Piece Weakness

Finding weakness in an opponent's position is the most important skill when playing chess. There are many configurations on how you can attack and some of them are obvious. Here are some of the list I observed:

1. Major pieces supported by minor pieces or any pieces of lesser value. These configuration is great for dealing checkmate but is weak against enemies defense line. Example:

The black Queen and Rook is both attacking the white pawn twice but only one rook is defending but black do not want to capture the pawn because he will lose more piece value ( 9 vs 6) than their opponent.

2. Minor pieces supported by major pieces or of greater value. This configuration is great for penetrating defenses but are weak against pins. Example:

The white Knight can capture the black pawn but doing so will make the black bishop in pinning the Knight. Since it cannot move, it is vulnerable to future attacks like another pawn attacking it.

3. Pieces alignment. There are some configurations that will kill the effectivity of pieces and this will make an inevitable loss on one of them. The following are:

First. Knight aligned orthogonally but their squares are not of the same color. One of them can be captured by a rook rendering it defenseless. Example:

The white Knights cannot defend each other eventhough one of them got out of the black Rook's attack and one of them will be captured.

Second. Bishops aligned orthogonally but their square color is not the same. One of them again can be captured by rooks because bishops cannot protect others of different square color. Example.

Since these bishops cannot see each other, they are often vulnerable to rook attacks.

Third. Major pieces such as Rooks and/or a Queen aligned diagonally are vulnerable to Bishops. Example.

One of the Rooks will enevitably be captured even one of then can defend other on their turn but will result in a lost of material count (5 vs. 3).