Should have been easy

Late Thursday night during a thunderstorm, I played a few three minute games online. Two draws from dead lost positions became lessons in elementary endings to end the spring term for my before school elementary chess club.

In the first, my opponent ran desperately short of time in a bishop ending where he had an significant advantage in number of pawns. After promoting a pawn and using the queen to capture my last pawn, he had a forced checkmate in seven, but only 4.0 seconds left.

Black to move

50...Qe4+

My opponent opts for a sequence where premoves can be played to save time.

50...Qc7 leads to mate in six moves more.

51.Kd6 f4 52.Kc5 f3 53.Kd6 f2 54.Kc5 f1Q

A second queen appears and 3.0 seconds remain on the clock. It is also forced mate in three. Black has done well and should win.

There are two schools of thought on this position:
1) a decent player resigns in such a hopeless position, and
2) its is foolish to resign in a blitz game when your opponent has three seconds left.

55.Kd6

Black to move

What should a player know about checkmate with two queens?

From the hardest position against a lone king, it is mate in four. Checkmate can occur in the middle of the board. Checks are often the best move.

Most players, however, seem to think the ladder mate is simplest and therefore best. In this case, it can be accomplished with premoves.

55...Qff5

This move does not get closer to checkmate. That is, mate is still three moves in the future.

55...Qf6+ executes an easy ladder mate unless White opts for 56.Kc5 Qfc6#
I would probably play 55...Qa6 in a heartbeat.

56.Kc7 Qee6 57.Kd8

Black still has 2.8 seconds remaining and a simple mate in one.

57...Qff7??

The premove squandered half a point.

The second undeserved draw had gross errors by both players. Time was a less critical factor with both having more than half a minute on the clock.

White to move

58.Rh6??

I would play 58.Rb6

One of very few non-winning moves in this simple rook ending.

58...Rh1+ 59.Kg4 Rg1??

Black here is stuck in unimaginative routine moves that were wholly unnecessary when simply calculation shows that 59...Rxh6 draws easily.

60.Kf4 Rf1+

White to move

I started with this position with the young students, explaining that moving the king towards the rook puts an end to harassing checks. Ke4-d3-e2 (or f6+ if the rook gives up the checks).

61.Ke5 Re1+ 62.Kf4 Rf1+ 63.Kg4 Rg1+

At this point the game is technically drawn, as a repetition is about to occur. It is sad that a player rated in the mid-1900s does not know how to win this ending.

64.Kh5 Rh1+ 65.Kg4 Rg1+ drawn by repetition.

Beginner's Club: This Week

Many of the young students in my after school club have only begun playing chess when they joined the club. Others have more experience and more skill, but very few have played in tournaments and with limited success. My focus in these sessions is teaching elementary skills and cultivating enjoyment of the game. Most sessions begin with a short lesson that consists of a small number of problems on the demo board, or a short game. Sometimes, I show a simple technique and ask them to practice, such as building a shrinking box to force checkmate with heavy pieces.

This week, I pulled two checkmate exercises from the Facebook group Chess Teachers & Learners.

The first was presented as a difficult checkmate in one.

White to move

Obviously White has overwhelming force, but the stipulation is that there is a mate in one.

There are many possible checks, including some that would be illegal. One young student immediately suggested Bb3+, so I pointed out that the bishop was pinned by the queen. Beginners need to learn that pieces pinned to their king cannot move off the rank, file, or diagonal along which the pin occurs. Although this bishop cannot move, it still defends the h7 knight from capture. But, as we will see with the solution, the immobility of a pinned piece reduces its power.

The correct answer took me half a minute when I saw this position on Facebook because I subconsciously rejected moving the pinned queen. Then, I saw that the rook attacking the queen is also pinned.

With the young students, we looked at every possible check except the correct one and saw why it does not achieve checkmate. Then, a student saw the correct answer, 1.Qb3#.

We moved on to the second problem--a mate in two.

White to move

This one proved difficult. The students tried several ideas. I stressed the importance of the pin on Black's pawn by the queen to help. After we had spent fifteen minutes on the lesson without finding the answer to this problem, I had the get chess sets and play chess, leaving the position on the board.

They played for 30-40 minutes and started to seem a little restless, so I brought them back to the demo board and showed them the solution (it turns out that there is a second solution that I missed).

1.Qd4 is an elegant move that forces Black to move a rook, the capture of which delivers checkmate.

1.Rd7 is the alternate solution that I missed.

