Tired Queen and the Phases of a Chess Player
In this blog, I'll be revisiting a concept I blogged about all the way back in 2016! Here's the link if you're interested: https://www.chess.com/blog/CraiggoryC/why-do-we-lose-the-3-phases
To help illustrate the point, that I'm trying to make, we'll be going over the lesson of "The Tired Queen" AKA stopping the 4 move checkmate. You might be thinking, I already know how to stop the 4 move checkmate, I learned that in elementary school! You'd be right, but it's easiest to learn newer concepts by building upon ideas that we already know by heart. Also don't worry, we will have some puzzles, at the end, to show off our new skills, that we garnered from this blog!
As always, please feel free to comment your (respectful) opinions, suggestions, disagreements, etc. Let's get to the chess!
-NM Craig C.
Phase 1:
Missing Your Opponent's Threats
Phase 2:
Unnecessarily, Passive Defense
Phase 3:
Efficient Defense/Counterattack
If you've read this far, I congratulate your work ethic! Below are puzzles where the answer is the move that I'd play. The move will either be my preferred way to counter attack an opponent's threat or realizing that the opponent doesn't have a pertinent threat and playing whatever I'd want. Also if you read the notes above there's a twist coming up for you; don't be too mad at me 
Puzzles
#1: Black just played 25... Rb4. How should White respond?
#2: White just played 5. Ne2. How should Black respond?
