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Hey, my name is Michael Propper, and I’m a co-director and principal of ChessNYC. As a child I didn’t get an opportunity to play chess, and it was a very uninteresting game for me.

In the 70s mostly you may or may not know Bobby Fischer, the only World Champion ever in the history of the United States, was playing a fellow who was supposed to win from the USSR, Boris Spassky, and I couldn’t help but noticing these games were taking days to finish. And for love nor money you couldn’t have gotten me to play a game that took days to finish. You need nine innings or four quarters or three periods or I’m not interested.

So as a result I never really had the opportunity to play chess as a child, and my perception of the game and perception of reality is that it was a boring, dull, slow old game, and the people that played it looked equally boring and dull. So I never went near the game at all.

As an adult I came across the game of chess. What I learned was that it was a great game. It was heart pounding, adrenaline flowing game that most people don’t just get the opportunity to learn about because they don’t gain a relationship with it. What I kind of discovered was that the chess community for many, many, many years was almost arrogant and didn’t permit the game. They tried what we called chessify America here at ChessNYC, and we take a different approach.

We try to Americanize the game of chess so that it fits more into our schedule that we enjoy doing here, and at ChessNYC.com I’m very pleased and proud that we’re now in about 80 different school classes and have several thousand students. And we are changing the perception of chess in New York City.

The videos that you just watched are just a few of our passionate coaches introducing you to aspects of the game so you can get the opportunity to find out exactly how great the game of chess is. I missed chess for many, many years. I’m not missing it any more. I hope you enjoyed the sessions, and I hope it gave you an opportunity to decide if you want to play the game and learn really how to do it.

Our website is ChessNYC.com. You can e-mail us at info@ChessNYC.com. Our telephone number is 212-475-8130, and I personally promise you that if you decide to take on the game of chess we’re going to fire you up on a level that you never thought existed within the game.

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Hi, this is Coach Jeremy, I’m here to talk about chess etiquette. Now, there’s different kind of chess environments, I guess you could say, if you’re playing for money in the park, maybe that’s a little different than being in a scholastic chess tournament. If you’re playing online, maybe that’s also a little bit different, but in general it’s good to be nice. Don’t rub it in your opponent’s face if you win the game.

Maybe politely suggest where your opponent went wrong and discuss the game with your opponent in a polite, cordial manner. It’s also good to abide by the same standards that you expect from your opponent. For example, don’t insist on touch move for your opponent if you’re not gonna abide by touch move yourself, or maybe in a casual game maybe it’s alright that both players take back the moves.

That’s something that would be agreed upon by the two players, but in general be fair, be courteous and, you know, if you’re joking around with your friends maybe a little trash talk is okay, but that’s not recommended when you’re playing somebody for the first time and not recommended when you’re playing in a tournament environment. If you really wanna think about chess etiquette and all of its aspects, I would recommend “The Morals of Chess” by Benjamin Franklin, actually. He goes over in great detail, in, in stellar accuracy, exactly what a good chess competitor should do in the way of etiquette.

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Hello this is David Sullivan from Chess NYC again, today I’d like to talk to you about blitz chess and use of a chess clock.

Most serious chess games are timed, and actually that’s a really good thing. I think a lot of people are under the impression that chess is a really slow game, when actually it often is an extremely fast game.

One popular form of the game is called five minute blitz. On the clock face each side has five minutes, there’s a button that corresponds to each side of the clock. When one person moves, they move, and with the same hand that they touch the piece, they touch their side of the clock. When they touch their side of the clock, their own times stops and their opponents time starts. Then their opponent makes a move, and touches the clock. And you keep making moves and hitting the clock, until either one side wins the game, there’s a checkmate or a draw result, or somebody runs out of time on the clock. If you run out of time on the clock, you lose.

My personal addiction, is one minute blitz on the internet, in fact a friend of mine calls that video chess crack. Where you play, each side has one minute to make every move in the whole game, so that the entire game of chess will last less than two minutes. You’re packing the whole thing into less than two minutes and it produces a thrill which is unusual and it’s so addictive, that’s why he calls it what I called it, it’s the best game in the world.

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In chess in the beginning of the game, we want to bring out our army and get it ready to fight, and we also want to make sure that our king is safe. A lot of teachers use, what is called the ten golden moves, or sometimes it’s also know as the bull’s head, let me demonstrate.

White brings up a pawn to the center, his goal is then to bring up the other pawn to the center. The two pawns in the center are what is known as a duo, it’s a very valuable thing to have, it acts as a shield and you can develop your pieces around and behind it. You can develop one knight here to f3, the other knight goes to c3, this is four golden moves. White brings up a bishop, five golden moves, brings up the other bishop, six golden moves. The king castles gets to safety, seven golden moves, brings up the queen to get out-of-the-way of the rooks, eight golden moves. Nine and ten, the rooks come to the middle of the board and these are the ten golden moves.

It’s also known as the bull’s head, the two center pawns are supposed to represent the forehead of the bull, the bishops are like it’s horns and the rest of the pieces behind the two center pawns are like the body of the bull. And this whole unit is ready to go and start marching down the board and go get the black king.

These are known as the ten golden rules, you might not be able to get your pieces on to these exact squares every time yourself, in fact it’s your opponents job to try to stop you from being able to do that. But this is the sort of thing you’re trying to do with your pieces in the opening.