Then I set up a position from William Lewis, Elements of the Game of Chess (1822) that I use with some frequency (see "Teaching Elementary Checkmates"). It is mate in five.

White to move

Students were directed to work in teams solving this. If they found the correct solution, each member of the team would earn a chess pencil. Several came close.

After they struggled a bit with simple forcing moves that were not forcing enough, I offered some hints: find a move that leaves Black only one legal move, force the defending king to remain in the quadrant of the board in which it begins (of course, I had to explain the word quadrant).

Tested

Sometimes you must test your opponent's ability to demonstrate what should be elementary skills, especially when time is running short. In the penultimate round of a local tournament a few years ago, the top two players--both experts--were running short of time. The one defending sacked his rook to test his opponent's ability to deliver checkmate with knight and bishop. The gamble worked and they drew. My online opponents often test my ability to deliver checkmate with a queen and king against a lone king in under 15 seconds. I usually pass this test.

This morning, my opponent tested my ability to force checkmate with two bishops in under a minute. I had 59 seconds left when my last pawn was captured and 51 when I finished eliminating his pawns. When checkmate was delivered, 29 seconds remained on my clock. I made 24 moves in 22 seconds to finish the game.

After 69 moves and just over 18 minutes of play in the game 10, we had the following position. My opponent had 53 seconds left to 60 for me.

White to move

70.Nd6 Bxd6

Stockfish would pushed the pawn.

71.Kxd4 Bc5+ 72.Kc4 Bf7+ 73.Kc3 Ka5

I hasten to eliminate White's pawns so that I can begin the mating sequence.

74.Kd3 Kxa4 75.b6 Bxb6 76.Ke4

Black to move

76...Kb4

76...Kb5 leads to mate one move faster.

77.Ke5 Bc4 78.Ke4 Bc5

78...Kc3 is faster

79.Ke5 Kc3 80.Ke4

Black to move

80...Bd4

I teach students to place a protected bishop next to the king because it is easy to see and forces the defending king closer to the edge. 

However, 80...Bd6 leads to checkmate two moves faster, and if White does not move towards the edge, 81.Ke3, then 81...Bd3 is the same sort of move.

81.Kf3 Kd3 82.Kf4 Bd5

Again, there is a move that leads to checkmate two moves faster, 82...Be6

83.Kf5 Ke3 84.Kg4 Be4 85.Kg5 Be5

Time remaining: 0:35 -- 0:42

86.Kg4 Bf4

The recurring pattern that forces the king to the edge.

87.Kh5 Bf5

87...Kf3 is easy to find and two moves faster.

88.Kh4

The rest of my play was perfect and used 12 seconds.

Black to move

88...Kf2 89.Kh5 Kf3 90.Kh4

Those learning how to finish this checkmate should observe the simple way that my bishops drive the king to the corner.

90...Bg6 91.Kh3 Bg5 92.Kh2 Kf2

My king must end up here.

93.Kh3 Bf5+ 94.Kh2 Bf4+ 95.Kh1 Be4#

As is happens, one of my students is finishing the Bishop Award and has this checkmate and two pawn endings remaining.

Checkmates Missed; Checkmates Found

This morning during a momentary lapse of reason, I threw away a game.

Black to move

I played 40...Bxh2?? and was mated.

A couple of days ago, in a game that I won, I missed not one, but two forced checkmates in two moves.

White to move

30.Be4+ did not throw away the decisive advantage, but did extend the distance to mate. After 30...Kb8 31.d7 Bxe4 32.d8Q+ Kxb7, I had a second opportunity to play a simple mate in two.

White to move

The game continued 33.Rc7+ Kb6 34.Rxf7+ Black resigns.

Later that same day, I found a mate in four after my opponent threw away a winning position with 28.Ng6??

Black to move

Last night, just before bed, I managed to find a forced mate in six in a three minute game after my opponent played 31.Rcc7

Black to move

I have not given any of the checkmate sequences, leaving them for the reader to find.

Stockfish's Curve Ball

During chess camp last week in a session ambitiously called "advanced rook endgames", I had the students choose a position from a stack of cards that were face down. These cards have 24 endgame diagrams, some of which specify the side to move. One of those they chose, I had regarded as reasonably simple. I set it up in the Fritz GUI with Stockfish 16 loaded as the main engine, and we (the students with my guidance) played it against Stockfish.

