Seven elements come into play in every game of chess. The usual goal of a player is to create an imbalance in one or more of these elements, turn that imbalance to his/her advantage, and convert that advantage into a won game. The elements are:
These elements are illustrated in the following game. In this game, the white pieces are played by a strong player who understands the above elements, while the black pieces are played by a weaker player whose grasp of these principles is somewhat wanting.
1. e4 White immediately stakes out space in the center of the board, placing a pawn on e4 and attacking d5. He also opens a line for the development of his bishop and queen, thus making those pieces more mobile. 1...d5 This is called the Center Counter Defense, one of the most aggressive defenses to 1. e4 but also one of the riskiest. Black immediately challenges white's center pawn while opening a line for his own queen bishop. 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Moving your queen out early is usually risky, and here is why. It is subject to attack by relatively weak enemy pieces. Black must now move his queen again with loss of time, and white forces this loss of time with a normal developing move. Thus, white gains what amounts to a free move for development and takes an immediate initiative. At this point, black usually plays 3...Qa5, getting the queen out of harm's way and immobilizing the knight on c3 after white plays the inevitable queen pawn move. 3...Qe5+? However, here black leaves the queen in the middle of the board where it can be attacked again, causing further loss of time. White can easily parry the check with a normal developing move, so black's 3rd move is nothing but a waste of time. 4. Be2 Bg4 Black is certainly playing aggressively, attempting to wrest the initiative from white. White must play carefully to avoid losing control of the game. 5. d4 Placing a pawn in the center and attacking and temporarily controlling the square e5. This also opens a line for the queen's bishop, thus increasing its mobility. Black must take time to save the queen. 5...Qe6 Now, 5...Qa5 loses the bishop. An interesting try is 5...Bxe2 6. Ngxe2 Qa5. White remains well ahead in development (time and mobility), however. The text move blocks the king pawn, which prevents the king bishop from being mobilized. 6. Be3! White could not simply take the black bishop because his own bishop is pinned to the king. With this move, white develops with a threat, thus gaining time. The pin is broken and now the black bishop is in real danger. White has gained time, supported the queen pawn, and maintained the initiative. 6...Bxe2 Black trades his only developed piece (besides the queen), but 6...Bf5 7. Nf3 leaves white even further ahead in development. 7. Qxe2 White recaptures with the queen instead of the king's knight. He wants to play the KN to f3 where it will be more powerful as it will command more space there and have greater mobility. Also, placing the queen on e2 increases its mobility by allowing it to move along the f1-a6 diagonal. Recapturing with the king is out of the question, as it leaves the white king without the opportunity to castle and thus remove itself to safety on the side of the board behind a phalanx of defending pawns (king safety). 7...Nf6 At last, a normal developing move, and about the only one available to black. 7...Nc6 loses material to the pawn move 8. d5, with an attack on two black pieces at once (a fork). Meanwhile, the king's bishop is immobile behind the king pawn, which is itself immobilized because of the queen. Black's position is very uncomfortable. 8. Qb5+ An aggressive alternative to 8. Nf3. White now attacks both the black king and QNP, leaving black the chore of finding a way to defend them both at the same time. 8...Qc6 The only move. Should white exchange queens now? 9. Nf3! Absolutely not! Exchanging queens only allows black to gain time for development: 9. Qxc6? Nxc6. Black has developed the queen's knight for free, as it were, and white is left without a threat. Black's problems are solved. One small slip and white's sizeable advantage in time is virtually gone. 9...Qxb5 Black's queen was blocking the development of the QN, but as we'll see this hardly solves the problem. 9...Nbd7 10. Qxc6 wrecks black's pawn structure, leaving him with doubled isolated pawns on the c-file, which will be a significant weakness in the endgame. (Doubled pawns exist when a player finds two of his pawns on the same file. The isn't always a weakness, but usually it impairs mobility. An isolated pawn is a pawn that has no friendly pawns on adjacent files that can come to its defense. Since isolated pawns cannot be defended by other pawns, they are vulnerable to marauding enemy pieces. Even the enemy king likes to attack them in the endgame.) Probably best was 9...e6 followed, if white allows it, by 10...Be7 and 11...O-O, getting the king to safety. 10. Nxb5 Nd5 Black is faced with a serious problem: how to defend the c7 pawn without moving the king and surrendering the right to castle. 