Chess Camp

I have my annual chess camp for youth next week. As in years past, the students each receive a camp workbook (see "The Camp Workbook"). When I started creating these workbooks, I would print them on school photocopiers at no cost to me, and then bind them at Staples or FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos) with cardstock covers (costing me about $4.50 each). Publishing them via Amazon, my printing costs are less than binding was in the past, and the students get a professionally bound book.

Two years ago, I created Five Days to Better Chess: Essential Tools for my camp. It is a good quality book that stands own its own as a resource for teachers and developing chess players up to B Class (under 1800). This year, I have finally added a long-planned glossary of tactics to a collection of 150 exercises that I have used since 2006. These exercises with glossary was published last week as Checkmates and Tactics. This book will be this year's workbook, supplemented with a some additional materials.

Every chess camp consists of endgame study the first day or two and some sort of endgame tournament, depending on the strength of the players enrolled. One of my top fifth graders is in the camp, as are several students whom I do not yet know. It is likely that some will be just starting to learn chess.

There is always a camp tournament consisting of one game per day for the five days. The day's camp routine consists of short lectures on positions, concepts, and short games. These lectures are broken up by cooperative and competitive problem solving exercises. The workbook fills idle time as some finish their tournament games earlier than others. Some time is set aside for workbook focus. Any errors that I discover in the book before camp begins (correctable for those buying the book later) become contests for the students: find the misspelled word.

Camp consists of five days, three hours per day. As the week goes on, the presentations are tailored to the needs of the students and we discuss middle games and openings.

Everything the students do, including behaving well, earns camp points. At the end of the week, prizes are awarded based on these points.

Tactical Ideas: Updated List

Seven years ago, I posted "Tactical Motifs: A List," which contains several lists of varied length from text and internet sources. It had been my intent to develop a "glossary of tactics" to be published along with exercises that I had been using for several years with my students. Over the past three months, I have been poking away at creating this glossary, which also includes a small set of checkmate patterns, as part of a new self-published book. The impetus to finish it was my desire for a workbook that I could give the students in my chess camp next month.

For the book, Checkmate and Tactics (2019), I found an example of every tactic listed. For the checkmate patterns, I mostly used smaller partial diagrams, but a few are illustrated from games.

An example:

Trapped piece:
A piece that is vulnerable to capture because it has no way to retreat out of danger is trapped. Aggressive play grabbing material often leads to getting one’s own piece trapped, as in Spassky,B.–Fischer,R., Reykjavik 1972, the first game of their World Championship Match.

White to move

Fischer had grabbed a pawn with 29…Bxh2. Spassky’s 30.g3 trapped the bishop. Black gained two pawns for the bishop, but it was not enough. Black went on to win the game.

The list in Checkmates and Tactics, sans the checkmate patterns.

Battery
Breakthrough
Clearance
Decoy
Deflection
Desperado
Destroying the pawn shield
Discovery
Double attack
Double check
Fork
Greek gift
Interference
Intermezzo (Zwischenzug)
Key Squares
Lucena position
Opposition
Outflanking
Pin
Philidor Position
Removing the guard
Simplification
Skewer
Square of the pawn
Stalemate
Tableau
Tempo
Trapped piece
Undefended/Underdefended piece
Understanding threats
Windmill
X-ray
Zugzwang

Zwischenzug

Zwischenzug is also known as intermezzo. It is an in-between or intermediate move, often a check, thrown into the middle of a tactical sequence. Missing these can dramatically alter your calculation of variations.

It is the last entry in David Hooper, and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (1992), where the authors define it as "a move interspersed during an exchange or series of exchanges" (460). They note that whether a given move is a zwischenzug may depend on one's point of view. It may be a natural part of the combination. Hooper and Whyld offer an interesting nuance in the definition, suggesting that the term is limited to failure of calculation.

Yasser Seirawan offers an instructive example in Winning Chess Tactics (2003), 118.

Black to move

Black intends to exchange rooks and then push the a-pawn. This plan fails because of an in-between check. After 1...Rxh4, White forces a draw with 2.Qd8+ Kh7 3.Qxh4+.

Two examples that I often use with my students are from Paul Morphy's first round games against James Thompson at the First American Chess Congress (1857).

White to move

In the first game, Thompson had planned a discovery as part of a series of exchanges on f5. 11.exf5 Bxf5 12.Nxf5 Rxf5 13.d4. However, Morphy interrupted the sequence with an in-between move.