The engine defied Dvoretsky, who wrote, "Black's rook must remain passive, staying on the eighth rank" (Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. 5th ed. [2020], 161). I explained to the students what I recalled of Dvoretsky's explanation, and drew the arrows visible in the diagram.

White to move

From my lead, the students chose the first move well.

1.Rb7 Rd8 2.Rh7

Only after struggling against the engine's surprising response did we come to understand that 2.Rg7+ is better.

2...Rd6!

3.f7 is not possible. We tried 3.Rg7+ Kf8 4.Rh7 Kg8 and realized something else was needed.
3.Re7 Kf8 confused us, although it should not have.
After 3.Rb7 Rd8, we felt that our progress was still missing something.

After several trials and error, we found the correct idea.

3.Rg7+ Kf8 4.Ra7 Rd8 5.Rh7

Black to move

Now Black must allow either the skewer or f7+ followed by the skewer.

Playing several Lucena positions against Stockfish over the past few years, I've learned that the engine often diverges from the line given in the textbook. Often this complicates the solution and the human must solve a problem.

These curve balls are why computer training is valuable.

Lessons from the Dragonslayer

The Dragonslayer is Spokane's oldest youth chess tournament, dating back to the late-1990s. I have been coaching at the host school since 2011. The prior coach was my opponent in the game featured in the inaugural post for Chess Skills in November 2007.

The 2025 Dragonslayer was held yesterday. There were 36 players representing 17 teams.

Some observations:

New players made a difference. A newcomer playing his first tournament led four 4.0 finishers to take home the second place trophy. Two of the second place team's top scorers were playing their first event as well.

Time management made a difference. One player won on time with only two pawns against two queens, a rook, and at least another pawn.

Basic checkmate skills mattered. One game ended in stalemate when the player with the queen did not see the mate in one and moved the queen to the wrong square. Another player in time pressure missed a mate in one. One player who drew a difficult game where both players in time pressure missed chances, did not see a forced mate in two with Nf6+ followed by Rg8# (Arabian mate).

Endgame skills made a difference. There were dozens of pawn promotions, many preventable by the opponent. There were as many as three queens in the possession of one side in games that I witnessed.

Many of my students this next week will see some positions that I recall or was able to capture with my phone.

White to move

Here or a few moves later, White brought the knight to g5. Also over several moves Black's rook on f8 went back to its starting square, Black's queen went to c8, and an exchange of bishops left White's queen on e7 with a mate in one. Black won the game.

I was called to the board by a player who was offered a draw and wanted to know whether acceptance was obligatory. I said it was not, and with the material on the board, the offer could be considered rude. This was the position.

Black to move

Black played Qc7?? instead of Qh6#.

In the last game of the tournament to finish, one of my students missed an opportunity here (creating the position from memory, I reversed the colors).

White to move

Earlier is this game, they had this position (reconstructed from a photograph, hence the colors are correct).

Black to move

Readers, especially young chess players, are encouraged to consider how they would play these positions. Any comments left with suggestions will receive a response.

Recognizing Known Positions

Earlier this month at a youth tournament that I ran, I watched one of my students miss an elementary checkmate in two moves. It was a ladder mate (or rolling barrier, as it is called in Bruce Pandolfini, Pandolfini's Endgame Course [1988]). But, a few moved later, this same player executed the checkmate. When he was successful, he controlled the first and second rank. He missed it when the mate could have occurred on the h-file with the g-file also under control.

I suspect that known patterns may be harder for young students to recognize when they are rotated 90°.

Last night, I reached a position where I had to execute a checkmate with knight and bishop. It was the first time that I had such a position that was not due to seeking it, such as when I underpromote a pawn. After I captured my opponent's last piece, I had very nearly the position that I have used in training. The checkmate took me 32 moves, but there were a couple of times when my move extended the distance to mate by six. My opponent answered these with moves that helped me get back on course.

Black to move

I played 107...Nd6, one of two optimal moves.

After 108.Ka5, Kc6 would have kept me on a known path, but I played 108...Bc5, which is equally good in terms of distance to mate. The move I played shows that I was not recognizing the pattern.

Several moves later, White's king has ventured into territory that I might have controlled.

Black to move

116...Nc3+ extends the distance to mate by one move.

Had I played 116...Be3, forcing White's king to the edge, I would have been following advice I've given students dozens of times, usually while teaching two bishops against a lone king. Here, that is the best move. Then again:

Black to move

I was feeling confused when I missed the mate in eleven that forces in three moves a position that I know.

