In a smothered mate the mated king is unable to move because he is surrounded (or smothered) by his own pieces. Therefor a smothered mate can only be delivered by a knight. We have seen an example of a smothered mate before in the lesson about the Blackburne Shilling Gambit.
This lesson deals with the [...]
The Fried Liver attack is a very nice opening for beginners. It enables a lot of opportunities and is a decent opening unlike the Scholar’s mate attempts that a lot of beginners are playing.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 The two Knights Defence
4.Ng5 This is an immediate attack at Black’s weakest square f7, but White is also moving a piece in the opening twice.
Still it is a rather nice attack and Black has only the move 4…d5 to avoid losing the pawn on f7.
The following game between Tarrash and Allies (Naples, 1914) is one of the most famous and illustrative examples of interfering.
Learning a chess opening has to include that you know what to do if someone isn’t playing the right moves. Opening traps and miniatures are very illustrative and help us to increase our knowledge about an opening.
As a follow-up on the lesson about the Scotch game this post will show a combination of some miniatures [...]
This game between Howard Staunton and Elijah Williams is very illustrative of the importance of the different kind of oppositions in chess. If you haven’t read the lesson about the opposition it is probably better to read this first.
As you will see Staunton has lost the game, but you have to know that the virtual [...]