11.exf5 d5! 12.Bb3 e4 13.dxe4 dxe4 and then Thompson missed the resource that could have kept him in the game, and so retreated the knight. Morphy won seven moves later.

In the second game against Thompson, Morphy used an intermezzo to win a pawn.

White to move

The Bishops will be exchanged, but White has some choice in the manner of exchange.

30.Bxb4 axb4 31.Rad7 and White (Morphy) went on to win an instructive endgame.

My young opponent at the Lou Domanski Chess Festival in Sandpoint, Idaho on Saturday found a slightly more sophisticated sequence involving an in-between move. It was not forcing, but offered me a series of unpleasant choices.

Black to move

After 16.e4

I played 16...dxe4, expecting 17.Nxe4 Nxe4 18.Bxe4 Rad8 with equality.

My opponent offered me the choice of a wrecked pawn structure on the queenside or on the kingside.

17.dxc5 Bxc5

I chose the wrecked kingside structure and the bishop pair.

18.Bxf6 gxf6 19.Nxe4 Be7 20.Qh5

I could have been only slightly worse after 20...Rad8, but instead blundered away my queen and resigned.

Glossary of Tactics: Skewer

When two pieces are on the same rank, file, or diagonal, they may be attacked by a pin or skewer. A skewer is a pin in reverse. The stronger or more vital piece stands in front of another target. When it moves to safety, the piece behind it is captured.

White to move

This position arose in Gioachino Greco's model games after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Qf6?! 3.Bc4 Qg6 4.O-O Qxe4 5.Bxf7+ Ke7.

After the alternative, 5...Kxf7, White wins the queen with a fork.

The key move is 6.Re1, attacking the queen and pawn along the e-file. After 6...Qf4 7.Rxe5+ captures the pawn with check.

One of Greco's studies concluded quickly with 7...Kd8 8.Re8#.

Hence, 7...Kxf7 is obligatory. Greco shows that even here, the king's vulnerability is fatal.

8.d4

White supports the rook and attacks the queen via discovery.

8...Qf6 9.Ng5+ Kg6 10.Qd3+ Kh5 11.g4+ and checkmate next move.

The term skewer also applies when the two targets along a line, such as when two rooks are vulnerable to attack by a bishop.

White to move

White played Bc6, winning the exchange.

The term skewer appears to have entered the vocabulary of chess players in the late 1930s in Liverpool, England. There, Edgar Pennell, who was not a particularly strong chess player proved that his teaching methods were effective in training a group of school boys to be much stronger than he was. Edward Winter has an informative history of Pennell work and chess terminology in his Chess Notes article, "The Chess Skewer" (updated 26 October 2014).

Glossary of Tactics: Zugzwang

The term Zugzwang means compulsion to move. It refers to positions that arise in which the player to move must weaken his or her position. If it were possible to pass in chess, the position might remain secure. But every available move creates vulnerabilities.

Zugzwang is a common theme in endings, and is easy to understand in certain pawn endgames. In these two illustrative positions, the player to move must lose a pawn. In the first, loss of this pawn loses the game. In the second, the game remains drawn with correct play.

These theoretical patterns occur in real games, such as in one of my recent tournament games. Black resigned because after the moves 38...a4 39.a3, his king must abandon his e-pawn, losing it and the f-pawn.

Black to move

Zugzwang can appear in endgames with other pieces.

White to move

Black's rook guards the pawn, but can be attacked on its present square by the white king moving to e7. The rook's only escape from the king is d5.

White wins by triangulation.

1.Ke8! Rd5 2.Ke7

Black is now in zugzwang. The rook cannot return to d6 and so must abandon the pawn. 2...Rd1 loses more quickly to 3.Qb3+, forking king and rook.

Endings of rook versus minor piece are often drawn unless the player with the rook can put the other in zugzwang. It is easier to force such positions against the knight than against the bishop.

Black to move

Black must give up defense of the knight. If it were White to move, the rook slides over one square in either direction, maintaining the pin and transferring the move to Black. Giving up a tempo is often how one player places the other in zugzwang.

Glossary of Tactics: Pins

In chess, a pin is an attack of two targets along a rank, file, or diagonal such that moving one attacked piece renders the other vulnerable to capture. When a piece is pinned against the king, it is an absolute pin: the pinned piece cannot legally move. In a relative pin, the pinned piece may legally move, but often with dire consequences.

