The Everything Chess Basics Book (51 page)

Black has a trick to save his pinned knight, but it will cost him two pawns. Position after 32. Ba3.

32.
... Re7.

This neat counterpin is the only way for Black to avoid losing a whole piece. Unfortunately for Black, it commits him to a rook exchange, and he loses another pawn at the end of all the captures.

33. Rxe7+ Kxe7 34. Bxc5+ Ke6 35. Bxa7.

With three extra pawns and the bishop pair, White will not have any trouble winning.

Black is now down two pawns, including two passed pawns, and White has the positional advantage of two bishops versus bishop and knight as well. Therefore, Black resigned the game. There is really no point to playing on without any prospects for winning or even somehow grabbing a draw.

The two bishops are a positional advantage against a bishop and a knight or against two knights because they sweep the whole board. Their long-range power is always there, but when you have both of them, they cover all the squares on the board very quickly. Knights can also cover all the squares, but are slower, while a lone bishop can only cover half the squares on the board.

Chapter 14
The World of Chess

Now that you know how to play a reasonable game of chess, some new opportunities are available. There is a whole world built around the subculture that is chess. The following is just a sampling of what this chess world has to offer.

A Parlor Game

Chess is at its core simply a game between two players. A board and set is the only essential equipment, and even that can be dispensed with by those with strong enough imagination and concentration to play blind.

Anywhere

The game can be and is played virtually everywhere. At home, in a restaurant, coffee shop, or bar, in the library, outside in the park, on a train, and in the backseat of a car are a few places where a casual game can take place with no organization whatsoever.

Whether played in private or in public, such games are traditionally referred to as
skittles
. The chief difference between such casual chess and organized tournament games is a lack of time control, a lack of scorekeeping, and the danger of kibitzers.

What is a
kibitzer
?
Literally an interfering onlooker, kibitzers are spectators who suggest moves to one or both of the contestants. This is illegal in any formal competition, of course, but is often tolerated in casual play.
Kibitzer
is a Yiddish word from the German
Kiebitz
.

The Park

Outdoors there are areas in city parks where chess is played daily, at least in the warmer months. Games can be timed or not, depending on the availability of clocks or the inclination of the players. You can also play for stakes or merely for the sake of playing. Washington Square Park in New York City is famous for this, and was brought to the attention of the general public in the book and movie
Searching
for Bobby Fischer
.

Chess Clubs

In between the informal games that anyone can play anywhere and serious tournament competition, there is what used to be the backbone of chess, the chess club.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Café de la Régence in Paris was a famous meeting place for many of the day’s intellectuals, and that included chess players. Other clubs, perhaps of similar type, sprang up around Europe and, later, the United States. Such clubs were gathering places for people of diverse background and interests. They helped provide a common culture for their habitués.

Men’s clubs of all types grew out of old-style intellectual gatherings. Eventually, these clubs began to specialize, and clubs devoted entirely to chess gained currency. Even many of those clubs included checkers and/or bridge as activities for a long time.

Club Activities

At a typical chess club, members and guests can find a casual game, or get involved with whatever level of organized competition the club offers. Ladder play, where each member rises or falls in reference to other club members, was always a popular way to keep track of everyone’s progress, at least until ratings came into vogue. Besides regular blitz tournaments and the club championship, there is often league play, where each club in an area plays the other clubs throughout the course of a season. (During a blitz tournament, each player gets five minutes to complete all the moves in blitz, so the maximum time a game can take is ten minutes. This way, a round-robin tournament with fifteen to twenty players can finish in one night.)

Some clubs have chess libraries available to members, some provide access to chess lessons or lectures by the club pro or a visiting master. Some sponsor simultaneous exhibitions or tournaments. The variety and amount of service to members provided by any particular club is only subject to the dedication and energy of the people who run it.

The Decline of Clubs

Late in the twentieth century the Swiss tournament took hold of the imagination of American chess players. A typical tournament usually took up an entire weekend and often involved some serious travel expenses.

Many players addicted to playing chess couldn’t keep up all their club activities and play the tournament circuit. So these players would frequent weekend tournaments more and more, and their local club less and less.

A pervasive part of modern society, the Internet brings like-minded people together and estranges them at the same time. Anyone with Internet access can now play a game of chess with a faceless opponent from anywhere on earth at any given hour, day or night. Thus both opponents got a game and communicated, but there was no face-to-face human interaction.

This trend has continued with the advent of Internet chess play, where the club comes to the player rather than the other way around.

Chess Instruction

Many people want to improve their results or learn more about the game. This can be accomplished in any number of ways, including:

• Reading instructional material.

• Playing strong opponents.

• Analyzing your own games.

• Attending lectures.

• Finding a chess teacher.

• Developing a plan that includes all of the above.

How far you take such instruction is entirely up to you. This book may be enough to allow you to enjoy chess as a hobby for the rest of your life. Or you may want to improve enough to have a real chance to defeat a particular opponent or reach a particular rating. If you do decide to get serious about chess and wish to become a strong player or a champion, you will need to delve into many years of striving to master the game.

A good plan for improving your chess play will include all the listed elements. Whether you do this face to face or via correspondence or use books and magazines or videos or the Internet or software is irrelevant. How much material you retain and use is much more to the point.

Strong Chess

Playing a strong game means understanding what is required in many different types of positions. Many players divide these types of positions into the various opening systems, endgames where there are very few pieces on the board, and middlegame structures where different strategies need to be mastered.