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Okay guys, I am going to show you some quick variations out of the Italian game also known as the Juego Piano, it’s actually not an opening that’s preferred by grand masters because considered somewhat and the ideas are not as deep as what you would in for example the Queen’s gambit or the Royal Lopez or the Spanish game but it’s a good way to get started I think with very straight forward developing move. So the Italian game starts with e4 and if your opponent responds with e5 you proceed with what’s probably the most logical and expected move knight to f3 attacking the e5 pawn. Now let’s say black brings out this knight to c6, the Italian game is characterized by this move right here bishop to c4 as opposed to bishop to b5 which would be the Spanish.

We are looking at the Italian so let’s say really quickly we go to c4 the opponent goes to c5, the best continuation is c3 to try to keep the initiative. Other moves such as knight to c3 castling d3 is also okay, but this is the best continuation whereas regarded as such. Knight to f6 attacking its pawn now instead of going d4 which is also probably good may be the best way to play it. We are going to look at this continuation d3. Now black castles and white immediately jumps into his territory looking for trouble.

So black doesn’t really know what white is up to but it goes to kick him with the h6 pawn and this allows to for a nice little sacrifice play with h4. So black snaps the knight h takes g and now we have this beautiful open file for our rook. So black wanted to keep this material advantage which threats the knight and now the queen coming to h5 black is busted, he actually only has one move to stop maiden one, which is bringing the rook to EA giving the king a little bit of space to escape. But rather than going queen takes knight we go queen takes f7 forcing the king into the corner and then one more sacrifice rook takes h7 the king has to take the rook and now the queen just returns to h5 check mate with the bishop cutting off the g8 square. So that’s a miniature that was played by Grackle may be the first genius of chess that illustrates a lot of good ideas like the use of a sacrifice to open a file.

It also shows in the exchange trading material for time and space because one unit of time retreats its knight to h7 and its more than anything space for that rook to dominate the h5. So once the queen joins the rook on the h5 black is hopeless. So that was just a quick look at the Italian game with the Juego Piano. I recommend it for young players it’s a great way to get your chess game started.

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Hi, my name is Rebecca Texman. I am on Chess I am gonna talk to you today about the Ruy Lopez. The Ruy Lopez is one of the oldest and most important openings in chess. First of all, this opening is not only just played by beginners this is also played by the top chess players such as Magnus Carlson and Bobby Fischer but let’s learn the basics of the Ruy Lopez so let’s start. There are three important principles that we wanna focus on at the beginning of the game. First in principle that we need to understand is these four squares. These are the center of the board.

I need to call these the super squares, within the super squares the idea is we wanna try and get our pawns towards the super squares as white jumps to e4, black is going to attack back with e5. The Ruy Lopez then starts with Knight f3 attacking the pawn on e5. Black’s typical defense in this position and probably his best defense is knight c6 defending the pawn and developing a piece getting into our second principle which is development. Now there are two variations in the Ruy Lopez, there is the Spanish variation and the Italian variation. In the Italian variation the bishop goes to c4, in the Spanish variation the bishop goes to b5.

Today I am gonna talk to you about the Spanish. Bishop b5 is our next attack so black is not too concerned about white taking here, what black’s next move typically is either just to develop its knight, get your knights out first or develop a bishop lets go with developing the knight to f6 and now white decides to play d3 defending its pawn change and getting ready to castle. There is number of variation that black can play. A typical variation would be bishop c5 attacking the f2 square, white ready to castle, Castles, black also ready to castle, Castles. Now there is an important move here c3. An idea behind c3 is that we want to keep this bishop. If black plays a6 which is a typical move, we want to keep this bishop and push it back to a4. If they come again with b5 we now have tuck of A square that we can put our bishop in and get it ready for an attack towards the king and this is all typical standard opening then we can have black create its pawn chain getting ready to open up either develop its bishop on the king side or free and shadow its bishop. Now, an important move is rook e1 controlling the center five. Say white decides or black decides to move its bishop on g4 we have a now a conundrum. We need to figure out where to place this knight because our knight cannot come to its typical square on c3 and we never want to put our knights on the rim, because the knight on the rim is kind of grim.

We always want to develop our knight towards the center so we are going to create what’s called the Russian knight and put it on d2. Black is going to continue with its opening and then the idea is white is going to create an attack by bringing its knight onto its king side pushing away black’s bishop and using its knights bringing its queen in eventually to create and attack over on the king’s side. The idea here is white is gonna create a strong attack on the king side where black is gonna try and create an attack on the queen side. White typically does not need to worry about this attack and focus mostly on its attack over here and that is the basic of the Ruy Lopez.

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Hi. My name is Rebecca Taxman and I am with Chess NYC. Today, I am going to show you the basics of the Sicilian defense. Now, when people think of the Sicilian, they’re like woo! It’s a huge opening. This is one of the strongest defenses for black. There are probably about over ten variations that can be strongly played in the Sicilian defense.

I’ve played the Sicilian defense, maybe, over 2000 times and every time that I play it, I learn something new. So today, I’m just going to show you the raw basics of the Sicilian defense. So, let’s start.Usually, white wants to start off with E4 controlling the center. Now instead of playing E5, black decides to play C5, a counter center. White then proceeds with knight F3. And now again, there are different variations that can be played here, but the typical variation is D6 creating a minor little pawn chain and opening up way for bishop development. Next, white wants to develop and attack the center. So, they play D4. This is a must take.

