How To Capture The Queen

The Queen is the one piece that everybody wants to capture. If you meet somebody who doesn't want the enemy Queen off the board, then they're not a real Chess player.

Of course, as I mentioned in my last blog, you do need to keep your guard up around a hung Queen. It could be a sacrifice.

The best way to counter is to force a capture on your terms.

Now, trapping the Queen is hard, as it requires multiple pieces, given that the Queen has multiple escape options.

The best way to capture the Queen is a pin, pinning it to the King.

Now, for all of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, a pin is where you keep a piece trapped along a row, column, or diagonal, because if they move off of said file, a more valuable piece is taken.

This is an example of a pin:

As you see, the Queen cannot move off the e-file, because doing so would mean that the King is captured on the next move.

Pinning the Queen can be done before or after castling. In one game I played (which got buried in my archives), I moved my Queen to capture a hung Knight, only for the enemy rook to pin it to the King (which is why differentiating between Blunder and Sacrifice is important).

You could also do a fork or skewer, but skewers are difficult to do after the King is castled, since they are backed into the corner, with the Queen in the center.

This is why pins are more effective. They work the most often, as any attack with a Bishop could pin the Queen to the King. Just make sure you have something guarding the Bishop before you attack the Queen.

The best way to do this is to hang a piece, such as a Knight or Rook, to draw the Queen onto a file or diagonal that is shared with the King, and then move a piece to pin.

Now, here is a game I played:

Capture the Queen.

Well done.

Just like before, I will show you the full game for you to analyze:

Of course, forks are always a good option. The best option is what is called the Royal Fork, where you use a Knight to fork the King and Queen. Any fork that isn’t with a Knight needs more preparation to prevent the Queen from taking the piece checking the King and getting away with it.

I am not suggesting throwing away your Bishops for Knights, since Bishops are just as effective, and sometimes more so, since they can pin and skewer. Try not to trade unless necessary to claim an advantage.

Before I finish this blog, I would like to show you one more game I played:

Can you capture the Queen?

Good job if you did.

Here is the full game:

I hope this blog helps you capture your opponent’s Queen more often. Again, if any of you have suggestions for topics, please put them down in this forum. To keep blogging, I could use more ideas, or I would have to move at a slower pace in order to keep a constant one.

Hope you have more wins

— ChessPawn921