Manoj Kalathil. Currently residing in Muscat with his wife Lakshmi and two children Vedika and Vaiga

Transcription

1 Manoj Kalathil Born in 1971 at Ernakulam to Sri. Karunakaran Kartha and Smt. Nalini Kunjamma. After graduation in Engineering and MBA he worked in various IT companies both in India and abroad. He is now working as Divisional Manager (IT) in a leading automotive company in Muscat. An active blogger by himself he has imbibed a good flair in literary work and has written many short stories and poems sharing his views and thoughts through social media. His book Kanyakumariyile Suryodayam - a collection of short stories has been published. Manoj is an ardent lover of Cricket and Chess. He is a certified umpire from OMAN CRICKET and a member of the OMAN CHESS CLUB. Currently residing in Muscat with his wife Lakshmi and two children Vedika and Vaiga Address : Manoj Kalathil Kalathil Haritha Road Vennala P.O. Kochi Phone / Website

2 Welcome to the book You can be a Chess Master! This book covers a collection of some of the greatest chess games that have ever been conceived by chess masters throughout history. This book offers everything for a beginner who would need to know about chess games and rules. The games which are included in this book will assist to study chess and tips for winning your initial games. In this book, you will find informations about the chess basics, positional plays, game tactics and multiple puzzles. I have included hundreds of short games of grand masters and I am quite confident that these games will help you to improve your tactical skills. For the preparation of this book I have referred to many chess videos, websites and books and also included some of my own games for learning prospective. You will also find the types of games like the initial opening, middle and end games which can enhance your playing skills. I hope that the information in this book will be of great interest and value to all lovers of chess that can contribute to the development of future masters and to the harmonious education of young players.

3 Contents Understanding the Game, Board and Pieces. Algebraic Chess Notation. Art of Trading Pieces. Chess Rules and Principles. Chess Tactics. Opening the Game. The Middle Game. Planning for End Game. Short Games Collections. Puzzles. Answers.

4 Understanding the Game, Board and Pieces $ The queen: She is the most powerful piece. She can move either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally by any number of spaces and attack from any of those directions. Queen can move like a bishop and rook but cannot move like a knight. $ The king: The most important piece on your board is the king. He can only move one space at a time in any direction (left, right, forward, backward and diagonally). Each turn in any direction and attacks in the same manner. The primary aim of chess is to protect your King Understand the concept In chess, you are trying to capture your opponent s king and he tried to capture yours. While this is the primary objective and one of your aim is to protect your king from getting captured. This is done by either capturing as many of your opponent s pieces as you can or avoiding the capture of your own pieces. Chess is a game of intelligence and strategy. There are many moves and rules that beginners will not be able to foresee or understand initially. Be patient! It gets more and more fun the more and more you play. Set up the board The chess board is 8 squares wide and 8 squares long that makes 64 squares. Normally the squares on the chess boards are white or black. The first step in preparing to play a game of chess is making sure the board is set correctly. Make sure when you setup the board down between you and your opponent white goes on the right side corner nearest each of you. White always moves first. Now you know each piece you can place them on the board. Algebraic notation assigns the numbers 1 through 8 to the lateral rows that make up the 64 squares of the chessboard. For the vertical columns of squares, it assigns the letters a to h. The square at the intersection of a column and a row is identified by the letter first for the column and then the number for the row. For instance the very top left-hand corner of the board would be denoted as a8. 11

5 Understanding the Game, Board and Pieces 1. Chess was in fact invented in India. It is believed to originate out of India during the Gupta Empire. 2. It is called the game of kings, because for many centuries it was played primarily by nobility and the upper classes. 3. The longest official chess game ever was I.Nikolic V Arsovic, in Belgrade 1989, which ended in a draw after 269 moves (20 hours, 15 minutes). 4. The folding chess board was originally invented in 1125 by a chess-playing priest. Since the Church forbid priests to play chess, he hid his chess board by making one that looked simply like two books lying together. 5. Albert Einstein was a good friend of World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker. In an interview with the New York Times in 1936 Albert said, I do not play any games. There is no time for it. When I get through work I don t want anything which requires the working of the mind. He did take up Chess in his later life. 6. The new Pawn move, advancing two squares on its first move instead of one, was first introduced in Spain in Initially, the Queen could only move one square at a time. 8. Blindfold chess is an impressive skill requiring a keen ability to see the board clearly in mind which can get difficult after many moves. 9. The word Checkmate in Chess comes from the Persian phrase Shah Mat, which means the King is dead. 10. There are many places in the world where chess is played outdoors but one of the coolest has to be the thermal baths in Budapest where you can play while sitting in the water. 11. FIDE stands for Fédération Internationale des Éch ecs, which literally translates into World Chess Federation. 12. About 600,000,000 (Six hundred million) people know how to play chess worldwide! 13

