Every now and then one of our pupils turns out to be very promising. Tim was such a rather talented boy and seemed to grasp a lot of aspects of the game without even explaining them to him. He loved the game right from the start when he joined our chess club. He was almost always one of the first pupils that found the right answer to the given exercises.

But when I observed some of his first games he surprised me. He had a chance to win the game in a rather easy to see mate in two, but he just captured a pawn. Some time later he even missed a mate in one.
OK, in the end he won the game, but it surprised me that he was unable to take advantage from this kind of possibilities in his own game.
Afterwards I told him that he had missed a mate in one. He answered that he had seen it. And he also has seen some opportunities for a mate in two and a mate in three. But he also said that the game would have come to an end if he had checkmated his opponent. This should have been a pity, because there were so much pieces left on the board to capture. So he just wanted the game to continue.

I only could say he was right. He was right for the moment. It is far more important to enjoy the game in itself instead of enjoying winning a game.

I have added some capture exercises to this site. They are intended for the beginning chess player, but it is assumed that this chess player knows how the pieces move and also knows about the value of these pieces.
The exercises can be seen as a follow-up on this last one and the lesson about taking free pieces.

One additional tip: the load time of the page will be minimized by viewing only this mate in one article. Or do you prefer the mate in two problems or the mate in three problems?

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Capture

This post has been replaced by a new post that contains the link to more capture exercises by using the DHTML Chess PGN Viewer. If you prefer this old way of publishing chess exercises please let me know.

This post gives an overview of the lessons in this Beginner’s Chess Course.

The rules of Chess

1. The starting position
2. The chess pieces
3. The end of the game

Beginner’s lessons

1. Knowing the rules: some tips
2. Algebraic chess notation
3. Take free pieces
4. The value of the pieces
5. Capture exercises
6. Defending
7. Twofold attack
8. Stalemate
9. Chess lessons start at the end
10. Basic checkmates
11. Mating with the Queen
12. Mating with the Rook
13. Mate in one exercises

Intermediate
Too difficult for the beginner, but interesting for the more advanced player:

1. Chess exercises

King and Queen checkmates

King and Rook checkmates

Back rank checkmate
Many beginners often oversee this kind of Mate. You have to pay attention to this kind of mate opportunities when you run into this kind of positions.

To prevent being mated like this it may be a good idea to have an escape square for the king.

 
Scholar’s mate
Scholar’s Mate is the most common opening trap a beginner falls into.

In this checkmate both the Bishop and Queen attack the weak f7 pawn. This pawn is weak because, in the starting position, it is only protected by the King.

 
Epaulette mate
In the epaulette mate the King is on its back rank and the Rooks of its own color on either side are blocking off the king’s escape route.

But for the mating pattern it doens’t matter if other pieces then Rooks are involved, as long as they are of the same color.

The next ches lesson is Checkmating with the Queen.

So you have to be very careful and avoid the stalemates especially when you are a Queen ahead. The next two diagrams do not represent stalemates.
Do you see why?

The black King has no legal moves, but black still has legal moves. He has to move his pawn. After the pawn move it is white’s turn. And both diagrams result in a mate in one problem.
Can you solve it?

For the first diagram there are four solutions and the fact that black’s pawn may have been promoted to a Queen (or another piece) doesn’t matter.

The next lessons tries to explain why chess lessons start at the end. A complete overview of all chess lessons can be found in the index of chess lessons.

As an example in the diagram on the left white is able to capture the Knight, but then in turn black will capture the Bishop. Therefor it may be better for white to move the Rook to a5, attacking the Bishop by two pieces at the same time. In the diagram at the right white can capture the Knight with the Bishop and black will not capture the Bishop. Why shouldn’t white capture the Knight with the Rook?

Let’s have a look what happens (in the second diagram) if black captures the Bishop that has captured the Knight. These moves result in the following diagram.

White will capture the undefended Rook, as you have learned in the take free pieces lesson.
You can see that white has won a Rook and a Knight and black only a Bishop. If black hadn’t recaptured the Bishop the loss would be limited to the Knight.
It is very important to consider the value of the pieces before you start an exchange. And remember that your opponent isn’t obliged to capture, which makes it very important to capture with the attacking (and defending) pieces in the right order.

The final diagram is an endgame of a King with a single Rook against a bare King. This is rather easy to win as we will see in the lesson dedicated to this endgame.

Let’s continue with a lesson about Stalemate.

If one of your pieces is attacked you have to know how the piece can be defended. There are at least 4 possible ways to escape capture:

1. Capture (the attacking piece)
2. Evade (Move away the attacked piece)
3. Defend (If your opponent captures the piece you can recapture his piece)
4. Block (Place another piece or pawn between the two pieces)

Capture
In both of the diagrams below the black Bishop on d6 is attacking the white Bishop on b4 and in both cases white is able to capture the black Bishop, but in the second diagram black is able to recapture white’s Bishop with his Rook. In fact this second diagram is a rather complex situation in which white has a lot of possibilities to escape capture.

Evade
It is also possible to evade the pieces which is probably the best thing to do in the next two diagrams.

Defend
The following diagrams are used to illustrate the possibility to defend a piece. In the first diagram the attacked black Bishop can be defended by moving the Rook to a7. In the second diagram the white Bishop can be defended by moving the Knight to f1. It is important to know the value of the pieces when you defend or exchange pieces.

Block
The fourth possibility to defend a piece is by placing another piece or pawn between the attacker and the attacked piece. In the first diagram the black Queen is attacked and it is not allowed to move the Queen on another file, because the King will be in check. It is possible to defend the Queen by moving the King to b7, but this will result in an exchange of the Queen for a Rook. The best move is placing the Bishop from e8 to b5.
In the second diagram the Queen is attacked by the Bishop on g5. In this diagram more blocking opportunities exist, but the most often played move is Be7.

More ways to defend
There are more ways to defend a piece against being captured, but these will be part of future lessons. To give you one clue: by looking at the second diagram in the capture section, you may notice that moving the Rook to d1 is probably a better move.

After this lesson on defending we are going to attack twice as hard with the lesson on the twofold attack.

One way to localize these pieces is to look at each of your own pieces to see whether one of them can take the piece that just moved. Another way to localize these pieces is by starting from this piece itself and look on the same line or file for rooks and queens, on the same diagonals for Bishops, etcetera.
Not all potential free pieces are to be found this way, but it is a good start for a beginning chess player. For a more experienced player it is also needed to look at the opponent’s pieces that were defended by the moved piece at its previous position.

Later on it will become more important to assure that the found potential free pieces are really free.

Some exercises

In the last exercise it is Black’s turn to move and the piece isn’t for free. But, does this matter?

By now it is time that we learn about the value of the pieces.