Then, white takes back. Now, we notice that white seems to have a little bit of an advantage here because they have their knight in the center and a pawn in the center. We want to stop white from playing C4, which is called the Moroczy Bind. And, we want to stop them from playing this and really controlling a lot of the center. In order to do that, we play knight F6 attacking the E4 pawn. Therefore, white cannot play this because we can take the E4 pawn. White’s next move is knight C3. Now in order to stop an attack on this B5 square which is aiming directly at black’s king, it is extremely imperative that black plays A6 to stop an attack on B5.

The knight, now, cannot come to B5. This knight cannot come to B5. Additionally, this bishop is hindered from coming to B5 and is forced to go to C4 or somewhere further back. And, this is the raw basics of the Sicilian. From here, we can go on to many different variations, such as the Scheveningen, the Najdorf, and the Dragon, just to name a few.

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Hi this is Coach Jeremy, I’m going to show you Blackburn’s Mating Maneuver as demonstrated by fellow English master H. E. Byrd using his namesake opening Byrd’s Opening. He starts with the F4 pawn.

Sort of a suspicious pawn to move, but you can do it if you have the proper follow up moves. Black goes D5, E3, C5 Knight F3 if your going to open up this diagonal to your king. From H4 to E1, you need that knight stopping that check on H4. Black goes E6, a move that a modern master wouldn’t make, blocking in the Bishop. E3 to make room for the queen side. Knight to F6, Bishop B2.

Knight to C6, A3 is a little prophylactic stopping the Knights entry to B4. Bishop E7, Bishop D3 this is one of the unusual circumstances where Bishop to D3 is actually a good move provided the other bishop is already developed. Black castles. White castles. On in the time that Black uses to start to develop their Queen’s Bishop, white starts an attack. Black develops the Bishop. Queen to H4, threatening H7 for the second time which is only protected by the Knight on F6 which is already of attack by the . Bishop. So Black weakens his pawn structure with G6, We bring in the Knight increasing the pressure on H7. He moves the H pawn further weakening his pawn structure. White goes G4 to crack open a position, and Black makes his mistake, Knight takes G4.

Allowing for Blackburn’s Mating Maneuver. Queen takes Pawn, and bear in mind this Queen has to be taken because the Knight is supporting checkmate on H7 and the Bishop is supporting checkmate on H8. So after Pawn take Queen we have Bishop H7 supported by the G5 Knight. Checkmate, there’s Blackburn’s Mating Maneuver, sacrifice the Queen to create mate with three minor peaces.

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Hi. Coach Russ here with Chess NYC and, today, I’m going to talk to you
about the ladder mate. The ladder mate can be executed by any pieces that
are able to control the ranks or the files and most popular will be two
rooks, a rook and a queen, or even two queens.

Now the idea behind the ladder mate is we want to force our opponent’s king
into one of the four corners. The four corners being the H file, the A
file, the eighth rank, or the first rank. We’re going to use our control
of the ranks and files. Together, these two pieces are going to force the
king into one of the four corners and, ultimately, execute the checkmate.
In this position, these two pieces are currently controlling the B file.

What that means is black’s king is unable to go anywhere on the B file due
to the control of the rooks on the B file. So when white is looking for a
move, white will leave one rook which controls the B file and it will take
the other rook and control the C file, ultimately forcing the king to go,
then, to the D file.

So, white’s rook will simply play a check, as I stated before, black’s king
is unable to go to the B file due to the remaining rook on the B file and
is being checked on the C file, forcing the king to go to the D file.
Now once the king has approached or moved to the D file, we now need to
control the D file. We have a rook controlling the B file and the other
rook controlling the C file, and now, we must control the D file.

The rook on the C file is still keeping our opponent’s king from entering
the C file. The rook on the B file is no longer being actively used.

Therefore, the rook on the B file will now be used to control the D file.
The rook checks the king on the D file. And now due to the fact that our
other rook is controlling the C file, the only file available for our
opponent’s king is to enter the E file. And as we enter this E file, we
will repeat this same pattern again.

We have our rook controlling the D file and we must now control the E file.
The rook on the C file is no longer being actively used, so we will slide
that rook to the E file. And so on and so forth, we will drive the king
into the corner, ultimately delivering a checkmate.

Now, it is called a ladder checkmate because the rooks move in tandem as if
they were steps on a ladder, strategically, forcing the king to the side of
the board where, ultimately, we will deliver a checkmate.

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Hi, this is coach again. I am gonna show you a quick game on miniature as we call it, illustrating this smothered mate which is important mate that you are familiar with.

If I go d4 in this particular game black goes knight f6 we go c4 and now black uses a game that which actually is just received a new level of interest into a silly introduces a top level. But we go with e5 that’s the best to gambit for black giving up a pawn right away and allowing your knight to get hit. So the knight jumps to g4 attacking the pawn that was just attacking it white doesn’t want to give that pawn back it brings up the bishop to f4, black hits him with check to b4, white blocks the check with knight of-course, I guess you could retreat the bishop but which is to develop the knight and now this sneaky little move queen to e7 is what allows for what going to be a mother of mate in a couple of moves knight to f3 simple development on the king side black responds with mate to c6 developing the queen’s knight and now white goes to attack the bishop and rather than retreat the bishop.

