Your technical library
Chess
6 modules · 31 topics
About this book
Concepts · Chess
Chess
This course is for a player who knows how the pieces move and has played a lot of quick games, but whose rating has stopped climbing somewhere between 1200 and 1500. It is built to get that player to 1600 and beyond in blitz, and it teaches ideas, not lines: what to look at on every move, the handful of tactical patterns that decide most games, what an opening is trying to do, how to find a plan, how to turn a winning position into a win, and the few endgames that come up again and again.
The order comes from evidence rather than from a textbook. Every one of 1,148 recent three- and five-minute games by one such player was checked move by move with a chess engine, and the course spends its pages where those games were actually lost. The first finding sets the first module: most points are lost not to unknown openings or to the clock, but to moves made without checking what the opponent can do next.
A thinking routine for every move comes first, because it fixes the largest leak. Then come the tactical patterns that routine has to spot, openings by their ideas, middlegame plans, winning won positions, and endgames.
31 topics across 6 modules, in the order that moves a blitz rating fastest.
From a stalled 1200–1500 blitz rating to 1600 and beyond, by ideas rather than lines: a thinking routine for every move, the tactical patterns that decide most games, openings by what they are for, middlegame plans, winning won positions, and the endgames that keep coming up. Ordered by an engine analysis of where 1,148 real blitz games were lost.
31 of 31 topics are authored. Read in order. Planned lessons are labelled and excluded from progress.
Course map
Read at your own pace. Each topic is one continuous page; mark it done as you finish.
Start with 01.1 · Where blitz games are lost: what 1,148 games sayReview what you have finished↷ 0 skipped topics01.2Their move first: what did it change?
01.3Before you let go: is my move safe?
01.4Forcing moves first: checks, captures and threats
01.5Two candidates, then choose
01.6Spending your clock: time is a budget
02.1Loose pieces and counting attackers
02.2Double attacks: one move, two targets
02.3Lines through pieces: pins and skewers
02.4Unmasking attacks: discovered attacks and checks
02.5Overworked defenders and removing the guard
02.6Mating patterns: the back rank and friends
03.1What every opening is for
03.2Learn the structure, not the line
03.3Playing with an early f-pawn as White
03.4Meeting 1.e4 as Black
03.5Meeting 1.d4 as Black
03.6Meeting gambits and early attacks
04.1Improve your worst piece
04.2Pawn breaks show where to play
04.3Weak squares and outposts
04.4Open files and active rooks
04.5When to attack the king
04.6Which trades help you
05.1Converting an advantage
05.2Defending a worse position
06.1The king is a fighting piece
06.2Passed pawns must be pushed
06.3King and pawn: the opposition and the square
06.4Rook endgames: activity first
06.5The basic checkmates
Skipped topics
Moved past without finishing. A skipped topic still closes its module, and Continue goes on without it — open one to read it or mark it understood.
Glossary
Terms as the lessons define them, each linked to the lesson that defines it.
winning chance
When a lesson says one side's winning chance is, say, 80 %, that is the engine's estimate of how often a player in that position would go on to win.
Go to Where blitz games are lost: what 1,148 games say →blunder
A blunder, here, is a move that drops your winning chance by 15 percentage points or more, from a position that was not already lost.
Go to Where blitz games are lost: what 1,148 games say →Hope Chess
Hope Chess is consistently making moves without analysing the opponent's possible forcing replies — checks, captures and threats.
Go to Where blitz games are lost: what 1,148 games say →blunder check
A blunder check is the last look at a move you have chosen, before you play it, asking whether the opponent's best reply wins something.
Go to Before you let go: is my move safe? →forcing move
A forcing move is a move that leaves the opponent few sensible answers.
Go to Forcing moves first: checks, captures and threats →candidate move
A candidate move is a move worth considering seriously in a position: one of the few you will compare before choosing.
Go to Two candidates, then choose →loose piece
A loose piece is a piece, or a pawn, that nothing of its own side guards.
Go to Loose pieces and counting attackers →exchange
An exchange, here, is a run of captures on one square, each side taking back in turn. (Players also say "winning the exchange" for winning a rook for a bishop or knight — a different use of the same word.) Most exchanges in blitz are decided before they start, by a count anyone can make:
Go to Loose pieces and counting attackers →double attack
A double attack is a move that makes two threats at once.
Go to Double attacks: one move, two targets →fork
A fork is a double attack made by one piece standing on one square and attacking two enemy pieces from it.
Go to Double attacks: one move, two targets →pin
A pin is an attack along a line on a piece that stands in front of a more valuable piece of its own side, so that moving the front piece would expose the one behind.
Go to Lines through pieces: pins and skewers →absolute pin
An absolute pin is a pin against the king.
Go to Lines through pieces: pins and skewers →relative pin
A relative pin is a pin against anything else — usually the queen or a rook.
Go to Lines through pieces: pins and skewers →skewer
A skewer is the pin turned round: an attack along a line on a valuable piece that has to move, exposing a piece behind it.
Go to Lines through pieces: pins and skewers →discovered attack
A discovered attack is an attack made by moving a piece off a line, so that a bishop, rook or queen of the same side behind it now attacks along that line.
Go to Unmasking attacks: discovered attacks and checks →discovered check
When the uncovered attack is on the king, it is a discovered check.
Go to Unmasking attacks: discovered attacks and checks →overworked defender
An overworked defender is a piece that is the only guard of two things at once — two pieces, or a piece and a square such as a mating square.
Go to Overworked defenders and removing the guard →removing the guard
This is called removing the guard.