118...Bc3 119.Kb3 Kd3 120.Ka4 Kc4 121.Ka3

Black to move

121...Bb4+ forcing White to the second rank when 122.Kb2 Ne3 sets up the barrier that I studied in Pandolfini's Endgame Course the first time that I learned this elementary checkmate.

White to move

Alas, I made a knight move and it was still mate in 18, as it had been since my move 116.

Nonetheless, I finally reached a position where I was able to draw on memory and calculation only two to three moves deep to finish the job.

Black to move, mate in nine

My work studying Thomas Engqvist, 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018) resumes today with this position from Timman,J. -- Lutz,C., Wijk aan Zee 1995.

Black to move

Here, Black must defend successfully, avoiding the position analyzed by François-André Danican Philidor in 1849, which I spent some time working on Friday, and between rounds in a Swiss tournament this past weekend. It was the previous position in Engqvist's excellent book.

The 90° rotation might vex me the same way it did my young student.

Three Positions

My beginning students—young players in grades kindergarten through second grade—saw three positions in chess club this afternoon. These all occurred in my online play this morning.

White to move

White played 50.Bd7 and the students were asked how they would play as Black. Oblivious to the dangers, they made the same error as my opponent in the blitz game: capturing the bishop with 50…Bxd7 ends the game with stalemate. 50…Kxd7, on the other hand, leads to victory for Black.

Black to move

The students found 53…Re1+ 54.Kd6 Rd1+. It was unclear whether all of them would exchange rooks, however. We then pushed the pawn to promotion and worked on the elementary checkmate of queen and king against a lone king.

White to move

The third position was rather advanced for these students. I discussed my thought process during the game, looking for ways to restrict the knight’s mobility. I played 34.Kf1. Black’s reply 34…Nd4 did not seem to me the best choice. Some of my students indicated that they would exchange bishop for knight. We then discussed the resulting weakness of the Black pawn on d4. After 35.Bxd4 exd4 36.Ke2, Black resigned.

While looking at the position, I discussed the imbalances of bishop vs. knight and differences in the pawn structure. This concept takes time for students to grasp. Several have heard it in the past and they will hear it again.

The Grob for Beginners

Beginners should not play the Grob.

Some may object to such a prohibition. Asserting it brings to memory my negative reaction to reading, “I cringe whenever I see 1600-players wheeling out the King’s Indian Attack” (3) in John Donaldson, A Strategic Opening Repertoire (1998). As a sub-1600 player with affection for the Reti Opening when I read this twenty years ago, Donaldson’s harsh words about the KIA seemed aimed at me, too. He states, "everyone should start with 1.e4 and 1.d4 and play classical chess at the beginning of his career” (3). My problem was that I had been playing chess thirty years and was still C-Class. Having learned the moves at age eight and started playing seriously at 15, I was hardly at the beginning of my chess career in my 40s. I thought I should be able to play openings that interested me.

My initial negative response to Donaldson's words were temporary. I agree with him. In fact, I find the so-called "recapitulation theory of chess development" useful pedagogically, even if it does not hold up as a description of most player biographies. See "On the Origin: Reading Journal" (2020). In several forum posts, I have offered the advice that a beginner should only play openings found among the games of Gioachino Greco--with White, that's the Italian, King's Gambit, and Queen's Gambit.

Beginning a game of chess with 1.g4 is clearly risky. The move has gone by many names, but today is most commonly called the Grob in honor of Swiss International Master Henri Grob (1904-1974) who advocated the opening in Angriff (1942) and employed it in correspondence games. The notorious criminal Claude Bloodgood (1937-2001) also employed it in correspondence chess and authored The Tactical Grob (1976).

A few days ago, a beginner played the Grob against me. The beginner in question favors 1.g4 and 1.Nf3 and was under 1200 after nearly 12 years and more than 8000 games on chessdotcom, although the player’s peak rapid rating is 1368.

Chessdotcom does not keep Explorer up-to-date. This data reflects a small portion of the player's games. Nonetheless, it serves to suggest that the Grob has not served him well.

One might object to the term “beginner” for someone who has been active on a chess playing site more than ten years. Although I use that term for everyone under 1200, regardless of how long they have been playing, I also have more than a few losses to such players.* Perhaps novice is a better term. This opponent, 1308 at this writing, is in the top 8% of players in chessdotcom’s pool. From another point of view, the player might be considered quite strong. Certainly he or she should have a plus score against those near the average rating on the site (the average rapid rating on the site today is 618).

