The Budapest Defence is a chess opening that starts with the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5. This is one of the rare gambit lines for Black, because almost all of the gambit lines are for White. It is rarely played at grandmaster level, but for the amateur it may be a nice way to immediately [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The Blackburne Shilling Gambit is the name of the chess opening (or in fact a trap in the Italian game) that begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4?!
It is also referred to as the Kosti? Gambit after the Serbian grandmaster Borislav Kosti?, who played it in the early 20th century. According to our rules for [...]
This lesson introduces one of the most important tactic building blocks in chess: the pin. A pin is a move which forces one of the opponent’s pieces to stay put because moving it would be illegal (an absolute pin) or exposes a more valuable piece behind it (a relative pin).
In the diagram below two pins [...]