Chess. A modern textbook

The queen (or rook) brings the king to the edge of the board, and the rook (or queen) they checkmate.

Let’s assume that the initial position of the pieces on the board is as follows:

then the king can be brought to the edge of the board in the following way:

1.Qa5+ Kd6 2.Rb6+ Kc7 3.Qa7+ Kc8 4.Rb8#

Remember the technique and try to checkmate. Try moving the black king, white queen, and rook to different positions until you start to be able to bring the king to the edge of the board from any position of the pieces.

Checkmate with two rooks

Checkmate with two rooks is slightly different from checkmate with a queen and a rook.

The difference is that when a queen and a rook checkmate, the queen protects the rook all the time, while when two rooks checkmate, they do not protect each other.

Example:

1.Ra5+ Kc6 and it is no longer possible to play 2.Rb6+ as in the case of the queen, because the rook on b6 will be unprotected.

Next, there are two ways to put a linear checkmate:

The first one is easier to remember, but a little longer.,

the second one is shorter.

You may ask why there are two ways, it would be logical to have one that is short?

Let me explain: after that we will consider both examples.

Method 1.

When the opponent’s king approaches the rook, the rooks move to the other side of the board and the clipping occurs according to the same pattern.

Example:

Starting position:

1.Rа5+ Кс6

1.Rа5+ Кс6

2.Rg5 Kd6

3.Rh4 Ke6

3.Rh4 Ke6

4.Лh6+ Kpf7

Again, it is not possible to play 4.Rg7+ and have to move the rooks to the other flank again.

5.Ra6 Ke7

6.Rg7+ Kf8

7.Rb7 Ke8 8.Rа8#

Method 2

Example:

Initial position

And now we don’t move the rook to the other flank 2.Rg5, as in method 1, but play

2.Rbb4

And it turns out to be a zugzwang

(Zugzwang – (German: Zugzwang “forced move”) is a position in which any player’s move leads to a deterioration of their position.)

2…Kd6

Next, you can give a check with any rook, and we will consider the rook “a”

3.Ra6+ Kc7

And again, according to the same scheme, we can’t play 4.Rb7, so we play

4.Rbb6 Kd7

5.Rа7+ Кс8

6.Лbb7 Kpd8 7.Ла8# (или 7.Лb8#)

As we can see, the 1st method is one move longer, so what’s the problem?

I’ll tell you from my own experience and the experience of other chess players that when you’re under time pressure (time pressure (from German. Zeit (zeit) – time and German. Not (not) – need) – a lack of time to think about your moves, it’s very easy to make a mistake (when you move one square and there’s a rook next to it) and put your rook in danger.