Making Sacrifices

Making Sacrifices

Hey guys!

For my last post I wanted to go over important things I learned from reading Yasser Seirawan's book and share the final thing I learned. When I did my first blog a couple months ago I knew nothing about chess except the basic rules. I did not know of the countless strategies players could use to there advantage and how hard the game really was. Now I am feel confident enough to call myself a good chess player and its all thanks to Yasser Seirawan and his amazing book. The most important think I think I learned from reading his book is that anyone can become a great chess player if they try hard enough.
The final thing I learned from reading Yasser Seirawan's book is that you must sacrifice key pieces if you want to win. One strategy I learned was the Queen sacrifice tactic which is when you sacrifice your queen in return for tactical or positional compensation. A lot of times a queen sacrifice at the right time can lead to a quick checkmate. In the picture below you can see that by letting the opponent take my queen it distracted him and I am able to get near his king.

 

This is a very risky Strategy to use against very good players since they will be able to see that you want them to attack the queen however when playing against a casual player sacrificing the queen is a very good strategy because they will want to attack the queen the first chance they get.

How do you think Sacrificing a players own pieces can benefit them?

The X-ray Tactic

The X-ray Tactic

I'm back and I just wanted to let you know how progress is going. Chess has gotten much easier for me and I have made a lot of improvement to my game thanks to Yasser Seirawan. His tips have been very helpful to me in getting better at chess.
In his book he talks about the X-ray tactic and its a very interesting way to look at chess and can be very useful. This tactic allows for a piece to start an attack even when other pieces are in the way and also allows a piece to defend a friendly piece while attacking the enemy piece in the process.

In this positon below the white piece has placed the bishop where he can execute the X-ray attack. When the bishop attacks the queen she will be moved but the rook will remain under the bishops watch. Its like attacking the rook through the queen and once the queen has moved the rook will be captured. This is a great example of the X-ray tactic because you are able to attack the enemy through the body of another. This is also a very good tactic because it puts the king in danger of a checkmate.

One of Yasser Seriawan's greatest quotes when it came to the game of chess is "Though most people love to look at the games of the great attacking masters, some of the most successful players in history have been the quiet positional players. They slowly grind you down by taking away your space, tying up your pieces, and leaving you with virtually nothing to do". this is a very strong quote and it can also relate to the X-ray tactic because its a tactic that leaves you with virtually nothing to do.

How has the X-ray tactic changed your view of chess?