Forcing Moves

One of the themes of our Squad Training session was looking out for tactical opportunities. If you can take advantage of chances to win pieces, you're well on your way to becoming a strong player.

Let's take a look at one of the examples we studied ...

I found this position in the English Chess Federation's Right Move magazine. It took me about 5 minutes to work out the right idea, so allow yourself plenty of time to think about this position. Set it up on your chessboard and try to work out what you would do - but don't move the pieces! You can't move the pieces when you're playing your games.

OK - let's see what we think about this position. We are White, and it's our move. Even though the game has just started, the queens have been swapped off. Both sides have brought their pieces out quite quickly and at first sight it seems like there's nothing much going on ... but wait a minute! Look at what's happening on the king's side. Both Black's bishop on f5 and ours on f4 are under attack.

Positions where both sides have pieces under attack often lead to opportunities for clever tactics. So be on the look out! The key is to look for moves like checks, captures and threatening moves. When you play these moves you limit your opponent's possibilities. So let's think about checks, captures and threats! We call these moves, FORCING MOVES.

I can count 4 moves that are forcing moves:- 1.Bxd7+, 1.Bg3, 1.gxf5 and 1.Nxd7. Let's think about these one by one.

1.Bxd7+

This is probably the worst option for us and that's not surprising, because it breaks a golden rule. We've got Black's knight in a nasty pin and it can't move, so we mustn't let Black get out of this too easily. Don't let your opponent out of a pin without a very good reason!. Here the game would probably go like this:- 1. Bxd7+ Nxd7 2. Nxd7 Kxd7 3. Be5 (a threat) Bxg4 4. Bxh8 Bf3! (this move saves Black ... see how Black uses threats as well).

1.Bg3

Why do I call this move a threat? Now that we've rescued our bishop, we're now threatening to take Black's on f5. In some circumstances (for example, if Black's bishop was trapped) it would be a good move, but here Black can just retreat with 1... Bh7. Then there's not much in it. Actually, it's also worth thinking about 1... Bxg4. It's a very risky move, but it's not as easy for White as you might think.

1.gxf5

If we take Black's bishop, he must take ours with 1...gxf5 to stay on level terms. In fact, this position is quite good for White as we can win a pawn, but there is an even better option!

1.Nxd7

Congratulations if you chose this move - it's the right answer! But you have to think about Black's options and how you are going to continue.

Black must take something, otherwise he's going to be a knight down for nothing. If he takes the bishop with 1...gxf4, we've got a nice choice of options ... for example 2. Nxf6+ is DISCOVERED CHECK and we will end up at least a knight ahead.

So Black is forced to play 1...Nxd7. We've kept Black in the nasty pin!

How has swapping these knights helped us? It's not obvious at first, but now that our knight has left e5 we can play another forcing move. Can you see it? The key idea is to play 2. Bxe5, which threatens the Black rook in the corner. Now Black has two pieces under attack, because his bishop on f5 is still threatened. Black's best move is to meet a threat with a counter, so he plays 2... f6 to attack our bishop.

Now we've got a great chance! Looking for forcing moves again, we can see that Black's last move has left his pawn on e6 unprotected. We play 3. gxf5 - we're up by a bishop, so if Black wants to keep in the game he'll take ours with 3... fxe5. But now we play 4. fxe6 and next move we will take the pinned knight on d7. We'll come out a knight ahead and, with careful play, we'll win the game.

Well done if you solved this problem ... it's not easy. Remember all the time you need to look for forcing moves in your own games.