Perhaps my advice should be modified somewhat. For a 1200 rated player, the Grob is not an ideal choice for developing the skills needed to rise above 1400. Nor is it a particularly good choice against a player rated hundreds of points higher. The Grob immediately gives Black a slight advantage. Nonetheless, it can be useful against an unprepared player who overestimates this slight advantage.

Here, then, is the game.

Internet Opponent — Stripes, J. [A00]
Live Chess Chess.com, 29.11.2024

1.g4 c6

My reply is not common and is not my usual response, but I have played it once before. I was thinking of a partially remembered line in Bloodgood's book where this move was played a few moves later. Bloodgood shows that it fails as an effort to protect d5 in that line.

Twelve years ago, I had the White side of this position. That game continued 2.e4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bg2 Nc6 5.d4 g6 6.c3 Bg7 7.Qb3 Nf6 8.g5 and I won the d-pawn, eventually converting the advantage.

2.a3

This move does nothing for White's position.

2...e5 3.Nc3

In Bloodgood's line, both c4 and Qb3 are commonly combined with placing the bishop on the long diagonal. This move interferes with White's normal plans. The evidence so far is that White has chosen an offbeat opening, but has not taken the time to learn the principal ideas behind the initial move.

4...d5

White to move

Black has a strong center.

4.g5

White has a plus score on Lichess with this sacrifice.

4...Qxg5 5.d4

Perhaps many of those games on Lichess were played by players oblivious to the discovery.

5...Qh5!?

5...Qe7 is played more often here, but I like discouraging the move that White should have begun with.

6.dxe5 Bc5?!

Why not 6...Qxe5? Now, I'm trying to provoke 7.e3 to exchange queens. But also, 1.g4 weakens the e1-h4 diagonal, and I'm speculating that I might be able to use that. That I was able to shows that White's tactical sense needs considerable work--something that develops more rapidly when most games begin 1.e4.

White to move

7.Nf3

7.Bf4! secures the pawn and prepares Bg3, putting an end to my kingside fantasies. As with any opening, the board position makes demands to which the players must attend. My speculative sixth move looks silly if White responds appropriately.

7...Bg4 8.Rg1?? Bxf3-+ 9.exf3

Black to move

9... Qxh2

This fork picks up the e-pawn with tempo.

10.Rg2 Qxe5+ 11.Be2 Nd7 12.Rg5?

12.f4 at least chases the queen back instead of provoking Black to threaten checkmate.

12...Qh2 13.Bf1

13.Qd3 avoids immediate checkmate.

13...Qxf2# 0-1

If you are a novice or even stronger and want to play the Grob, at least do yourself the favor of looking at Bloodgood's pamphlet, The Tactical Grob. Also be aware that trotting out this opening against a much higher rated player means that you could be playing someone who knows the opening better than you.

*As many as 1/3 of them showed evidence of using assistance. 10% have been banned.

Lesson of the Week: Beginners

After school clubs run October to April. Saint George's School, where I have been coaching for 13 years, meets twice per week, but the children are divided into groups. One afternoon, the students are new to chess--often brand new, making their first moves on the first day of chess. The other afternoon, players are more advanced.

Much of the instructive time has been focused on learning to checkmate with rooks, but I also spent a day teaching students about ranks, files, and diagonals, as recommended by Momir Radovic (see "How to Teach Chess in the Modern Age").

Last week, students were shown these two positions from some online games.

Black to move

Although there are pawns on the board, beginners need to learn to use king and rook together to force checkmate. Here, checks by the rook only needlessly prolong the game. Rather, 74...Kg3 maintains control of the second rank and forces 75.Kg1. Now, the rook check is checkmate.

The second position starts with a checkmate in one, then we backed the game up a move to learn about Black's fatal error.

Black to move

28...Qxc2??

White checkmated Black with 29.Rh8#

Black had been winning before the blunder. We spent some time looking at possibilities.

28...Qe3+ 29.Kh1

Here, again, a check is tempting, as it seems that White has a weak back rank. Indeed, after 29...Qe1+ 30.Rxe1 Rxe1+ 31.Nxe1, Black has a mate on the move.

Black to move

However, 31.Ng1 blocks the check, revealing that 29...Qe1 would have been a terrible mistake, playing hope chess.

Instead, Black stops White's major threat with 29...Qxh6, although White maintains a material advantage.

