Chess Match 1/28/19 – How to Ignore 2 Queens and Win the Game
Today I played a chess match that had two valuable lessons in the game of chess.
As discussed in our previous article about how to play chess, we discuss a few important notes that related to this chess match today.
These would be:
- Always value your pawns
- Focus on achieving checkmate more than capturing pieces
This chess match displays both of these.
This particular chess match was fairly even throughout the game. The game ended up coming down to capturing just 1 of my opponent’s pawns, and both of us hoping to upgrade our pawns into a queen first.
Fortunately, I was in a stronger position for this match, and came out victorious.
Lessons from the Chess Match
Value & Protect Your Pawns
About halfway through the chess match, I have my sights set on capturing just 1 of my opponent’s pawns, and my opponent and I go back and forth between focusing on capturing it and my opponent protecting the pawn.
Why this pawn?
This pawn was protecting 2 of my opponent’s pawns. If I capture this pawn, I can then capture 1 or 2 of the other pawns, gain a slight advantage, and then go on to move my own pawns down the chessboard.
You’ll see from the video once I capture this pawn, I achieve checkmate within only a few more moves afterward.
Focus on Checkmate
It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to capture every single one of your opponent’s chess pieces and then focusing on checkmate. When I first was learning chess, this is how I tended to play. As a result, unless I was playing someone else who was a beginner, I would get crushed and usually lose fairly quickly.
While in this chess match we do a fair amount of piece trading (each capturing one piece of one piece), at the end of the game, this lesson comes in play.
My opponent had just upgraded his pawn to a queen and had 2 queens. I could have captured my opponent’s new queen, had my queen captured, then upgraded my pawn to a queen.
However, why do that and let my opponent stick around when I could just capture my opponents King instead?
Rather than focusing on my opponent’s queens, I upgraded my own pawn, placing my opponent’s King in check. At this point, the game is basically over. I move my opponent into check one more time, and then place them in checkmate, with my opponent’s 2 queens sitting helplessly on the other side of the chessboard.
Do note that I checked all the moves before doing this to make sure it would result in checkmate, and not give my opponent a chance to have their 2 queens take a shot at my own King.
Learn More Chess:
LearnChess101.com is your go to guide for learning how to playing chess. For beginner’s we encourage you to first start with our learn how to play chess guide and basic chess strategy. For those interested in learning some tricks, check out how to win chess in 2 moves, how to win chess in 3 moves, how to win chess in 4 moves, and how to win chess in 5 moves.
For those who really want to take their chess game to the next level, be sure to purchase our E-Book “The Chess Formula. by clicking here to learn more.
