Last Wednesday, James and I had a game during which I had three moves that involved some sort of a “discovery”. Moving a pawn forward, I uncovered the path of my bishop which was then attacking his knight. By taking a pawn with my pawn, I got the pawn out of the way of my queen which then put his king in check. On another move, I moved my pawn forward to the 7th rank once again, uncovering the path of my queen which offered a much needed “discovered” protection on one of my other pieces.
Before jumping into some games at Pulpit Rock Brewing Company on Wednesday, 10/20/2021, we’ll first start with some puzzles centered on this theme at 6:30pm. Please come out and join us. Subscribe to this page at the bottom to stay informed of Decorah Chess Club events or find our group on Facebook!
Discovered Attacks
In 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners a discovered attack is describeds as “a form of double attack where one piece moves to attack another, unmasking an attack by a second piece.” Let’s look at the following puzzle (#253 in the book) for illustration.
Take a moment to see if you can find the discovered attack by white (it is white’s move).
If you found the move g6 way to go! Moving the pawn forward to g6 not only opens up an attack on the knight on c5, but also threatens checkmate with Qxh7 if black is not careful to defend this first! Once black defends against this threat with either fxg6 or hxg6, then white wins the knight!
Here are a few puzzles that we’ll discuss when we meet. I’ll post the answers next week.
This second one is pretty difficult. I was unable to find the solution with 15-20 minutes of study. It is called “An elegant double threat”.
Decorah Sjakklubb 