I did not use this next position last week, because it was played yesterday. It represents the critical idea in elementary checkmates of cutting off. Young players have difficulty learning this idea because youth likes a direct attack. Once they get it, however, chess skill begins to grow.

Black to move

Black played 46...Rfc2, threatening checkmate in one. White can only delay with spite checks.

47.a4 allows bxa4#
47...Rab2# is the principal threat.

White played 47.Rb6, but could have thrown away both rooks to last three additional moves.

Knight Award

As noted in “Pawn Award”, I created my awards based youth chess curriculum twenty years ago. It provides structure to lessons in after school clubs and with individual students. It assures that those who stick with the program acquire certain skills that provide a foundation for lifelong chess improvement.

Many students skip the Pawn Award because they have been playing and even competing before I start working with them. For some of them, the Knight Award is earned in the first or second session. For others, some work is necessary.

1. Previously earned Pawn, or achieve a NWSRS rating over 500.

In Washington state, unlike many parts of the United States, casual players are not required to join the US Chess Federation* in order to compete in tournaments. More than likely, this difference partly accounts for the level of youth chess activity activity in our state—our annual state elementary is among the largest chess events in the US and certainly represents the highest per capita activity level in the 50 states.

Our rating system is the Northwest Scholastic Rating System. It employs the same formula as the US Chess Federation, but is free to organizers and participants. A student who has a NWSRS rating above 500 has scored enough tournament wins that familiarity with basic rules can be assumed. Even so, some of these students may yet have some confusion with rules for castling and en passant.

2. Demonstrate understanding of checkmate of lone king with heavy pieces:

* queen and rook,
* queen and king, and
* rook and king (each from two random positions selected by the coach).

Checkmate ends a game of chess. Everyone knows this and yet not every chess player begins by learning basic checkmate skills thoroughly.

When testing understanding of checkmate with queen and rook, I generally look for understanding of the first two endings in Bruce Pandolfini, Pandolfini’s Endgame Course (1988). Most students have learned the “rolling barrier” by the time I test them. This elementary checkmate is also called the ladder mate. It was the first checkmate that I learned nearly sixty years ago.

However, Pandolfini’s first mate, the “queen and rook roll”, is not one beginners have generally mastered in my experience, although it should be learned first. Learning it assures the student can coordinate two heavy pieces well both to control the opponent’s king and to assure that both are safe from capture.

Pandolfini presents this position with White to move.

Black is threatening to capture White’s rook. Students who need work on this elementary mate will often withdraw the rook to a safer square. Others will lose the rook, which still allows them to complete a different checkmate test (see below).

The correct move, however, is to bring the queen up where it checks the king and protects the rook from capture. Doing so leaves Black’s king with a single legal move. A post in 2011 explains the technique with some useful diagrams (see “Lesson of the Week: Elementary Checkmates”).

Checkmate with queen and rook should be understood so well that exhaustion and time pressure will not interfere with success. When Ryan Ackerman** was Mead High School’s top player, he and I practiced performing this at the Spokane Chess Club one Thursday with only ten seconds on the clock. We consistently played ten perfect moves in six seconds. Our starting position was a version of the “hardest position” (the longest distance to mate with such material).

White to move

Performing this checkmate in the optimal ten moves requires understanding of how to coordinate both pieces well and requires some calculation. If a student can do it in fifteen moves, they pass the test. If they move the queen systematically until the defending king is cornered with only two squares, and then bring up the king, it will require more than fifteen moves, but I still award a pass.

I encourage all students to learn optimal technique. Here’s my play against Stockfish this morning These moves and some variations can be viewed at my Lichess study, "Simply Perfect". Note that Black’s king was never put in check until checkmate. Control by restriction is a vital skill, and one that young chess players do not easily learn.

My post, “Teaching Elementary Checkmates” has some instructive positions for learning this technique. Some of these positions are from a book published in 1822 that I find more useful than more recent books: William Lewis, Elements of the Game of Chess. The author was England’s strongest player for a few years at the time and is most remembered as one of those who hid inside the famous chess playing “machine” sometimes called “the Turk”.

Checkmate with a rook and king against a lone king takes sixteen moves with perfect play from the hardest position. If the student demonstrates technique sufficient to accomplish the task in 25-30 moves, I consider it a passing performance. The second game in "Simply Perfect" on Lichess shows one example of perfect play.

