Notice there are 3 attackers on the d5 pawn, but only 2 black defenders. The lesson says you (white) should start capturing with your least valuable piece first (say bishop), but it explicitly says that for the second capture, it doesn't matter if you do it with the rook or the knight. But that makes zero sense to me. If you do the second capture with rook, then you'll finish the exchange with a knight. But if you do it knight first, you'll finish with the rook. Your opponent will have gained less material this way.
It's a good question. The reason why you have an option to make the second capture with the either the knight or the rook is as follows:
- If you take with the knight, Black should not capture the knight with the rook as he will be much further behind in material.
- If you take with the rook, you effectively force the trade of rooks on top of the won pawn. White will have a superior position in the endgame.
By forcing the trade of rooks, you are simplifying the position:
https://www.chess.com/terms/simplification-chess
Also, here is the chess.com lesson for anyone interested:
https://www.chess.com/lessons/capturing-pieces/counting-captures
I wanted to post a link to the lesson, but new users are not allowed to post links, not even links to chess.com. Oh well.
Here is the position referenced in the lesson:
Notice there are 3 attackers on the d5 pawn, but only 2 black defenders. The lesson says you (white) should start capturing with your least valuable piece first (say bishop), but it explicitly says that for the second capture, it doesn't matter if you do it with the rook or the knight. But that makes zero sense to me. If you do the second capture with rook, then you'll finish the exchange with a knight. But if you do it knight first, you'll finish with the rook. Your opponent will have gained less material this way.
The explanation the video gives starts at 2:05 (please open the lesson and hear it, I'm not sure I'm allowed to quote the video verbatim here. It's under the "Capturing pieces" topic, lesson "counting captures"). But after all is said and done it still makes no sense because of what I stated in the above paragraph, which I believe is an indisputable fact. What is going on here?