Threaten & attack (2)
We're going to give the opponent a hard time again.
In this lesson you always have a nice threat on the chessboard: you can capture a piece.
Unfortunately, there is a problem: Black can also capture one of your pieces.
But you come up with a solution: you are going to play a smart move that prevents Black from capturing AND leaves him no time to save his piece. You do this with a counter-attack that blocks Black’s threat.
Take a look at the example to see how this works.
Use the step-by-step plan you already know:
- Find the piece that you can capture;
- Find the piece that Black can take;
- Create a clever way to save your own piece and attack at the same time;
- Capture the opponent's piece.
What do you have to do?
Win material by counter-attacking with a blocking defense. Next, capture an unprotected/valuable enemy piece.
White can take two black pieces and Black can take one white piece. Try to find them.
White can capture the queen and the rook. But that it is not as wonderful as it looks.
Should White take the rook with his knight, the black queen takes White's queen. This costs White points!
White can solve this problem by taking the queen. But alas, than the black rook will recapture. An equal exchange and quite nice for Black: the white knight is no longer a threat.
What else can White do? Move the queen to f3?
Well, that gives Black time to move away the attacked rook from c8.
Luckily, White has another piece that can help: the rook.
White places the rook next to his queen (Rd1-d2). Here, it defends the queen by blocking the attack and simultaneously attacks the black queen!
Moreover, White maintains the threat of taking the rook with his knight.
Black doesn't have time to move the rook to safety. Saving the queen is more important now!
Black tries to make the best of it.
He moves his queen next to the White’s knight (Qc2-c6).
White takes the rook and Black takes the knight.
Black has managed to keep the damage to a minimum, but White has gained points: a rook is worth more than a knight.
In chess you say that White has won a quality.