In this position from a blindfold exhibition by Miguel Najdorf, Black's knight on c6 cannot legally move.

White to move

Najdorf played 10.d5, a technique known as piling on: attack a pinned piece with another piece, and sometimes the defense will crumble. The game continued 10...a6 11.Bxc6+ Bxc6 12.dxc6 and Najdorf has won two pieces for one.

In contrast, Black's relative pin of the knight against the queen in this famous game played in Paris in 1851 is ineffective. The knight is able to move, winning a pawn.

White to move

White played 5.Nxe5. After 5...dxe5 6.Qxg4, we see that White gained a pawn, while exchanging knight for bishop. A pin by a bishop was transformed into a discovered attack against that bishop. However, in the actual game, Black preserved his bishop by capturing White's queen. Alas, the cost was the Black monarch.

5...Bxd1 6.Bxf7+ Ke7 7.Nd5#.

Bishops, rooks, and queens are the only chess pieces capable of pinning one piece to another. Likewise, these three pieces are capable of a skewer, a sort of pin in reverse, and are essential pieces in the construction of threats of discovered attacks.

A pin may also be executed against a piece and a critical square. In the position below from Anderssen -- Staunton, London 1851, Black's pawn on h6 is pinned, although it has no way to move off the h-file at the moment. Staunton just played 21...h6 to avoid checkmate.

White to move

3r1rk1/b4pp1/p3p1np/1pp1P2Q/5PP1/3BB2R/qPP4P/5R1K w - - 0 22

22.g5!

Anderssen offers the pawn an opportunity to vacate the h-file, and piles on pressure along the same. If Black plays 22...hxg5, then White wins instantly: 23.Qh7#. Anderssen's exemplary attack employed pins and other tactics to break down Black's defenses. Staunton proved resourceful in defense, but errors made earlier in the game were decisive and his position proved indefensible.

22...Rxd3 23.cxd3 Qd5+ 24.Rff3 Ne7 25.gxh6 g6 26.h7+ Kh8 27.Qg5 Nf5 28.Qf6+ Ng7

White to move

The knight is pinned, and if White can simply pile on with the dark-squared bishop, the game will be over.

29.f5! Qb3 30.Bh6 Qd1+ 31.Kg2 Qe2+ 32.Rf2 Qg4+ 33.Rg3 Qxg3+ 34.hxg3 Rg8 35.hxg8Q+ Kxg8 36.Qxg7# 1–0

So, we see that pins were useful to the winner of the first International Chess Tournament.

Glossary of Tactics: Forks

In chess, a fork is when one piece attacks two targets in different directions. A fork may occur along a rank, file, or diagonal. In such cases, the forking piece will stand between the two targets.*

The knight fork is often the first tactic that beginners use to gain an upper hand on their competition.

Black to move

In the position above, White's knight is attacking Black's queen and Black's rook, a typical knight fork. However, because the knight is unprotected, this fork is not particularly effective. If the knight were secure from capture by the Black king, it would capture one of the two attacked pieces.

The position above comes from the Fried Liver Attack after the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.Nxf7.

After the usual 6...Kxf7 7.Qf3+, we have a queen fork. The queen attacks both king and the knight on d5. The knight is protected by Black's queen, but is also attacked by White's light-squared bishop. There are two attackers, but only one defender.

Black to move

In order to avoid the loss of material due to the queen fork, Black's king must move towards the center. 7.Ke6. So it is in the Fried Liver Attack. White employs a sequence of forks and other tactics to apply pressure, to provoke and then to exploit a vulnerable king. White sacrifices a knight to initiate these actions.

In most examples of forks in chess books, one piece attacks two pieces. But a fork may include critical targets that are not pieces. For example, in the solution to Problem 44255 on Chess Tempo, a knight forks king, queen, and a critical square.

White to move

White's key move is a queen sacrifice. 1.Qxh6. After 1...Nxh6, the pawn on f6 is undefended. 2.Nxf6 is the winning fork. Although the queen and king are both forked, that is inconsequential. What matters is that the knight controls g8 and h7, forking king and square. After 2...Kh8, White wins with an exchange sacrifice. 3.Rg8+ Nxg8 4.Rxg8#.

Every chess piece is able to fork, even the king. Normally, a bishop and a knight will win against a lone king. But, if the defending king is able to capture either, the position is a draw by insufficient material.