Here goes knight G takes e5 white’s thinking black’s made a mistake, made a blunder so this I am gonna take the bishop and it wasn’t a mistake actually. It was trick knight to d3 checkmate, it cannot go pawn takes knight the queen is pinning that pawn. There is a smothered mate and the reason why its called smothered mate is because the king is being smothered by his own pieces. He has no place to move because he is blocked in every direction by his own white pieces so.

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Hi this is Coach Jeremy again, I’m going to show you Legal’s pseudo-sacrifice which is quite cute if you haven’t seen it before. E4, e5, knight to f3, now the whole point of this is to show what happens, when black fails to develop, and how severe that can be early in the game.

So instead of going knight c6 and developing the piece, black goes d6, we develop the bishop to c4, now black makes this unnecessary move h6, white develops a third piece. Now white is ahead in development considerably, three pieces to none because a pawn move is not a developing move. So black makes their first developing move, and it’s the most aggressive move they can possibly make, pinning the knight to the queen. So white just goes ahead snaps the e pawn, and exposes their queen to capture.

The reason why this is a pseudo-sacrifice is because a piece that’s pinned in front of the queen is not an absolute pin. It would be an absolute pin were the knight in front of the king. But black greedily takes the queen, not expecting bishop takes f7, check. The knight is cutting off d7, so the king only has one move and then, to black’s amazement, knight to d5, checkmate with the knight cutting off the escape squares on f6, applying checkmate and the other knight on e5 cutting off the escape square on d7 and protecting the bishop.

And there you have it, mate with three minor pieces after sacrificing the queen. And this is what can happen if you fail to develop and how dangerous it can get early in the game.

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Hi. Coach Russ, here, with Chess NYC and we’re going to look at the king
and rook checkmate. When looking at this position, it is actually
impossible to create a position where the king and the rook checkmate the
king in the center of the board.

So, that leaves us with four options. In order for the king and rook to
checkmate on the opponent’s king, the opponent’s king must be on one of the
four sides of the board.

The H file, the first rank, the A file or the eighth rank. And once the
opponent’s king is on one of these sides of the board, it’s possible for
the king and the rook to checkmate the king.

Now, let’s look at an ending position. In a position such as this, the
opponent’s king is on the side of the board and now it is possible for
white to execute a checkmate. In this particular position, the white’s
king has created something called opposition. Opposition, meaning the
white’s king controls all three of the escape squares of the opponent’s
king in front of the king. The white’s king controls F7, E7, and D7.
Therefore if the white’s king was able to execute a check, it would leave
no other option for the king, but checkmate. White can simply play, rook
goes down to A8, check on the king. And due to the opposition and the
white king controlling F7, E7, and D7, all three squares in front of the
king, this is simply a checkmate.

Now, how do we force the opponent’s king to one of the four sides? We are
going to try to improve the position where the space of the king and the
rook versus the king. And first and foremost, we would always like to
improve the position of the rook first or take more space.

So in looking at this position as a starting position, where can white’s
rook go to improve its position to the maximum amount and control the most
space? In this position, white’s rook is simply going to position C6. In
this position, as you can notice, it controls the whole C file and the
sixth rank giving black’s king only this area to maneuver.

If black’s king were to go down one square, we’re going to improve the
position. We should always, like I said before, improve the position of
the rook first. And in this position, we can improve the position of the
rook in two different ways. We can improve the rook position, here, taking
away from the C file and now we control the B file or we can go and play
C5. Instead of controlling the sixth rank, we are going to control the
fifth rank. In this position, we are going to play this move. Black
responds and black plays king A5.
Now, we have to see if we can improve the position again. Is there any
where that this rook can improve its current position? And the answer is
no. There is no where that this rook can go that’s going to give it
greater space. So now, we look at the king and we make a move and improve
the position with the king. Black’s only response is for the king to come
down.

And once again, how do we improve the position? First, we look at the
rook. We are able to take more space with the rook giving black’s king one
response. And now, can we improve the position with the rook? And the
answer to this question, there’s no moves for the rook that’s going to take
more space. So, that gives us a second option. You can improve the
position with the king.

In this position, the king’s going to come over. Once again, how are we
going to take more space and can we take more space with the rook? And,
the answer is no. So, we’ll look at the second option; take more space
with the king. King comes down. And I ask you this question; can we
improve the position with the rook? And this answer, yes. We can take
more space. King has one option, is to go to A2.

And now we have to ask ourselves, can we improve the position with the
rook? Answer is yes, we can take more space. Once again, king comes down
and we ask ourselves again, can the rook improve the position? The answer
is no. There’s no where this rook can go to take more space. So, the king
comes down and once again, the king takes space. King’s only move is to go
up. And now we’re in a situation where we need to begin to calculate.

We’ve gotten the king in very close quarters and we have to execute a
checkmate. The king went up. Can we improve the position with the rook?
And the answer is no. We can take no further space. So, we improve the
position with the king. Black’s only response is the king come down.

And now in this position, we’re going to see how we’re going to improve the
position to the maximum. In this case, the maximum position is a checkmate
for white. So looking at this position, white simply plays rook A3. And
this is a checkmate. White controls these escape squares. White’s rook
executes a checkmate and the game is over.

So in this position, we have forced the king into the corner. We’ve
improved the position, first, with the rook. And if there’s no improvement
with the rook, we’ve improved it with the king, forcing our opponent’s king
to one of the four sides of the board. And eventually, we are going to be
executing a checkmate.

