Sunday, December 2, 2012

Recap of Chess Class 12/1/2012

On Saturday morning, in the chess class conducted by Columbia Academy at Caldwell College, I demonstrated tactics involving the knight, namely forks and smothered mates.

Often the winning knight fork is set up by vacating the square where the fork will take place, as happened in one of Mikhail Tal's games.

The key to the smothered mate is first a double check and then a queen sacrifice followed by mating with the knight, which could have occurred in Bobby Fischer's celebrated "Game of the Century."

Finally I presented the most famous game in chess history: Paul Morphy's victory over the Duke of Brunswick. Morphy sacrificed several piece in this game, made possible by his opponent's undeveloped kingside.

At the end of class, the students competed against each other during the practical session.