The Importance Of Keeping Your Pieces Protected

In a game of Chess, you have pieces. Good ones. You have Knights And Bishops, but you also have some very valuable pieces: the Rooks the and Queen. Both you and your opponent can capture those pieces if possible. The Rooks and the Queen specifically are the greatest pieces you have, so it is very important to keep them protected by another piece. However, when you don’t do that, what usually happens is one of your pieces is attacked and it’s your opponent’s turn. What do they do? They capture your piece because you cannot recapture. This is what’s called a hanging piece.  A piece that is attacked with no defenders OR when the attackers outnumber the defenders. In these situations, usually it will work out if the opponent captures the piece. On the board here, you will see a game I played against the maximum difficulty chess.com engine where I got myself into a bad position because I left my Bishop free to capture. Generally, you want to avoid giving up pieces like this. My mindset is to treat pieces like your personal belongings: don’t share them, don’t leave them unattended. But here’s the thing: in some situations, it’s actually the right idea to leave your piece hanging. If you can sacrifice a piece to win the game, go for it! My other suggestion is to ask yourself if your opponent is attacking something after they make a move. If not, try to attack them instead. In situations where you can’t attack them and they’re not attacking you, look for ways to improve your position. Specifically, look for ways to enhance your piece activity, pawn structure, or develop a piece towards the center. However, I suggest you calculate these types of moves, as there’s often at least 1 move in a position that leads to a loss. I insist you practice the art of hanging pieces, because if you do not hang pieces and always capture your opponent’s hanging pieces, you can improve by at least a few rating points. I hope this lesson will help you to stop hanging pieces (or at least reduce the frequency of it happening). Until next time!