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Hi. My name is Rebecca Taxman with Chess NYC and I’m going to show you,
today, how to checkmate with the king and queen. First, the king; now
sometimes, people are at the end of the game and they’re, like uhh, I’m
stuck. How do I checkmate with the king and queen. So, this is going to
give you a quick tutorial on how to do it quickly.

To start, just trying to checkmate with just the queen is not going to
work. Let’s take a look. If I come here, check, the king runs away. If I
keep getting closer to the king, the king can still run away. Even if I
bring the king into the middle of the board, he has an escape. There is no
way to checkmate with just the queen.

So, let’s bring it back. The queen’s partner, the king; these two need to
work, simultaneously, together to checkmate the king. The best way to
checkmate is by creating a knight shadow with the queen. What I mean is we
want to bring the queen a knight’s shadow or a knight’s move away from the
king.

The king has only a few options now. He is cut out from five squares.
Therefore, whatever move the king makes, the queen follows that move. If
the king goes up diagonal, the queen follows up diagonal keeping the
knight’s shadow. The king moves over, the queen moves over one step. If
the king goes up diagonal, the queen goes up diagonal. The king goes over,
the queen goes over.

Now, the king is trapped in the corner. This is where we stop. We bring
the queen the next step, the king is going to be in stalemate. So
therefore, we want to give the king a little breathing room. Let him have
a space to move. And now, we bring our king.

The king is going to dance back and forth, as we march our king towards the
queen. And then, we are going to create what’s called an in your face
checkmate. The queen is going to get in the face of the king and it’s like
in your face Mr. King; checkmate.

This is checkmate because the queen is looking at the king and the king has
no squares to move. If he tries to move to G8, its check. If he tries to
move to H7, its check. It cannot capture the queen because then it would
be next to the king and we know that that’s illegal. And, there is no
piece we can put in between to block a checkmate. Therefore, this is
checkmate. And, that’s how you checkmate with a king and queen.

Transcript

Hi, coach Russ here with ChessNYC, and today I’m going to be talking to you about the four move checkmate, also known as the scholar’s mate. So the scholar’s mate is a opening, also known as a form of checkmate that is going to focus on your attack on black’s weak F7 square. So here it goes.

White opens with E4 allowing for the development of both their queen and their bishop. Black’s most popular response to E4 is playing E5. Now after the E4-E5 opening white can go in either development with the bishop or with the queen, but remember we’re focusing our attack on the weak F7 square.

So in this particular opening I will open up with the bishop to C4. As you can notice, the bishop is directly looking at the weak F7 square putting pressure on that pawn. Black develops the knight, and now is when we activate the queen. As you can see, the bishop is already looking at the F7 square, and now we’re going to move the queen to one of two positions that can also look at or attack the F7 square.

The queen can be activated to H5, and as you see the queen is now threatening the F7 square, or we can also activate the queen to F3. In both of these positions the queen and the bishop are both looking at F7. Now if black is not careful and black makes a normal developing move or controlling the center, white can simply play queen takes pawn. And as simple as that the game is over.

So let’s look at it once again. The four move checkmate is known as the scholar’s mate, and it’s the idea of attacking the weak F7 square. This square is considered the weak F7 square because this pawn or F7 is only protected by the opponent’s king.

In order to successfully attack the F7 square, we are going activate both our queen and our bishop. We’re going to play E4 opening up the queen and the bishop. Black responds to center, and now we can activate our queen. As you can see, we have our queen threatening the weak F7. Black continues with development, and now we need our second piece to attack F7.

Currently, we have the queen threatening F7, and now we are going to activate our bishop which is also looking at the weak F7 square. After black continues with their development, once again the queen takes pawn, checkmate. So everybody that looking to win a chess game very quickly and to beat their mom or dad or friend and be one of the top chess players in their school, the scholar’s mate is the way to go.

Transcript

Hi this is David Sullivan, for Chess NYC. Some people think chess games are long, slow and boring but they can actually be very quick. Here is an example of a three move game of chess.

White starts by moving the center pawn in front of his king, he does that to free, more pieces, black does the same. Now a frequent beginners move here is to play the queen to h5, white brings up the queen, which develops a piece and he is attacking three pawns, although only one of the pawns is actually unprotected. Best for black here is to develop his knight, and protect the pawn, but he can make some pretty tragic mistakes here. He could play the king to e7, and then after king goes up to e7, which is kind of crazy, you’re bringing your king towards the enemy, when he wants to be behind his own pieces, and he also blocks his own bishop and queen, preventing them from moving. White can go queen takes e5, check to the black king, the black king cannot go two squares and capture the queen, nobody can go to this square and block. And wherever the king tries to run, he will still be in check, checkmate.

So, three moves, game over, try not to let it happen to you.

Transcript

Hi, Coach Russ here with Chess NYC. A very common question that we receive as chess coaches is what is the quickest way to win a game of chess? Now, everybody’s idea of the game of chess, that’s it’s a very long, strategic, thought out game, but surprisingly enough there is a way to win a game of chess in only two moves. Now, when we’re looking at the two move checkmate or also known as the foolsmate, it’s going to take a sequence of bad moves by the opponent to fall into this trap of only two moves.

Now interestingly enough the two move checkmate is going to occur on the black side checkmating white in two moves. So white is going to open up and play a move, F-4. As we can notice in this position by white moving their pawn to F-4 they’ve opened up their king’s diagonal exposing the king and creating a weakness. Black can simply open up and make space for their queen and bishop and this is black’s first move. White makes their second move further opening up the king’s diagonal and allowing for black to make their second move which is to bring the queen along the diagonal to H-4 and checking the king.

