Max Lange Attack

This attack is yet another branch off of the Italian Game. From last week, this begins with 1 e4 e5  2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5. As a review, Evans Gambit from a few weeks ago is if 4 b4.  Giuoco Piano from last week is in the case of 4 c3. This week, for the Max Lange Attack, we look at 4 d4.

Black usually responds in one of three ways. Seirawan explores the line 4 … exd4 5 0-0 Nf6 (why not 5 … d6?) 6 e5. This brings us to the following postion with black to move.

If black moves the knight, say to g4 here, white has an interesting opportunity to regain a pawn: 6 … Ng4 7 Bxf7+ Kxf7 8 Ng5+ Kg8 9 Qxg4 and the game is pretty even.

Instead, if we follow his main line: 6 … d5 7 exf6 dxc4 8 Re1+ Be6 9 Ng5, this brings us to the following postion.

Black’s best responses in this position are either 9… f6 or 9…Qd5. Let’s look at the mistakes 9 … Qxf6 or 9 … 0-0.  The first will lose a bishop with 9 … Qxf6 10 Nxe6 fxe6 11 Qh5+ g6 12 Qxc5 while the second loses even more after 9 … 0-0 10 fxg7 Kxg7 11 Rxe6!, where white wins a bishop that black cannot afford to take without a queen-king fork by the knight.

There are definitely some mistakes that can be made by black with the Max Lange attack that are worth studying.

It’s actually quite simple

The following puzzle is taken again from 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners by Franco Masetti & Roberto Messa.  This one is puzzle 824. It is black to move and win. 

If you need a hint, you’re looking for a move that will be a major threat that will soon end the game. The chess engine suggests that there is a mate in 7 for black in this position. Once you find the initial move for black, if you want a challenge, try and find how white can stretch the game out for 6 more moves. 

The answer is 1 … Qh3. Since 2 Rxe2 leads to 2 … Qxf1#, white doesn’t want to take the rook with his rook. If 2 Rf2, then 2 … Rxf2 3 Rxe8+ Bf8 and nothing stop the inevitible Qxh2# in time. 

How does white stretch it out? One way is 1 … Qh3 2. Qxe2 Rxe2 3 Rf2 Rxf2 4 Re8+ Bf8 5 Rxf8+ Kxf8 6 Bb4+ Ke8 7 a3 Qxh2#. White cannot do anything on the 7th move to stop Qxh2#.

The Philidor Position

Last week we looked at how to promote a pawn from the Lucena Position. This week we’ll look at the Philidor Position, one in which if you find yourself on the opposing side, you can easily force a draw. Let’s take a look at a classic position. All of this, BTW, is taken from Silman’s Complete Endgame Course.

If you put this into an engine, best moves will not always be the easiest to follow.  Silman breaks the method down into a few simple steps.  We first advance our rook to the row in front of the pawn to stop the enemy king from advancing in front of its pawn.  This is what we want to avoid. While on this rank, you’ll move your rook back and forth until white gets bored and pushes the pawn. 

At this point, advance the rook to the first rank with the idea of tormenting the enemy king with an endless supply of checks.  This is how you draw the game.

I just finished a lengthy, boring game playing the level 8 Stockfish engine.  The engine didn’t advance the pawn until the 50th move. I just hung out on the 6th rank moving the rook back and forth making sure it was safe from the enemy king and rook.

As Silman says, after mastering the Philidor Position, you should be able to draw any grandmaster that is playing white with ease.

Openings – Giuoco Piano

We’ll explore four lines that follow the opening called Giuoco Piano. The Giuoco Piano begins with the following moves. 

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5

We’ll look at four paths off of 4 c3 Nf6 today.  All of these are pretty boring in my opinion, as there is little room for really big errors unless they’re blatant. 

The first is “the old main line which peters out to equality” according to Modern Chess Openings by Nick de Firmian. It goes as follows.

4 c3 Nf6 5 d4 exd4 6 cxd4 Bb4+ 7 Bd2 Bxd2+ 8 Nbxd2 d5 9 exd5 Nxd5 10 Qb3 Nce7

The Möller attack would be using 7 Nc3 instead.  The game would remain just as equal if black went with the queen attack 10… Na5 here also. Another line off of 4 c3 Nf6 5 d4 exd4 goes as follows.

6 e5 d5 7 Bb5 Ne4 8 cxd4 Bb6 9 Nc3 0-0 10 Be3 Nxc3 11 bxc3

How about 5 d3 rather than 5 d4?

4 c3 Nf6 5 d3 d6 6 h3 0-0 7 0-0 a5

Finally, let’s look at the unusual 5 b4. This is referred to as Bird’s attack.

4 c3 Nf6 5 b4 Bb6 6 d3 d6 7 0-0 Ne7 8 Nbd2 c6

Modern Chess Openings goes into detail with 65 different lines involving the Giuoco Piano and that is not even close to exhaustive. I prefer Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan, as that only explores a few different lines of play which is good enough for the beginning to intermediate player.

