Check to early

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tradshooter

Is it dumb to put your opponent in check to early? Early in a game you can usually put ur opp king in check with ur bishop. Most of the time a pawn can b moved to block it. Just curious if that is logical

Unmaster

Unless you gain some specific thing out of it, eg, if he moves the pawn, you can access an important square... ordinarily it serves no purpose to check your opponent's king early on.   Certainly any experienced player will calmly deal with it and you have essentially wasted a move.   

NomadicKnight
Unmaster wrote:

Unless you gain some specific thing out of it, eg, if he moves the pawn, you can access an important square... ordinarily it serves no purpose to check your opponent's king early on.   Certainly any experienced player will calmly deal with it and you have essentially wasted a move.   

What he said. Always ask yourself "If I put him in check, can I force him to give up something important (i.e. force him to bring out his queen, or make him move his king and therefore prevent him from castling)? Or am I just wasting a turn?"

Lagomorph

Think about the concept of tempo. If putting your opponent in check means he has to make a defensive move that weakens his position then you have gained a tempo.

But what you describe here about the early bishop check often means he moves a pawn to not only block check but also attack your bishop. You have to retreat your bishop, so usually you are not gaining a tempo by this early check.

NomadicKnight

Lago well put. I used to bring out my bishop for early check when I first started, but it didn't take me long to realize how pointless it was if 9 times out of 10 they simply did as you described and blocked/attacked with a pawn.