Play some chess

Puzzle of the week, see if you can see the whole variation - White to play.

http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/e/6/e/8/event_429719112.jpeg

Last week we had some good games of chess with Bryan, Aaron, Ray and Jon.

Bryan also showed us a very interesting game between Boris Spassky (the 10th world champion) and David Bronstein, where Bronstein as Black sacrificed his Queen for 2 Bishops and a Pawn, and went on to win the game! Bryan has also won a couple of games with this Queen sacrifice, so ask him if you want to play your chess on the edge.

We also started looking at some basic endgame positions and concepts:

• King & 1 Pawn vs King: How to calculate Direct Opposition and various Distant Oppositions;

• Rook & 1 Pawn vs Rook: The Lucena Position, and how to win the game with your Pawn on the 7th rank and your King stuck in front of it. We also looked at a few other positions with the Pawn on the 7th rank and the Attacking Rook stuck in front.

• Bishop & 1 Pawn vs Bishop (same colours): we had a look at a situation where the Pawn is on the Bishop file - the Attacking side needs to make the Defence's Bishop take the short diagonal before queening the Pawn is possible.

• Checkmating with the Bishop pair.

• Queen vs 1 Pawn (on 7th Rank and 1 move from queening, with King adjacent): We discussed (as the side with the Queen) how to win the game if the Pawn is on the Knight, D and E files. We also explored how a draw can occur if the Pawn is a Bishop Pawn.

• Bryan showed us a quick no-brain checkmating technique with Queen and Rook that can be implemented with very little time on the clock (useful for blitz games!)

This week, we will have a look at:

• Bishop & 1 Pawn vs Bishop (same colours) - Pawn on the knight files;

• How to checkmate with a King, Bishop and Knight.