11. c4 Nxe3 White kicks the black knight on d5, and black must now find a way to move it without exposing the c-pawn to capture. This will involve considerable finesse and precise timing. White could now play 12. Nxc7+ Kd7 13. Nxa8 winning the rook by a knight fork, but then black forks back and comes out ahead: 13...Nc2+ 14. Kd2 Nxa1 and black is up a piece. Chess is a very material game, and an advantage of a piece in material is almost always enough to win. Thus, white has no time to capture the c-pawn and must recapture the knight. 12. fxe3 An imbalance in material has been created. Black has won a bishop for a knight, which is generally a very slight material advantage. However, look at the position. All of black's remaining pieces are on their original squares, whereas white's are aggressively posted and very mobile. White completely dominates in the center and on the queenside, and thus has an overwhelming space advantage. In addition, white has the initiative due to his threat against the c-pawn. Black has not yet castled, and his king is in danger of being attacked. True, white has not yet castled either, but there are no threats against the white king. How could there be? Black has no pieces in play! White may not yet have a winning advantage, but black is in a very bad way. 12...Kd8?? If we can identify one move which loses the game for black, this must be it. 12...Na6 was the only safe way to defend the c-pawn and prevent the knight fork on c7. 13. Ne5! White strikes while the iron is hot (while there is time), before black gets a chance (time) to recover from his blunder. White will now win material. He attacks the f-pawn, but more importantly he threatens a knight fork on f7. That is, if his knight gets to f7, it will be attacking both the black king and the black rook. Black has no time to defend against both threats. Thus, white has successfully converted his advantage in time, space, and mobility into a winning material advantage. 13...Kc8 Black moves his king out of the way of the threatened knight fork. He thus saves the king's rook. Notice that 13...Ke8 leaves him vulnerable to the fork (double attack on the king and queen's rook) on c7. 14. Nxf7 Rg8 15. Ng5 White has won the KBP and left the KP isolated and weak. He is now attacking the KRP, not because he expects to win it, but because black must now take time to defend it. This gives white time to accomplish his next objective. 15...h6 16. Ne6 White posts his knight on a very powerful square deep in enemy territory. The e6 square is called an outpost because white can safely post a piece there with little worry that it can be driven away. Outposts are generally those squares in enemy territory that are in front of isolated or backward pawns (a pawn that is not isolated but that cannot be defended by a friendly pawn because the friendly pawns on adjacent files have already moved past it). This is one reason why isolated and backward pawns are weak. The knight on e6 also attacks the pawn on c7 for the second time, and black must now take time to defend it. Thus, in addition to everything else, white still has the initiative. 16...c6?? The pawn moves out of harm's way, but unfortunately black's immobile queen's rook is now lost. Black's only hope of defense was with 16...Na6. 17. Nbc7 Na6 18. Nxa8 White has won the enemy's rook (material), but his knight is now trapped in the corner with little hope of escape. In effect he has traded a minor piece (knight or bishop) for a rook. This is called winning the exchange (black has lost the exchange). How much of an advantage is this? Although there are no precise values that can be assigned to the pieces, as a rough rule of thumb values are often assigned as follows:
pawn = 118...g5 At last, black plans to bring his bishop into play. 19. O-O And this is why. White brings his king to safety (at last). He also places his king's rook on the open f-file. Rooks are generally strongest on open files (files on which there are no pawns) where they are most mobile and command a lot of space. White also attacks the black bishop for the second time. Fortunately, due to his last move, black has mobilized the bishop and can move it to safety. 19...Bg7 20. Nxg7 White exchanges a strongly posted knight for a weakly posted bishop, generally not a good idea. However, white's plan is to take complete control of the f-file with his rooks (space, mobility), thus allowing him to penetrate into black's position and to save the knight on a8. 