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I’m new here and new to chess so apologies this question is super basic 😬 I’ve played a few games where I’ve won with regard to points but the app declares my opponent the winner. Can someone please explain?
The points are a way to track material. If your opponent checkmate you, or makes it so that your king is dead no matter where it goes, they win no matter your point lead.
Aug 30, 2021
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#3
+ underneath your board jeans you are up material in the game, but checkmate is how to win the game regardless of material advantages you’ve accrued during the game.
Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond
I looked at some of your recent games and found two where you lost despite having more material. In your game vs crisandrango, you were up a rook and knight, but your opponent checkmated you. The king is actually more valuable than all other pieces. Game is over if he is attacked and has nowhere to go. Your game vs ItsLazloGarza is a different story, you were up a queen but lost on time. In live chess if your clock runs out and goes to 0, game is over you lose (or perhaps draw in some very rare circumstances, but you will never win if you run out of time.) Time management is also a part of chess.
I see that you’re only playing rapid/live games. As a beginner you may want to play daily games first as you’ll have more time to study and make your moves. Once you’re comfortable with the rules and some basic tactics and strategies you can play live games again.
Hope that helps. Good luck.
Hope that helps. Good luck.
Points don't really matter, I may be down a queen from a queen sac and still win the game.
Same goes for being just up 2 points(2 pawns) and winning. Checkmates can happen anytime in the game. It's not like in scrabble where you have to get points
The goal of the game is to capture your opponent's king.
A check is when you attack your opponents king and threatens to capture it if they don't do something about it such as moving the king, blocking the check or capturing the piece that is giving check (attacking/threatening the king)
A checkmate is when you threaten to capture the king and there is nothing your opponent can do about it, which means you're going to capture their king next move no matter what they do.
For example, in this diagram that I just invented below, white only has rook and king while opponent has a bunch of pieces, but white just moved the rook to that f8 square checking the king and now the black king is about to be captured no matter what move black does so white wins the game