3. Demonstrate understanding of “fox in the chicken coop” pawn promotion technique.

The tactical advantages of an outside passed pawn in the endgame is one of the aspects of fundamental endgame knowledge upon which it is possible to build advanced skills. Jeremy Silman calls a winning technique with such material the “fox in the chicken coop” in Silman’s Complete Endgame Course (2007). One of the early posts a few months after I started Chess Skills (this blog) in 2007 shows a position from which I played a somewhat forcing ten move sequence to reach such a pawn ending in a tournament game. Calculating that deeply occurs rarely (see "Kings and Pawns"). Moves 31-34, I exchanges two rooks and a knight for two rooks and a pawn. Moves 35-39, both kings raced to capture the opponent's weakest pawn. At that point, I had the move in this position.

White to move

40.b3 struck me as the simplest way to assure that my queenside pawn majority would assure the creation of a passed pawn.

A few moves later, we reached another critical position that was easy to play because of understanding the core idea of how to use an outside passed pawn.

White to move

The only winning move is 47.c5, leading to exchanging two queenside pawns for Black's remaining pawn on that side of the board. The point (as I understood at move 31) was to lure Black's king far from the action on the kingside, where my king mowed down Black's last two pawns. My opponent resigned one move before checkmate on move 65.

In testing this skill, the student will be presented with a made-up position or perhaps one from a game that requires demonstration of understanding how a pawn majority on one wing of the board leads to certain victory with a dominating king on the other wing. For instance, this position, which arose while playing the position from my game against the computer instead of my human opponent.

White to move

4. Complete “Knight Award: checkmates and tactics” worksheet.

The Checkmates and Tactics worksheets consist of a series of exercises of increasing difficulty: Pawn Award, 6 mates in one; Knight Award, 8 checkmate puzzles with mate in 2-5 moves, and 4 exercises where material gain is forced; Bishop Award, 24 exercises, half leading to checkmate; Rook Award, 48 exercises, less than half lead to checkmate; and Queen Award, 60 exercises. These have been published with solutions as Checkmates and Tactics (2019). The book version also has a useful glossary of tactics. Naturally, I prefer that students working the awards do not look at the answers in the book while completing the worksheets.

5. Demonstrates ability to read chess notation.

Chess notation is the language of chess. Today, the system known as algebraic has become standard all over the world. When I was young, the US, England, and other English speaking countries used English descriptive. For the Knight Award, I present the student with a game score and have them show me the game.

Here is an example:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bc4 Nxe4 5. Nxe4 d5 6. Bxd5 Qxd5 7. d3 Bg4 8. O-O Nd4 9. Be3 Nxf3+ 10. gxf3 Bh3 11. Re1 Be7 12. f4 O-O-O 13. Qf3 Be6 14. f5 Bd7 15. c4 Qxd3 16. b3 Bc6 17. Red1 Qxe4 18. Rxd8+ Rxd8 19. Qxe4 Bxe4 20. Rc1 Bxf5 21. Kg2 f6 22. f4 exf4 23. Bxf4 Bd6 24. Be3 Be4+ 25. Kf1 Bxh2 26. Bc5 f5 27. Be7 Rd2 28. a4 f4 29. Bg5 f3 30. Bxd2 Bg3 31. Be3 h5 32. Rd1 h4 33. Rd4 Bf5 34. Bg5 Bh3+ 35. Kg1 f2+ 36. Kh1 f1=R# {Eric Rosen won by checkmate} 0-1

The game comes from IM Eric Rosen's speedrun.

My YouTube video, Reading Chess Notation, explains what students need to learn (and also features a game that will help with the mate in five in the Checkmates and Tactics exercises).



*Nonetheless, we are pushing strong players to join the USCF so that Washington state will be well-represented when the USCF Grade Level Nationals come to Spokane in December 2025.
**Ryan is now a professional chess coach. He won the Spokane City Championship in 2022 and again in 2023.

Pawn Award

Twenty years ago, I created a series of scholastic chess awards for young chess players. The awards are named for the pieces in order of value: pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen, and king. Each is progressively more difficult than the previous one. 

At the time, I had after school programs in a couple of schools and my first one-on-one student. The awards created some structure both for individual students and group lessons. A student who meets the criteria for an award receives an award certificate.

The Pawn Award concerns basic rules. Lichess, founded in 2010, offers interactive lessons on these rules and many other elementary skills.

I recommend that young players, as well as beginners of all ages, take advantage of these free and accessible lessons (the hyperlink takes you there). Of course, many hundreds of hours of my time has been invested teaching these skills to more than a thousand children.