Now in chess when we’re in check we look for three ways to get out of check. It’s either to move the king, to block the check or to capture the checking piece. In this position the king has no safe squares to move. There are no pieces that can interpose or block the queen from checking the king and there are actually no pieces that can capture the checking piece or capture the queen.

So what has just happened is black has checkmated white in two moves and just to once again show you, white opens up making the move to F-4 opening up the king’s diagonal. Black plays the pawn up opening up the queen to make a direct threat on white’s king. White plays G-4 and black responds by bringing the queen out and making a direct threat to white’s king and leaving white with no option to run, block or capture and ending the game in only two moves.

Transcript

Hi. Coach Russ here with Chess NYC. Today, we’re going to look at a very
popular and common question; I’m stuck and what do I do? So after the
normal developing moves in the game of chess where we control the center,
we develop our pieces, and we castle our king, we get to a position in the
game of chess where many people ask the question, what do I do, I’m stuck?
I like to teach when you’re stuck and you’re looking for an idea or a next
move in a game of chess, you should look at the three forceful moves. The
most forceful move in a game of chess is always a check. So as you
continue the game of chess and you’re getting out of the opening, the first
move we want to consider are checks. How many different checks or how many
ways can we check our opponent’s king in this position. Let’s consider
those.

So in this position, there’s, actually, one possible check. Bishop can
take pawn, checking the king. But as you can see in this position, if
bishop takes pawn checking the king, the bishop will simply be captured by
our opponent’s rook or king. So giving up a bishop for a pawn, in most
situations, is not a good trade.

Then, we can look at our second type of move, which is captures. In this
position, we have several types of captures on the board. The knight can
capture our opponent’s pawn. Once again, bishop can capture opponent’s
pawn, which is a check we already looked at and considered. And, the third
thing is bishop can take our opponent’s knight. So we’re in a position and
we don’t know what to do, we can consider captures. And in this position,
the only capture that would make logical sense would be bishop takes
knight.
The third type of forceful move in a game of chess is a threat. So we’ve
looked at, first of all, we look for checks. Are there any captures in
this position and are they plausible and that make sense. And after we’ve
looked at both those options, the third option we look for, are there any
possible threats.

Now, a threat can be you are threatening an unprotected piece, you’re
threatening a piece of value, you are threatening to incorporate a tactive
element, such as a pin or fork, a skewer or an x-ray.

In this position, we can simply look at knight goes to D5. The threat in
this position is knight threatens knight on F6. And, this knight on F6 is
pinned by the bishop. So, that move is actually going to force black to
come up with an additional good move and this gives us an idea on how to
make our moves in chess.

So once again, we’re stuck and we’re in the middle of a game. We’ve
already controlled the center. We’ve developed our pieces. We’ve castled
our king. What do we do next? And, I encourage you guys to look for three
forceful moves.

First of all, look for checks. Second, look for captures. And the third
look for threats. Once you’ve exhausted all of these three options, you
should be able to find a good next move in the game of chess.

Transcript

Hi my name is Rebecca Taxmen and I’m with Chess NYC. I’m going to talk to you today about the three principles to opening strategy. So when we get to the game we’re always like, ‘Uh, what do I do? There’s so many pieces. I don’t know how to start.” Well I’m going to give you three steps that are going to help you create a strong, confident opening.

First thing that we need to understand is these four center squares. These are considered a super square because this is where the center of the board is, the control center. For example, if I have my knight in the center of the board, my knight can control up to eight different squares, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. We can see that this is a very strong place for my knight. If I have my knight on the side of the board it can only control up to four squares, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Therefore, my knight is stronger in the center whereas most pieces are stronger in the center of the board. So at the beginning of the game you want to think about center control. First thing we can try and do is get our pawns into the center. Very important to try to get our pawns to control the center. The next important step that we want to focus on is piece development.

Now I like to think about my pieces as they are working for me. I want to give my pieces a job. If they’re sitting back here they’re not happy and they’re not doing anything. So my next step is to bring my pieces out and have them working for me. Usually we bring out the knights before the bishops. So I can bring my knight to F-3 and my other knight to C-3 and then I’m bringing them towards the center. Notice how I did not bring my knight to H-3, that would not be a good choice. Towards the center.

Next, I want to bring my bishops out, again towards the center controlling the center squares. The next step that we always want to consider is king safety, very important. I like to consider the king like a baby. The reason I consider the king a baby is because we always want to protect our babies just like we always want to protect our king. Therefore, the best way to protect your king at the beginning of the game is to castle. Now we have two places, two ways that we can castle. You can either castle on the king’s side or on the queen’s side.

Right away I can see that I can castle on the king’s side. To castle I move my king two spaces and then bring my rook to the other side and now my king is stuck behind a little fortress or, to keep with the theme of a baby, a crib and it is protected and safe. Just to review, the three important principles are controlling the center, piece development, and king safety. Those are the three things that we can do at the beginning of the game to go into the middle game confidently.

Transcript

Okay, guys. We’re going to talk about attack and defense, but in the most
rudimentary way possible because this is really what chess is all about.
Volumes have been written about attack and defense. But, we’re going to
deal with this in the most straight forward way.

