Lesson 1     One Step Past the Basics

The Basics:

• Correct board setup
  • Queen is bossy so gets her own colour.
  • White Queen is always on the left of the King. Sometimes if the board is orientated incorrectly, the King ends up on the wrong side.

• Special moves
  • Castling

    • The King moves two squares (left or right) and the Rook jumps on to the other side of the King.
    • You can castle when:
      • Your King and Rook have not yet moved
      • No pieces are between them
      • The King is not in check
      • None of the squares between the King and Rook are under attack.
    • It is written as O-O when you castle on the King side and O-O-O when you castle on the Queen side.

• A pawn’s first move can be two squares

• En Passant

• If the pawns first move is two squares and it passes a square under attack from an enemy pawn. The enemy pawn can make the capture as if the pawn had only moved one square.
• Must happen straight after the initial pawn has moved two squares.

• Promotion
  • Pawns can promote to any piece once they hit the end row.

• Draws
  • When there are no legal moves
  • By agreement
  • Not enough pieces
    • One Bishop or Knight remains
    • Only Kings remain
  • Exact position repeated 3x
  • 50 moves with no captured pieces or pawn moves

• Tournaments
  • Touch move – if you intentionally touch a piece you must then move it, you touch your opponents piece, you must capture it if possible.
  • Adjust – you can adjust a piece on the board of you first announce ‘I adjust’.

• Piece values

  • P=1, B / Kn = 3, R=5, Q = 9
  • 2 Bishops are better than 2 Knights (by .5)
  • Bishops go up in value in open games, whilst Knights are worth more in closed positions
  • Piece value vs. structure
    • Exchange equally when
      • You are ahead in points / structure
      • The exchange leads to better structure for you and/or when it makes their structure worse.
      • You gain tempo

• Reading notation
  • All pieces are denoted by their first letter. For example, R=Rook, B=Bishop, Q=Queen.
  • To differentiate the King and Knight, the K=King and Kn=Knight.
  • Pawns do not get a letter.
  • The board is a grid a-h along the bottom and 1-8 as rows, always orientated from White’s position.
  • Castling King-side is O-O and castling Queenside is O-O-O
  • A typical opening would be

1. e4 e5

2. Nf3 Nc6

3. Bb5

• Tempo – using your moves to achieve your results in the minimum amount of moves.
  • For example, in the opening if you bring your Knight out and then in the next move return it to the starting position – you have lost tempo.
  • You gain tempo over your opponent when you make a move which improves your attack and structure and they then have to reply defensively.
    • For example, when a King is checked, the defensive player has lost temp because he has had to spend time defending. The defending player could turn that around, if his defensive move was also an attacking move, forcing the attacker to retreat.
  • Why is this important? It dictates who is controlling the board, whoever has tempo will win.
  • White inherently starts with half a tempo.