Puzzle – Back Rank and Pin

My favorite puzzle of the week was puzzle 833 in 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners by Franco Masetti & Roberto Messa.  The title of the post is a pretty big hint. In this puzzle, it is black to move, and there is only one good move.  Can you find it?

Notice that white is two pawns up currently.  However, this position with black to move gives black a 3 pawn advantage.  There is another big hint!! Solution is next, so continue to try and find the best move if you don’t think you have already.

The solution is Rook to c5. Notice that after this move, if white tries to take the rook with dxc5, then black has queen to d1 checkmate!  And, if white tries to take the queen with Rxd7, then black has rook to e1 checkmate!  So, what is white’s best move after this? 

It is to take the rook.  Yes, white loses a queen, but with a few extra pawns, white could fight their way out with near perfect play and any future mistakes by black.

Endgame – The Lucena Position

The Lucena position is an endgame in which one side has a rook with a non-rook pawn on the 7th rank with its King on the promotion square while the other side has a rook only. Here is an illustration giving the idea of the Lucena Position. This was taken from Silman’s Complete Endgame Course.

We start with something like 1 Rf2+ and black answers with either 1 … Kg7 or 1 … Kg6.  The idea to promote the pawn is simple, as we just need to get our king out of the way and then promote the pawn. But, the idea is much more simple than the practice, which is why it is worth the study.

According to Silman, we need to use these winning ideas:

• Force the opposing king away from the action (which is what we did with the first two moves)
• Prepare the rook to use what Silman calls a bridge building agent by playing Rf4.
• Move the king out from behind the pawn.
• When the time is right, use the rook to block the opponent’s desperate attempts to check.

When playing an engine, you may notice that another strategy may have to unfold that involves allowing an early promotion that will then allow you to steal the rook afterwards. White must be careful to not move the king too far away from the pawn. The goal is to eventually use the rook to build a bridge like the following diagram.

This leaves nothing more for black to do. The best black can go for in the original Lucena Position (when white knows what they’re doing) is to exchange the pawn (promoted or not) with the rook and leave white with a rook and king. This, as we know, is a losing position.

This week, we’ll begin a new format on this tab of the Decorah Sjakklubb’s website. We’ll cover an opening, a puzzle, and an endgame with each post.

Evans Gambit

A while ago, I covered the Fried Liver Attack off an Italian Game.  White can also play Evans Gambit off the Italian Game. We first get things going with:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4!?

The idea of Evans Gambit play is to trade the pawn (and/or pawns) for more advanced development (Winning Chess Openings; 2003, Yasser Seirawan). The best move for black is to accept the gambit.

4 … Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4

We could diverge quite a bit from here. The Stockfish engine prefers the following defensive continuation.

6 … d6 7. Qb3 Qd7.

Let’s follow a path in which black gobbles up white’s pawns instead.

6 … exd4 7. 0-0 dxc3 8. Qb3 Qf6 9. e5 Qg6 10. Nxc3 Nge7 11. Ba3 0-0 12 Rad1

At this stage, black is two pawns up but the game is even with white in a much better position.

A Brutal Move

The following puzzle comes from puzzle 820 in the book 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners by Franco Masetti & Roberto Messa. I’ve been slowly working my way through this delightful book over the last year now and will sometimes find puzzles that I love.  The correct move here took me quite a while to find, but once I landed on it I knew it was the right one. It is, as the title suggests, a brutal move. Before I say more, please take some time to find it. Black to play on this puzzle.

I have to say, I toiled for a while on this one but it was worth my time finding it.  I’ll provide a few hints in the next paragraph if you need them, and the solution in the paragraph after.

The first hint is that this is not a mate in 2, 3, 4 or more puzzle. The second hint is that the move you are looking for threatens a mate in the next move or few moves if white doesn’t give up pieces. 

The solution is to move the queen to e2.  Observe how huge of a threat this move is to white.  White cannot capture the queen because black has a checkmate on the next move with rook to f1. White cannot capture the rook on f2 because after the queen captures the bishop on f2 for check and backs white’s king into the corner, mate follows when then queen captures the rook on e1. 

The chess engine suggests there is mate in 12 after moving the queen to e2. 

Fake Stalemate

This endgame analysis comes from Joel Benjamin in his July 2022 US Chess magazine article Rook Pawn Magic. Look at the following position for white.

With white having a rook pawn and a bishop that is not the same color as the queening square of that rook pawn, it seems for a moment that black has a great opportunity for a stalemate. All black has to do is continually threaten control of the a8 square. However, black’s biggest weakness is the b7 pawn that will have to move in a “fake stalemate”.  Consider the following sequence of moves.

49 … Kh8 50. Bc3+ Kh7 51. Bg7!

Black has no other move than to advance his b-pawn.  This is white’s strategy… to force this move until his rook pawn on the a-file can capture it! Play continues.

51 … b6 52. Bf8 Kh8 53. Bh6 Kh7 54. Bg7!

Again, another “fake stalemate” that makes black advance his b-pawn. If black does not resign, white repeats these moves until he can take black’s b-pawn, and then promotes it while capturing black’s a-pawn with the bishop.