20...Rxg7 21. Rf8+ Kd7 22. Raf1 White now completely dominates the open f-file with his rooks. The rooks are said to be doubled on the file. Doubled rooks on an open file are generally very strong, as they threaten to penetrate into the enemy position, and in this case one has already done so, with gain of time to boot. 22...Nb4 There is very little for black to do in this position. He attempts to generate some counterplay by attacking the white queenside pawns. When you are in a bad position, you must find some way to generate counterplay. Otherwise, you are just sitting by passively waiting for your army to be slaughtered! Part of white's job here is to prevent counterplay by black, and he could have immobilized the black knight by 22. a3! However, white has bigger fish to fry. 23. R1f7 White invades along the open f-file, threatening to exchange the black rook. When you are ahead in material, exchange when you can do so without disadvantage. Such exchanges are called simplification, and each one limits the enemy's counterplay and brings you closer to an easily won endgame. Here, white is so anxious to exchange the black rook that he is willing to give up a pawn to do it. 23...Rg6 Black says, "No, thank you. I'll keep my rook. I may need it to harass you." 24. Rb8 b6 25. Rb7+ Kd6 26. Rfxe7 Black's exposed king is now being driven into the open. This is what happens to you when you don't castle early. White has won another pawn (material) and has doubled his rooks on the 7th rank. Such rooks are very powerful and are sometimes called hogs on the seventh because they threaten to gobble up everything in sight. White also threatens 27. Rbd7 mate. Black must create a flight square (mobility) for his imperiled king. 26...c5 27. d5! White closes off the flight square and threatens mate again. In addition, he has created a passed pawn, i.e., a pawn that cannot be stopped from promoting by any enemy pawn. Such pawns are powerful because they must be stopped by the enemy's pieces, thus restricting the enemy's mobility. Here, black's problems are more immediate. He must give up more material to avoid being mated. Notice that black never got time to take white's a-pawn, so strong is white's initiative. White completely controls the course of the game. His pieces are very mobile, and he controls space in every corner of the board. This has been a very unpleasant game for the player of the black pieces, and I'm sure every experienced chess player can identify with his plight, because we've all been there at the hands of a superior player! 27...Nxd5 28. Rbd7+! White is in no hurry to capture the knight. 28. cxd5 Kxd5 would cost him his passed pawn. White intends to have the knight and his passed pawn, too, and does so with a skewering maneuver. 28...Kc6 29. cxd5+ Kb5 30. Re6 White offers to exchange the rooks again, after which black would be completely helpless to stop the promotion of the passed pawn. Black, of course, declines. 30...Rg8 31. Nc7+ The knight is saved at last! 31... Kc4 32. Rf7 White plays cautiously. Black's rook is dangerous only if it can get to a mobile position like an open file. White takes precautions against this, thereby limiting black's counterplay. 32...Rd8 Black, in turn, places his rook where it is needed most, in front of white's passed pawn. Generally, rooks should be placed behind enemy passed pawns, but white has effectively put a stop to that possibility by taking control of the f-file on move 32. 33. Re8? Rd6 White's rook move is a waste of time. He should simply shove the passed pawn down black's throat by 33. d6, 34. d7, and 35. Re8. Black stubbornly refuses to part with the rook, and now the rook occupies the square immediately in front of the passed pawn, which is called a blockade. This immobilizes the pawn, and white must lift the blockade before the pawn can move forward. White's passed pawn is called a protected passed pawn, however, because it can be protected by another pawn. The white e-pawn and d-pawn are also called connected passed pawns because they are both passed and can both protect each other. In short, even after the mistake on his last move, white is in a commanding position, up a rook and a knight, with strong connected passed pawns. Black's refusal to resign in this position would be considered rude by most players. He is hoping for the impossible. 34. e4 Kd3 35. e5 Rg6 The blockade is lifted and the pawns mobilized. If white plays them correctly, the connected passed pawns are now unstoppable. Meanwhile, black's rook is being progressively restricted in its mobility. Soon he will be forced to part with it. 36. Ne6? White could queen the d-pawn in three moves. Instead he worries excessively over black's rook and attempts to maneuver in such a way as to exchange it. This allows black to harass the passed pawns with his king. Black has effectively no chance of stopping them; he is just being annoying. 36...Ke4 37. Rg7?! White now gives up one of the pawns to force an exchange of rooks. 37...Rxg7 38. Nxg7 Kxd5 39. e6 Kd6 40. Nf5+ White forces black to retreat from the passed pawn, giving white time to promote it. He gives up his knight in the process (material), which is unnecessary but at this point hurts nothing. 40...Ke5 41. e7 Kxf5 Black gains nothing by chasing the pawn because it is protected by the knight. Thus, 41...Ke6 42. Rf8 and black ends up with nothing for his troubles. 42. Rf8+ Ke6 43. e8=Q+ resigns. The black king will quickly be hunted down by the queen and rook. Black wisely surrenders rather than face the execution of his king.
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