Black to move

Black draws with 1...Kd4. The king attacks both bishop and knight, winning one and leaving White with insufficient material to deliver checkmate.


*Tactics such as pins and skewers attack two targets along a line, a diagonal, file, or rank. Both targets will be in the same direction from the attacking piece.

Tactical Motifs: A List

What are the tactical ideas that chess writers and teachers use to classify practice positions? Where can the aspiring chess player find a definitive list? In this post, I compile several lists for comparison purposes.

Jonathan Tisdall, Improve Your Chess Now (1997) offers two useful appendices: "Mating Patterns" and "Common Tactical Themes." His words describing "Double Attack/Check" echo a statement that  recall from Yuri Averbakh, Chess Tactics for Advanced Players (1992).

Double Attack is the essence of any successful operation. It would be more accurate to say Multiple Attack, since there is often a presence of, or a need for, more. I imagine the wording has arisen because a double is the limit on checking. Almost all the other themes have some element of multiple attack contained in them.
Tisdall, Improve Your Chess Now, 204.

In his largely successful effort to advance middlegame theory, Averbakh highlights the centrality of the double attack.

If we regard the term "double attack" in a broader sense than has been done up to now by theoreticians, namely not merely as a two-pronged attack, but as a combination of attacks and threats, we notice that the double attack in one form or another in the basis of most intricate tactical operations.
Averbakh, Chess Tactics for Advanced Players, 6.

Averbakh's brilliant discussion of how the elementary checkmate of a lone king through the coordinated actions of a queen and king illustrates the double attack in practice is sufficient reason for paying the price to acquire a copy of this classic text. Averbakh's clear discussion of contacts also informs, it seems to me, the thought-provoking efforts of Momir Radovic to challenge the way chess is ordinarily taught to beginners, and to offer a system grounded in sound pedagogy.

It is almost possible to extract a list from Averbakh's text through examination of subheadings. However, most of his terms are better described as meta-motifs, efforts to make a theoretical contribution in the understanding of types of contacts. It is not Averbakh's central purpose to develop a practical list of motifs. Here's a sample of his headings.

Fork
Discovered check
Double check
Two-fold attack on a defended piece
Two-fold attack on two targets
Two-fold attack in conjunction with a pin
Mutual two-fold attack
Double attack
Zugzwang
Exchange
Sacrifice
Decoy attack
Two-fold double attack

Tisdall offers an abbreviated theoretical discussion in the process of defining the terms in his list.

Double attack/check
Discovered attack/check
Pinning
Skewer
Deflection
Decoying
Interference
Destruction
Clearance
Blocking
Brinkmate
X-Ray
Overloading
Zwischenzug
Pawn promotion
Pursuit (Perpetual)
Stalemate
Demolition of Pawn structure
Trapped pieces

The index to Lev Alburt and Al Lawrence, Chess Training Pocket Book II (2008) offers another list. Some of the motifs are better described as positional, rather than tactical.

Battery
Blockade
Blocking
Decoy
Deflection
Desperado
Discovered attack
Discovered check
Double attack
Double check
In-between move
Interference
Line clearance
Loose piece
Overloading
Pawn promotion
Perpetual check
Pin
Removing the defender
Skewer
Stalemate
X-ray
Zugzwang

The training website Chess Tempo uses a tagging system whereby users identify the motifs in problems, or can vote motifs others have identified up or down. The CT list currently has 34 tactical motif tags.

Advanced Pawn
Attraction
Avoiding Perpetual
Avoiding Stalemate
Back Rank Mate
Blocking
Capturing Defender
Clearance
Coercion
Counting
Defensive Move
Desperado
Discovered Attack
Distraction
Double Check
Exposed King
Fork/Double Attack
Hanging Piece
Interference
Overloading
Mate Threat
Pin
Quiet Move
Sacrifice
Simplification
Skewer
Smother
Trapped Piece
Unpinning
Unsound Sacrifice
Weak Back Rank
X-Ray Attack
Zugzwang
Zwischenzug

I have previously compiled a practical list in the creation of workbooks for my chess summer camps. The list is far from complete, but highlights those that I easily find in historic games from which I extract training positions for youth players to solve.

Pin
Skewer
Fork
Discovery
Double check
Removal of the guard
Deflection
Decoy
Clearance
Interference
Trapped Piece
Zugzwang


Edit 24 June 2014:
This year's camp workbook added zwischenzug, as well as discovered check as a separate entry.