Let’s say white does E4, maybe the most common opening in chess. Black
goes E5. Now, the most logical and probably the most expected continuation
is knight to F3. Why? Because, we need to develop our pieces, our bishops
and our knights immediately. So why not develop the knight that attacks
black’s central pawn.

Now, this could be defended in a few ways. We could go, for example,
bishop D6, but that not something you are likely to see a strong player do
because you’re blocking your queen’s pawn and, therefore, your queen’s
bishop. And, it’s just creating space problems for no reason.

You could go D6. Although, you’re falling behind in development. There’s
plenty of opening systems where D6 is acceptable, but be careful not to
fall too far behind in development.

We could go queen to E7, but that’s not really logical because you’re
blocking your king’s bishop which needs to be developed.

So, the most common way to defend this E5 pawn and not fall behind in
development would be knight to C6, keeping up with white in development and
simply defending your E pawn. Now of course, if white were to make the
absurd move of knight takes pawn, black would go knight takes knight and
would be winning the game, immediately. But, white’s not going to make
that terrible mistake. They’ll probably develop the bishop to C4 for the
Italian game or B5 for the Spanish game, or maybe knight to C3 for the
Scotch game. But, that’s an example of how to defend a pawn and how to use
some basic principals in choosing how to do so.

Another quick example would be if I start with E4 and let’s say black goes
D6, which would be the beginning of the Pirc Defense or perhaps any number
of other defenses, if I go bishop B5 check, a check I don’t personally
recommend, it could be blocked in any number of ways. We could block with
the queen. That would be a terrible move, losing the queen for absolutely
no reason, and subsequently losing the game.

We could block with the bishop, which is pretty good because then if I go
bishop takes bishop, I’m giving black the opportunity to develop their
knight. Or, I could just go C6 and deflect the bishop, which is now
retreating and maybe is going to get hit again with B5 and will have to
retreat to B3 and so on.

But the point is, this initial check, bishop to B5 can be blocked in any
number of different ways. It can be blocked with the pawn, the bishop, the
queen, which would be awful. Oh, and the knight, which I didn’t mention
before. Knight to C6. Knight to D7. So, there’s any number of ways to
defend this position.

And, a big part of being a chess player is deciding which is the best way
to defend. So, I would just recommend C6; make white retreat his bishop.
Those are the most basic of the basics when it comes to attacking and
defending.

Transcript

Hi, This is coach I am gonna show you a combination that actually may be arguably the greatest player of all time, certainly one of the greatest, who is used. This game although its not an outstanding game, I am sure he is a pawn and it is quite fearful at the fact that he was playing the world champion or soon to be the world champion at the time. This game illustrates very clearly an important point which is that chess is not just about capturing pieces the name of the game is check mate, that’s what we are trying to do check mate our opponent’s king and prevent our king from being checkmated and will sacrifice our entire to that end.

So from this position and never mind quite how we got here. queen to f7 check, the king only has one move d6 and now the series of sacrifices begin knight to c4, the pawn is cutting off the e5 and c5 so we have to take the knight and then knight to e4, the other knight jumps in check. The king only has one move d5. Now we introduce a new attacking piece the rook, it cannot be taken by the pawn which is pin by the queen so we are forcing black again to take, it could have taken the pawn as well but it take the more valuable knight.

Now introduce again a new attacking weapon rook A to e1 check sacrificing pawn now white its in with c3 on check the king has one move d3 and now to end the game we have rook to d5 double check, bishop to f7 double check, checkmate and if we notice white’s given up two knights, bishop at nine,ten, eleven twelve points worth a material has only captured five points a material while its the black king that’s checkmated. So chess is not just about capturing pieces.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Rebecca Taxman. I’m with Chess NYC, and I’m going to talk to you today about pawn structures. While there are multiple pawn structures that are very important to know, there are five basics that are “need-to-know”.

So, let’s start off with the pawn chain. To begin, we have what’s called a pawn chain: we have a diagonal set of pawns; each pawn in this pawn chain is protecting one another. This is extremely important in terms of creating an attack. You always want to have your pawn chain directed towards the king. If the king is castled over on this side of the board, this is where you want your pawn structure going, instead of having your pawn chain running off the side of the board. Not so happy. Additionally, the top pawn is the strongest pawn in the pawn chain, the bottom is the weakest. If you’re playing on black, you want to attack the bottom of the pawn chain. The idea behind the pawn chain is that it controls a lot of space and it’s going toward the king, creating an attack.

Another important pawn structure that is a need-to-know is called “double pawns”. Double pawns have both good and bad elements to them. One element that is very good about double pawns is they control a lot of space. Double pawns can control up to five squares – one, two, three, four, five. In chess, we want to control space. Double pawns can control a lot of space. However, there is a weakness to double pawns. This pawn right back here is not protected by any other pawns, therefore this pawn is considered weak. Additionally, this pawn is also considered “stuck in traffic,” meaning it can’t move unless the pawn in front of it moves first.

Another important pawn structure that we need to know is called the “isolated pawn”, or “lonely pawn”. This is not a favorable pawn structure. This pawn is sitting all by itself. When we have a pawn that’s like this sometimes we have to have a queen or another, bigger piece defending and babysitting this pawn. I don’t want my queen babysitting an isolated pawn. I want my pieces going ahead and making checkmate, and not defending an isolated pawn. This pawn is considered a weakness, and it is easy for black to attack.

