Three pawns beat the bishop.

The battle between three pawns and a piece is usually exciting. While in theory the race is equal, normally one side or the other wins. In the following example the pawns have the edge because they are passed,and the black king is tied down in order to stop the king-side pawns.

Note: (a passed pawn is a pawn that has no enemy pawns between it and it's queening square)

Black's bishop attacks the a-pawn but if it moves then after Ba4 black will be able to hold the queen-side pawns and draw! So I found a better solution b5! After black takes the a-pawn I played a move which destroys blacks hopes of stopping white from queening. Can you see it?

That's right b6! wins, since after black takes the pawn with the a-pawn and we re-capture, our pawn cannot be stopped. The black bishop cannot go to c6 due to the pawn being in the way. And white then wins by queening the b-pawn.

Queening at all costs!

This is a game I played on-line. You can play it out on a board, or use a pgn viewer such as Chesspad (which is free). If you don't know how to read chess notation you can learn at, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_chess_notation

[Opening "Caro-Kann: advance variation"].

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5

The advanced variation of the Caro-Kan

3...Bf5 4.f4 h5 5.Ne2 e6 6.Ng3 g6

I would have kept the Bishop with Bh7.

7.Nxf5 gxf5 8.Be3 Nd7 9.Bf2

With the idea of being able to go Bh4 in some positions.

9...c5

Black tries to break up white's center.

10.Bb5 a6 11.Bxd7+ Qxd7 12.dxc5 Qb5

Black attacks two white pawns. Which white then defends.

13.Qd4 Rc8 14.b4 a5 15.a3 b6 16.Nc3 Qc6

It looks like white's pawns are falling apart, but white has a trick move.

17.cxb6

White sacrifices a piece, but black loses right away if he takes it. 17...Qxc3, 18.Qxc3...Rxc3 19. b7 and black cannot prevent the pawn from queening!

17...axb4 18.axb4 Ne7 19.Ra3

Now white is a pawn to the good, and making things even sweeter, the pawn is close to queening. White's plan here is to castle, then work on queening the pawn or forcing black to sacrifice a piece to stop the pawn.

19...Ng6 20.O-O Be7 21.b5 Qc4 22.b7 Rb8 23.Qxc4 dxc4 24.Ra7 O-O

Black could have taken the pawn on f4, but white would still win quickly in that variation.

25.g3 Rfd8 26.Rd1

White is happy to trade rooks since the lone rook will not be able to hold back whites b-pawn from queening.

26...Re8 27.Rd7 Nf8 28.Rc7 Bb4 29.Na4 Re7 30.Rxe7 Bxe7 31.Bb6

Preparing Bc7, winning the rook.

31...Kg7 32.Bc7 Nd7 33.Bxb8 Nxb8 34.Ra8

Black resigns since the knight is now lost and white will soon queen one of the b-pawns.

*

Diagonals and the powerful "Battery"

The bishops and queens can work together on the diagonals, especially when no enemy pawns are in the way. Two bishops can work together to control diagonals of both color squares and sometimes wreak havoc on the enemy kings or pieces this way. Lets look at a couple of examples of checkmates on the diagonals.

In the first diagram white is threatening mate on the

g7 or h8 squares. Black has no way to prevent this but tries moving the bishop back to e8 which gives the king an escape square (f7) if white does not deliver mate next move. Now white can mate on g7 or h8 since the white bishop defends the queen. This setup is called a "Battery".

Two bishops or a queen and a bishop can work together to control the diagonals of both colors.

In this diagram checkmate has been delivered by the two bishops. In this case either bishop could be a queen and it would still be mate.

Focus

When I sit down at the chess board, I like to imagine the board as cone
connecting to my eyes. Nothing else exists, my concentration is on the chess pieces, the board, occasionally my opponent. Everything else fades away, sounds, thoughts, dreams. Only by focusing on the task at hand, the moment, the decision around which piece to move next, do we have any hope of playing the best move consistently.

The beauty of the moment is enough, focus on it, and your play will improve.

Pawns are Good. Everyone Work Together.

Welcome to a fun project, everyday another tip will come your way. In addition my twitter account is plugged in here to provide additional tips and other random game news.

Tips will vary in strength and some days we will have an advanced and a beginner tip. For those that need chess materials, I have built an affiliate game store through amazon, with the best chess books, and other game books in print.

Tip One: In this position white has mate in one, it is because White's pawns and bishop can work together to mate the black king. Notice how blacks pieces are not really doing anything constructive. (Answer below)

When playing chess try to keep your pieces working together. In this problem when white plays mate, each of the three white pieces (other than the king) are playing a part. Pawns while the weakest of the pieces can be used to defend each other, control parts of the board (so that no opponents pieces can find home there) to promote to a queen or to mate the king.