Friday, June 8, 2007

Position Tactics -- Position 1

I have yet to find a list of specific positional tactics. Especially, the tactics that are generally available based on the starting position of the pieces.

This is strange, however, because they are key positions to moving from Beginner, to Intermediate, to Master. They are core to openings, and often the point of gambits or the traps of the openings. They are key to many middle game positions. They are fundamental to an understanding of chess.

So here we go. Position 1. Something has to be position one, so I am going with the fastest way to checkmate. The weakest diagonal on the board from the losers standpoint. Often it is the goal of the beginners first trap, the fools mate. Sometimes the reverse of position 1 is active for the black side, but this usually is important for white side players.

Here is an image of the critical positional weakness, and how you lose via the fools mate and it is used even deeper in a game using a "bad banana with a slippery black peel” move










Please feel free to comment on where you have seen this diagonal tactic utilized in your games, and other positional candidates you might have.

More Later

3 comments:

Unknown said...

sadly, i've never gotten this position. i've tried, but its never come. thing is, i don't think most people rated over 1000 would make opening moves that would result in this, so i can only assume it's rare, but i could be wrong. i like the approach you're taking...

likesforests said...

Even at the 800 level they usually avoid a fool's mate. However, the third diagram is from a game by Blunderprone and quite interesting. Black continued Qb6, avoiding the obvious mate.

Temposchlucker said...

Interesting topic.
The weakness of the h5-e8 diagonal is a common motif. A few weeks ago I crushed my 1700 rated opponent in 17 moves with it. He thought he would have enough time to castle.