Go to Overworked defenders and removing the guard →deflection
A deflection is a move — usually a capture or a check — that forces a defender off the square or line it must hold.
Go to Overworked defenders and removing the guard →back-rank mate
A back-rank mate is checkmate by a rook or queen along the king's first rank, when the king cannot step off that rank because its own pawns block the squares in front of it.
Go to Mating patterns: the back rank and friends →Escape square
The cure is an escape square: one pawn in front of the king pushed one step, usually the h-pawn, so the king has a square to step to off the back rank.
Go to Mating patterns: the back rank and friends →smothered mate
A smothered mate is checkmate by a knight against a king so surrounded by its own pieces that it has no square to move to.
Go to Mating patterns: the back rank and friends →development
Development means moving the knights and bishops off the back rank to squares where they work.
Go to What every opening is for →tempo
A tempo (plural tempi, Italian for "time") is one move's worth of time in the race to develop.
Go to What every opening is for →pawn structure
The pawn structure is the arrangement of both sides' pawns, read as one shape: which pawns face each other, which are blocked, which can still advance or capture.
Go to Learn the structure, not the line →pawn chain
A diagonal line of pawns protecting each other is a pawn chain.
Go to Learn the structure, not the line →bad bishop
A bishop hemmed in by its own fixed pawns is a bad bishop. "Bad" describes the pawns around it, not the piece; it can still be useful defending them.
Go to Learn the structure, not the line →pawn break
A pawn move that attacks an enemy pawn, to open lines or break a structure that suits the opponent, is a pawn break.
Go to Learn the structure, not the line →bishop pair
Two bishops working together cover squares of both colours, which makes the bishop pair a lasting small advantage once the position opens.
Go to Meeting 1.e4 as Black →gambit
A gambit is an opening in which one side offers material, usually a pawn, in return for time, open lines or the centre.
Go to Meeting gambits and early attacks →worst piece
Your worst piece is the piece doing least for you right now: the one with the fewest useful squares, attacking and guarding nothing that matters.
Go to Improve your worst piece →hole
Such a square is a hole: a square that the opponent can no longer guard with a pawn.
Go to Weak squares and outposts →outpost
An outpost is a hole in the opponent's half of the board that one of your own pawns guards.
Go to Weak squares and outposts →open file
An open file is a file with no pawns on it, of either colour.
Go to Open files and active rooks →half-open file
A file with only the opponent's pawn on it is a half-open file.
Go to Open files and active rooks →pawn storm
A pawn storm is an attack in which several pawns advance towards the opponent's castled king, to attack the pawns sheltering it and force open a file for your rooks and queen.
Go to When to attack the king →simplify
To simplify is to trade pieces off on purpose, usually when you are ahead, so that the position has fewer pieces and fewer chances for the opponent to stir up trouble.
Go to Which trades help you →counterplay
That is counterplay: threats from the losing side that give them something to play for, even with less material.
Go to Converting an advantage →Converting an advantage
Converting an advantage means turning a position the engine calls winning into a won game: keeping the extra material, taking away the opponent's counterplay, and trading down to a position simple enough that nothing is left for them to try.
Go to Converting an advantage →wrong rook pawn
This drawn ending has a name: the wrong rook pawn, a bishop and an a- or h-pawn (a "rook pawn", because it starts in front of a rook) whose queening corner is not the bishop's colour.
Go to Converting an advantage →drawing resource
A drawing resource is a way for the side with less material to force a draw: a position or a sequence of moves where the extra material cannot be made to count.
Go to Defending a worse position →perpetual check
A perpetual check is exactly this: a series of checks the opponent cannot escape, which draws because the position repeats.
Go to Defending a worse position →fortress
A fortress is a position the stronger side cannot break into, however long they try: the defender's king and pieces hold every way in.
Go to Defending a worse position →opposite-coloured bishops
White's bishop moves on dark squares, Black's on light ones — opposite-coloured bishops, bishops that can never meet or fight for the same square.
Go to Defending a worse position →active king
An active king is one that has left its shelter and stands where the play is: in the centre, next to the pawns it wants to attack, or in front of an enemy pawn it must stop.
Go to The king is a fighting piece →passed pawn
A passed pawn is a pawn with no enemy pawn in front of it on its own file or on the two files next to it, so no enemy pawn can block it or capture it on its way to promotion.
Go to Passed pawns must be pushed →outside passed pawn
That is why the pawn is called an outside passed pawn: being far from the other pawns is what makes it a decoy.
Go to Passed pawns must be pushed →blockade
That is called a blockade, and the piece doing it is the blockader.
Go to Passed pawns must be pushed →Square of the pawn
The square of the pawn is the square whose side runs from the pawn to its promotion square.
Go to King and pawn: the opposition and the square →opposition
Two kings are in opposition when they stand on the same file (or rank) with exactly one square between them.
Go to King and pawn: the opposition and the square →key squares
For a pawn still on its own half of the board, the three squares two ranks in front of it — straight ahead and diagonally on each side — are its key squares.
Go to King and pawn: the opposition and the square →stalemate
White can push the pawn all the way to h7, but then Black's king sits on h8 with no legal move, and if it is not in check that is stalemate: the side to move has no legal move and is not in check, and the game is a draw. (That is the rule in the FIDE Laws of Chess.) The tablebase calls this position a draw with either side to move.
Go to King and pawn: the opposition and the square →Lucena position
This is the Lucena position, and the way to win it is called building a bridge.
Go to Rook endgames: activity first →Philidor position
This is the Philidor position, analysed by François-André Danican Philidor in 1777.
Go to Rook endgames: activity first →