There are better ways to teach basic chess skills than starting with the movement of all the pieces.  Alas, children are eager to play before mastering essential concepts, so the old and most common method of teaching still prevails. For some discussion of alternatives, see "Lesson One". In an ideal world, young players might know how to force checkmate with two rooks against a lone king before learning how the bishop moves. More often, they learn the movement of all the pieces, but spend a lot of extra time struggling the learn the purpose of the game and the critical relationships: "contacts" that lead to success.

In my awards curriculum, elementary checkmates with heavy pieces (rooks and the queen) are required for the Knight Award.

The Pawn Award criteria:

1) Sets up board (light on right) and pieces correctly. Light on right means that both players will have a white or light square on the right in the row of squares (rank) closest to them. On the board below, these squares are marked in orange.

Of course, it is possible to play a game of chess with the board oriented incorrectly. It happens often. But, when the board is wrong, often the king and queen start on the wrong squares as well. Such errors change the game slightly for the beginner and substantially for players with experience.

Sometimes students rely on the numbers on the side and letters along the bottom while orienting the board. but many chess boards do not have these printed. I have also seen manufactured boards that have the letters and numbers incorrectly placed.

The letters and numbers are for reading and writing chess notation, skills that are part of the next two awards.

When setting up the pieces, the students must learn to place the queens on their own color: the White queen starts on a light square and the Black queen starts on a dark. No matter what colors the chess pieces are, chess players refer to the lighter colored as White and the darker as Black.

2) Demonstrates basic movement of each piece. There are six different pieces. When testing student understanding of how each moves. I often place each one alone in the center of the board and ask the student to show where it can move. The screenshot below from Lichess.org shows a minigame that is used to teach beginners how the queen moves.

The queen moves along ranks, files, and diagonals always in a straight line with no limit on distance. The queen moves to capture the first star (green arrow) and then, on the next move, follows the second arrow to the second star.

3) Demonstrate and explain castling. Castling can be difficult for young students to learn. Normally in a chess game, one side moves a single piece, then the other side move one piece. With castling, and only castling, the king and one of the rooks both move.

Students must commit to memory and explain or show:
a) Both the king and the rook must be on their starting squares and have not moved.
b) No piece can stand between them.
c) The king cannot be in check, move into check, or move through check.
d) The king always moves two squares toward the rook, and then the rook moves to the square that the king moved over.

Check is the situation when a king in threatened with capture. Here, White's knight is able to move to the square occupied by Black's king. Hence, it must be Black turn and the king must get out of check either by moving the king or capturing the knight (imagine there are other pieces on the board, too).

In the next diagram, White may castle long (toward the queenside, i.e., the left). Castling short--to the right, or kingside) is not allowed because Black's bishop could move to the square that the king must cross (hence, "through check").

4) Demonstrate en passant. En passant (French for "in passing") is more difficult than castling and young students often learn it, forget it, and learn it anew. Again, the explanation and exercises at Lichess.org are useful.

This position arose in a game I played online in 2012 (the end of the game is depicted in this site's banner using a Mexican conquest themed chess set sold to tourists along the Central American coast).

Black has just played the f-pawn two squares forward, placing the White king in check (blue arrow). The only move that gets the king out of check is an en passant capture (orange arrow). White's pawn is able to capture the pawn that just moved on the square that Black's pawn moved over. White places the pawn on that square and removes the Black pawn from the board.

5) Demonstrate ability to recognize checkmate. Checkmate is the object of the game of chess. The game ends when one player's king is in check and has no escape. The most difficult aspect of checkmate for young players is learning to control empty squares. I usually test this skill with a worksheet that contains six positions. In each position, White can checkmate Black's king in one move. For one of these positions, there are several correct answers. These exercises ate the first six in my book, Checkmate and Tactics (2019).

Here is another illustration.

Each White piece controls one or more squares beside the Black king (indicated by green arrows). All of the pieces control other squares not indicate by these arrows. For the rook, two of these are next Black's king--one is also controlled by a knight and the other by a bishop. The knight next to White's king also checks the king. Black is in checkmate.

In the next position, White controls all of the squares next to the Black king. However, the square on which the king stands is not controlled. If it is Black's turn, the game ends in stalemate (Black has no legal moves and is not in check). Stalemate is a draw.

After successful completion of the Pawn Award, students move on the Knight Award.