Clever captures (1)
One of the silliest (and most common) mistakes in playing chess is moving too fast. You think you see a good move, but don’t take time to consider your opponent’s options. With a little bit of bad luck, you throw away a piece or you may even lose the game.
The puzzles in this lesson are full of those kind of pitfalls. You always have to defend something: a piece or a mating square. But be careful: if you rush into the wrong defensive move, you'll lose material or be checkmated.
Take a look at the example and you'll see how it works.
In this lesson you are going to use a clever way of defending that you have learned before: your piece captures an attacker and from its new square, protects another piece.
What do you have to do?
Kill two bird with one stone: take the attacker in such a way that you also defend a hanging piece.
The black rook has just captured a piece on d1 and is now giving check.
No problem, White thinks. Simply recapture with his own rook (Ra1xd1), because that black rook is unprotected anyway.
But that's not smart. White should have taken a closer look at the position.
Then he would have seen that the black knight attacks his bishop.
And after Ra1xd1, White can't save the knight anymore.
White shouldn't have taken the black rook with his rook, but with his knight.
Do you see why?
After the knight has captured the rook (Nc3xd1) it protects the bishop.
