how pieces move, en-passant, 50-move draw, threefold repetition etc. every chess book starts with.
Let’s go right away to the heart and core of the whole chess thing…
You may contact me at iPlayooChess(at)gmail(dot)com
Follow @chessContactHow to Speed Up Learning Curve in Chess?
– Why there is apparently a slow board vision acquisition in chess?
– How can we modernize 21st-century teaching to build up chess vision faster?
Chess Hierarchy (Boldriaan, Supreme or Capitulation)
Board vision. Here’s the beginning of a game played in an after-school chess program in April 2008 between two second graders: 1.e4 d5 2.Bd3 Bg4 3.exd5 Bxd1…
After both having been in chess for more than a year it seems a good chess eye is lacking here. They simply didn’t see the contact established between the Bishop and the Queen at move 2. In my view, there are no bad learners, there’s only a faulty system of teaching (evidently, the two boys were victims of such a “system”). The one which is not aligned with what cognitive science tells us about the brain and how learning happens.
Teaching the moves first is especially detrimental to acquiring a strong board vision. Brain science speaks against the “moves first” approach, Nimzovich (in his article in the Russian “Little Chess Paper” in 1929) speaks strongly against it too, but we just continue on doing it. As Einstein said, it’s harder to crack prejudice than an atom.
On the other hand, Averbakh pointed out that the main principle of pedagogics – the necessity of proceeding from the simple to the complex – is constantly being violated. As a rule, one begins with moves, then loads of tactical drills follow. As even the most elementary combinations are complex, it is important, Averbakh argues, to first familiarize oneself with their basic constituent elements and how they function before studying the complex mechanics of combinations.
So what are the basic elements, or building blocks of chess?
The answer: elementary board contacts.
Here is the edifice of chess consisting of the following parts, top down:
4. STRATEGY
3. TACTICS
2. ELEMENTARY BOARD CONTACTS
1. BASIC EFFECTS
The COORDINATION OF PIECES goes across layers 3-4.
We have already covered level 1, the two basic effects in chess: the control effect and the body effect. They may be considered as the BIOS of chess, its firmware that is hard wired in and cannot be changed. That’s the lowest level in chess. It makes chess pieces run.
Then comes, figuratively speaking, chess software: the operating system and applications. The chess applications are the highest level. They deal with strategy, tactics and cooperation between pieces (levels 3-4 above) to do some useful work, basically to achieve some set strategic and tactical objectives (for instance, it could be gaining material or some positional advantage).
To get the job done the applications use the operating system consisting of just few basic connections (level 2) that define how pieces interact with each other during the game. They are:
- Attacking contact, or simply attack (including threat of attack)
- Protecting contact (protection),
- Restricting contact (restriction),
- Interposition (or pin in plain English)
(Notes:
a) the contact that pawns establish with the promotion square can also be considered as elementary one;
b) I’ll show you in a future post how this list of contacts after Averbakh can be reduced to just one single attacking contact!)
Breaking through to new levels (Boldriaan, Chess en Dans)
Emerging system
And that’s it. We can break down any chess position into these elementary contacts. Together with level 1, this is the foundation which supports levels 3-4.
This multiplicity of relatively simple interactions can generate surprising complexity in higher levels. A whole new integrative level of organization, a new set of phenomena is emerging out of simple interactions of parts. At the upper level entirely new properties appear. Out of chess, typical examples of complex systems include life emerging on inorganic elements, and consciousness emerging on nervous systems with a network of billions of neurons interacting with each other.
The same applies to the game of chess. It is constrained and shaped by elementary contacts, but chess involves much more than these basic laws. The elementary interactions go a whole new level which becomes not merely more, but very different from the sum of the parts that collectively make up the system.
The new emerging level is where the coordination of pieces combined with strategic and tactical issues brings a completely new dimension to chess.
* * *
Yet, it is critical that we begin teaching chess first and foremost with the basic contacts (levels 1-2) if we want to start developing a strong board vision early. Not with how pieces make moves, for goodness’ sake. We need to give the primitive brain a chance to pick up these basics. It’s the first critical period of one’s chess education that actually may take just few weeks (GM Gregory Levenfish indicated two months – compare with the game shown above).
Once the primitive brain has acquired this “core vocabulary” as its second nature to speak it effortlessly, it’s freed up for higher, more sophisticated modes of thinking dealing with tactics and combinations and the big picture: the piece cooperation, and strategy.
