Checkmating Exercise 4/30

The elementary chess team got a great lesson today! When they sat down I placed two boards on the table (there were five players today) and then set up the following position on the wall board. I told them to put the position from the wall board onto the boards in front of them. It is black to move... and checkmate... eventually... but it's all forced.

The idea came to me from a recent game on this website. I had the black position, however with the added bonus of two pawns on b7 and c7, which save the black king from the queen checks along the a1-h8 diagonal. I have included that game here below to share something special. Im coaching my students to be very aware of their pieces and how they work together. Consider the mating pattern of two bishops vs a king. They need to coordinate and strike down diagonals together, or else the king will simply jump around the board. And with rooks, as it was in this game, they need to also work together to strike down files and ranks. When two rooks are nearby they usually perform a strong tag-team. In this game White lost a pawn in the opening and never recovered. I was able to maintain a pawn duo for a large portion of the game, which eventually turned into a huge advantage by advancing the pawns toward the enemy king. Enjoy.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I've tried very hard to come up with interesting and informative lessons for my students. It seems that using my own games is the best choice so far, since I am still learning and I can tell the kids what I was thinking during the game.