Weekly Puzzles
Puzzle of the Week
Welcome back to another year of chess. This will be an exciting year of chess because we have a chess website and interactive chess puzzles. In each weekly newsletter you will be able to click a link and visit the chess web site for that puzzle. On that site you will also be able to try and solve the puzzle by trying out your moves on a chessboard! This is something we are introducing this year to help students visualize variations (two or more sequences of moves that a player can choose between to play) in chess. We have all heard the basic idea of thinking ahead, or calculating moves, in chess that goes something like: "I go here, he goes there, then I go here". Now we can enter these ideas on a chess board and have the webapp keep track of them for us. For many students of the game this will be an excellent aid to learning how to visualize and build up move sequences to compare and choose from.
To help out this year with solving the chess puzzles I have created an article that you can read to try out the technique to solving chess puzzles. Click on the "How to solve chess puzzles" heading above to read.
Chess Tactic - Discovered Check
A discovered check is a form of a discovered attack with the discovered attack focused on the enemy King. Because the King is attacked it is more powerful than a regular discovered attack, as the check must be dealt with immediately.
Here we see a good example of the power of a discovered attack. If only it was Black to move…
White to move
White Black
- Rxb5+ dis ch Ka7 (the only square the King can move to)
- Rb7+ Ka8 (only square)
- Rxb4+ dis ch Ka7
- Rb7+ Ka8
- Rh7+ dis ch Kb8 (only square)
- Rxh6
And now White wins.
Weekly Puzzle (30)
White to move.
Discovered Check
Black to move.
This is Mia’s puzzle. o/
Find the discovered check for Black.
Hint: You need to set up the discovered attack first.
Try the puzzle online. Click on the link "Try the puzzle online".
You may need to flip the board to see it from Black's side.
Weekly Puzzle (29)
White to move.
Solution to last week's puzzle:
If Black gets to move, White will be mated on h2. Therefore, White needs to move with check.
White Black
- Re8+ Kh2
- Qd3+
Discovering an attack on the undefended Rook on c2.
What if 1. … Bf8 blocking the check?
To see more, view the solution online. Click the link "View the solution".