6 Art of Trading Pieces The main objective of chess game is to checkmate the opponent. In real the value of pieces makes no sense but chess is a tactical game. The reason behind exchange or trading pieces is to have better control on the game. Sometimes during the course of a game you can trade your pieces with your opponent. Before trading your pieces you should know the impact of pieces on the board after your trade pieces. Knowing the difference between a fair trade of pieces can be crucial to strategizing an eventual victory. Players deliberately sacrifice their pieces to make surprise over opponent and eventually to checkmate the opponent. Exchanges are often made to try to improve a position from a strategic point of view. Since positional advantages are often smaller than those due to difference in material value, exchanges to gain a positional advantage are commonly even exchanges in terms of material. How does it happen that one side takes another side pieces for free? You must wait for opponent s leaving a piece unguarded. If one player has more pieces than other he usually wins the match without trouble. For good players even a one piece advantage is enough to finish the game. Here is the value of all of the pieces except for the King which is never traded for another piece. The chess pieces are assigned certain points. These points are shown in the table below: 19

7 Chess Rules and Principles The white player makes the first move. They choose any piece they d like to move to begin the initial attack, or the opening. They move a piece, and black counters. The opening is one of the most important parts of the game. There s no real right way to do it -- everyone has their own style and you ll find yours. But there are a few things to keep BOOKS in mind: Generally, make only 1 or 2 moves with your pawns. Then start concentrating on your more powerful pieces -- bishops, knights, queen, and rooks. Development (getting your pieces to active squares, such as the center) is not complete until all of these pieces have moved. A lot of your opening moves depend on your opponent-- You will just have to feel out the game. So observe and see if you can guess what his plan is. This game is more about anticipating threats and foresight than anything else. En passant Pawn can move 2 spaces forward on its first move. next to your opponent s pawn, on the same row. On the next move your opponent can capture your passed pawn during two space movement. Normally, pawns can only attack one square diagonally -- but this is an exceptional case in which it can capture in passing and still land on that same diagonal space. Advanced Pawn Any pawn which makes to 5 th rank (thus into enemy territory). Or beyond, is advanced and gets advanced position. You can promote a pawn to multiple queens, or any other powerful peacedc 23

8 Chess Rules and Principles $ There are pieces standing between your king and rook. $ The king is in check. $ The king moves through a square that is attacked by a piece of the opponent. $ The king would be in check after castling. Check and Checkmate As stated before, the purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent s king. This happens when the king is put into check and cannot get out of check. There are only three ways a king can get out of check: move out of the way (though he cannot castle!), block the check with another piece, or capture the piece threatening the king. If a king cannot escape checkmate then the game is over. Customarily the king is not captured or removed from the board, the game is simply declared over. After learning how to play chess, you ll want to know how to win. The ultimate goal in chess is to trap the king of the opposing army - This is called checkmate. If your king is in check, he is under attack from your opponent s pieces. When your king is in check, you must move out of check on your very next turn. You can move out of check by three methods: $ By moving your King to a safe square. A safe square is one, where your king will not be in check. $ By capturing the checking piece. $ By blocking with one of your pieces. This does not work for Pawns and Knights. If you cannot do any of the above, and your king is still in check, the game is over checkmate and you have lost. Draws There are chess games do not end with a winner, but with a draw. These are some reasons why a chess game may end in a draw: Both the players mutually agree to a draw and stop playing Game declares a draw if the same position is repeated three times Stalemate is a situation in the game of chess where the king is not in check but has no place for legal move. 25

9 You can be a chess master - Improve position of your pieces - Exchange pieces, but only if It is beneficial to you Know when to trade your pieces We talked briefly about only exchanging pieces when it s beneficial for you. But what does that really means? In some cases it s simple. For example: $ If you re up in material you want to exchange pieces to win $ If you have a passive piece you want to exchange that off, ideally for the active piece of your opponent $ If the game is closed (not much open space on the board, closed pawn structure, closed files and diagonals) you may want to keep the knights and exchange off the bishops $ If you have more pawns or a better endgame you should exchange pieces off $ If you are down in space or under attack, you want to exchange pieces off $ if you are playing against a stronger opponent, you don t want to exchange too many pieces since that will lead to some sort of standard endgame in which stronger players are usually superior. There are exceptions, if you believe that endgame is the strongest element of your chess, you should aim for the endgame. Before any piece exchanges occur you should think first how that will change the game and only then decide exchange pieces or not. Manage your time Regardless of how good your position in chess still you can a game if you run out of time. Therefore, clock management becomes an important part of the competition. There are some people who almost never get into time trouble, while there are others that almost always do. The basic idea of efficient chess management lays in one simple rule: don t spend too much time where it not needs to be spent. Think rationally. Spend time wisely. Practice Practice, Practice, Practice 30

10 Opening the Game In the opening phase of the game, each player will attempt to develop their pieces to achieve two main objectives. In theory, white gains a slight advantage by moving first but this is usually not enough to gain a winning position and as each player gets a turn to move, the game is roughly equal. After developing the pieces next step is to castle the king to a safe position. Basic Opening Principles These are the five key elements every successful player needs to understand for successful opening play. $ Fight to control the center $ Rapid and purposeful development of the pieces $ The creation of a sound pawn structure with no weaknesses $ The co-ordination of the pieces and pawns $ King safety Additional Opening Principles 1) Major pieces (rooks and queens) should not be developed prematurely since pieces of lesser value may develop with an attack on them resulting in loss of time. 2) Don t make unnecessary pawn moves. Only move pawns that facilitate the development of the pieces. 3) Begin the game with a central Pawn move. 4) Avoid useless checks, this wastes time. 5) With the aid of pawns try to gain space advantage 6) Don t be too eager for material gain. In the opening stages it is more important to develop all the pieces rather than search for material gain. 39