An even more unfavorable pawn position is “double isolated pawns”. Additionally, these two pawns are extremely weak. Neither one of them can protect one another. This pawn is also considered stuck in traffic. It cannot move forward unless the pawn in front of it moves forward, and these are relatively hard to defend. A bishop cannot defend both of these pawns at the same time. A knight can also not defend both of these pawns at the same time. It’s also hard, unless a rook is in between them, to defend them at the same time. We have to use a queen or a king to defend the two pawns at the same time.

However, the last pawn structure I want to talk about is called a “passed pawn”. Passed pawn is one of the most important pawn structures that we need to know, because this pawn is on its way to becoming a queen. A passed pawn is a pawn that has passed all of your enemy’s pawns and is on its way to becoming a queen – by getting to the end of the board – or any other piece that you choose. When you have passed pawn, it is very important to sit and babysit this pawn. So therefore you can get it to the end of the board and it can become a queen or any other piece that you choose.

And that is all I have to tell you about important pawn structures.

Transcript

In chess a combination is a first sequence of moves that begins with a sacrifice. Here is a position for the game played by two students of mine in a class I did last Thursday and it was black’s turn to move. Black has a queen, a rook and a bishop. White has two rooks a knight and a queen so white is a material but black to play can force to win by laying rook takes b2 check. Now after the rook takes the pawn check, the king absolutely has to take back. There is no other possible response. You can block this check, the king can’t run over here to see one because the bishop will say check. So he has to take and after the king takes the rook, queen comes over to b4 and this is check mate.

So black wins the game by sacrificing material, its really his only way to get throughout the white position. First sacrifice powered by super win. Here is an another example of a small combination, in fact this is what’s known as a made in two. White has the queen, the rook, the knight and the extra pawns. Black has the queen, the rook and the knight, but how does white actually win the game from here?

The White can make a small sacrifice, a big sacrifice the queen takes the rook check to the king. The king absolutely has to take the queen there is no way to block this check, the king cannot run backwards because of the other rook and after the king takes the queen black has rook to h8 check mate to the king. So white makes more sacrifice but then winds upon and the rook says check, the king cannot go here because he would be in check from the rook, he can’r go here check from the pawn as well as the rook, can’t go here because of the pawn. It can’t go here to g6 because of the knight. Game over, combinations can help us win from the positions what we can see away to get advantage.

Transcript

Hi, my name’s Rebecca Taxman[SP] with Chess NYC. Today I’m gonna talk to you about Zugzwang. Zugzwang is actually a German word, but to boil it down, what is Zugzwang? Zugzwang is when you have to make a move and that move sucks. So, let’s look at this basic end game position. It is white to move. We can notice that black is ready to promote its pawn and create a queen, but white only has one move.

That move is D2. After he goes to D2, the king steps up to F2, stopping the king from coming back to E1. The king has to move away and then black can now promote and become a queen. So, in short, white was put into Zugzwang by being forced to make a bad move, ‘cuz it’s the only move that white can make, allowing black to create, to promote into a black queen, and in short, that is Zugzwang, when you’re forced to make a bad move.

Transcript

Hi, this is David Sullivan for Chess NYC and I’d like to talk about the center and gambits. In chess, we generally try to bring our two pawns to the center of the board to free our pieces and also, if black pieces come out, we can use that center to move forward and attack black. But black will try to stop us from making our center. If we play, let’s say, E4, black might play E5. And then if we play our other center point out right away, pawn to D4, black can take the pawn, white can take back with the queen, but then black will develop a piece, attacking the queen, making it waste time by moving again. And then black will develop another piece. And then, all of a sudden, black has more big guys out than white. Black has two pieces developed, white only has one piece developed. Pawns are not considered pieces, they’re just pawns. So, white wants to bring the two center pawns out, but black is fighting against it with his first move. He’s saying, “Well, you bring this pawn out, I will take you right away.”

White can use, in this position, what’s known as a gambit. Gambit comes from the Italian word, gambito, which means to trip up. So, white is trying to trip up black. White plays his pawn to F4. He offers black a pawn. Black can take the white pawn and white won’t be able to capture back. What white is trying to do is deflect the pawn so that later, he’ll be able to more easily bring his other center point up and black won’t be able to take it.

Another example of a gambit, and this is an opening that shows up in my own games occasionally, is when I would play white, I would often play D4. Black plays knight F6, I go C4 and black plays C5. I advance my pawn to D5 and then black plays his pawn to B5. This is known as the benko gambit. Black intends to offer me a pawn and then offer me another pawn, so that later in the game, he’ll have two open lines for his rooks that he can use to put pressure on me down here. For your entertainment, I will show you what I use to play against this. When they play B5 and then A6, I would actually play my knight to C3, developing a piece. Black would take a pawn. This pawn is unprotected, but I don’t grab it. I play pawn to E4. I free my bishop, black attacks my knight, I bring my knight to B5. And now, it looks like my pawn on E4 is hanging, that is, it’s unprotected. But if black takes my pawn on E4, I can then attack his knight and if his knight runs away, I have knight to D6, checkmate. Smothered mate. So over here, we have black offering a gambit, white declining the gambit, then white offers black a pawn and if he takes the pawn, he will get checkmated.

These two examples of gambits to give you a little idea of what we’re talking about here, as with any subject in chess, we could talk about this for months, but just remember, gambits are basically, it’s a small sacrifice in order to make some sort of game.