As Prof. Csikszentmihalyi said in his book on creativity (see here), by mastering the basic laws and developing a good chess eye, you step beyond the boundaries of the elementary into the realm of beautiful and creative in chess.
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Comments and suggestions welcome.
I give a 30-minute free consultation on how to get started in chess most effectively to get your game on the fast track. Forget about a boring and confusing 30-page introduction with all those rules on how pieces move, en-passant, 50-move draw, threefold repetition etc. every chess book starts with.
Let’s go right away to the heart and core of the whole chess thing…
You may contact me at iPlayooChess(at)gmail(dot)com
Follow @chessContact001 iPlayoo Beginner Chess Lessons.The Power in Chess. Attacking Contact
Ever wanted to learn how to play and enjoy the royal game of chess? Great, you are in the right place. Welcome to iPlayoo Chess!
These chess lessons are specially designed for an absolute beginner in mind (and chess players, parents, or educators who may want to check a novel method to teach a complete beginner).
Mighty Rook. The Power of the Tower
Okay, let’s get rolling. Today, I want to introduce you to a formidable and powerful personality. He’s a veteran of an unrivaled military experience: he’s been engaging in chess battlefields for 1500+ years, all around the world, from Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) to Devil’s Backbone in Arkansas.
He’s been fighting all over the place under many names: Rook, Top, Kula, Castell, Tour, Torre, Turm, Ладья, Navak, Jū, Rukku, Tseriakh, Et’li, πύργος, and so on, and so on, but seems that his first name ever used in a war zone was Rukh (if you want to check his name in 73 different languages, go here).
A very interesting fellow, don’t you think? And very skillful, and powerful, deserving every respect.
The Rook standing in front (Photo: Elena Boric)
“So who are you in the end?”
“I am part of that POWER which eternally desires evil and eternally does good”, Goethe, Faust
“But how are you showing off your Power?”
“Well, it’s kind of easy: I’m a straight guy. Um, I mean I’m firing away along straight lines on the battlefield, an 8×8-square chessboard . Thanks to Euclid, who introduced the concept back in 4th c. BC, it’s really easy for your brain to see how I focus firepower:
- Rook Firing Along Vertical and Horizontal
“Can you see the lines of fire, or lines of force I am spewing along my vertical (d-line) and horizontal (4th rank)? This is my range, field, or radius of action, or sphere of influence on the board.”
“You can’t see them? Well, maybe you should visualize in your mind’s eye first. Like this, or this” (Note: you may want to read commentary below diagrams to help you get the idea).
* * *
As you can see, a very simple concept for your subconscious brain to grasp. Again, we use the following words to describe the Rook’s using its firepower: the Rook has contact with, attacks, controls a square. These all have the same effect.
In other words, we can look at this as a simple geometrical pattern on the board, where a chess unit and a square (or another unit) line up.
The Rook is really powerful. Just imagine what might happen to you if you get in the line of fire? You would be in a great danger. You would be under attack. You’re toast!
Enemy pieces are filled with absolute terror at the sight of a mighty Rook that took up an attacking stance. They tremble from head to toe as they are just a trigger-finger (or one move) away from annihilation, or capture.
END LESSON #001
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NOTE: You sure can see on the above diagram that the Rook is placed in the middle of the board on the square d4. Okay? Now, can you visualize how four invisible lines go through d4-square: a vertical, a horizontal (your eye met them already today), and here, two diagonals as well? It’s important for your eye to get trained to see this.
* * *
Just two more things, and we can call it a day:
(1) Here’s a little quiz to solidify what you’ve learned today. Look at the above diagram and check whether:
a) The Rook is attacking d7-square? (Y) or (N)
b) The Rook is controlling a5-square? (Y) or (N)
(2) Can you see how many squares the Rook is controlling, or has contact with, from its d4-post? (7) or (14)
* * *
Great, that’s all for today folks. Well, almost.
Lastly, just in passing, just wanted to tell you a secret: there are only two effects chessmen produce in chess:
(1) Control effect, or attacking contact (we just learned today)
(2) Body effect (we’re going to cover next time)
The beautiful thing is that everything you’ll learn in chess, including more advanced concepts like strategy and tactics are based on these two effects, basically mere geometry thing — you just have to spot two points that lie on the same line (a piece and a square, or two pieces, that line up). Et voilà!
Your unconscious brain is an amazing visual learner. Yet you are not aware of it at all. It’s doing so many good things for you, in silence, under the surface!
* * *
Answers to the Quiz:
(1a) Y
(1b) N
(2) 14
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If you have any questions or comments please contact me at chessContact@Facebook.com
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