Exeter Chess Club: Mini Chess Games
For Beginning Chess Players
| How should we first learn the game of chess?
|
Nimzovitch had some interesting things to say about learning
chess: rather than learn about all the pieces, do one at a time, and
learn its strategical properties:
e.g. The Rook. Moves of the Rook. Control of
ranks and files. Doubling on the file. The seventh rank...
and so on - chess rather than mere moves.
Similarly, it has been said that one of the best things about the
old Soviet approach is that they used to teach the game backwards:
that is,
first learn to mate with two Queens (and King)
against bare King
then mate with one Queen
then mate with one Rook
then two Bishops
then learn how to win with King and Pawn against King
then King and two Pawns against King and Pawn, etc.
I don't even know if it's true, but it sounds good: get the basics
right at the start.
Anyhow, however you learned, here are some exercises to practice.
You will find others marked in boxes elsewhere in these pages.
Games for One
- There are very many self-test books and programmes available for
tactical play. For Beginners I like Tony Gillam's books
Simple Chess Tactics and Simple
Checkmates; after which you can try Chernev and Reinfeld's
Winning Chess. For club players I know of nothing
better than Livshitz' series called Test Your Chess
IQ - there are volumes for ELO 1600, 2000 and 2200+.
On-line there are tactical tests at Chess Archives for beginners and more
advanced players, and there is a demo version of the Art of
Chess Tactics programme available (look for ctdemo.arj).
- For strategy and endgames the best resources are IMHO the games
and notes of the masters. See also Winning Endgames
by Tony Kosten, Pandolfini's compete endgame course
and the
Little Chessercises in
Pandolfini's book Chessercises
.
- Play a computer. If you have a PC computer like an IBM type, Mac
or Amiga there should be a version of GNU chess available free via ftp
from the Internet Chess
Library (Chess Space: Programs Index). To start with, make a programme move fast and/or on low
level, and it will probably make enough blunders for a beginner to
survive.
Games for Two
- Mating Race: Player 1 takes White K+Q against Player 2 Black K
only, in starting positions. Black moves first: how many White moves
does it take for player 1 to mate? Start again, remove White Q and
put Black Q on board, White moves first. How many Black moves?
- Mating Race 2: Same as above with K+R against K.
- Mating Race 3: Same as above with K+B+B against K.
- Pawn Race: Same as above with K+e-pawn (on e2) against K. Try
with White to move first (should be a win!) and with Black (should be
a draw!). Variations: try with f-pawn, g-pawn,
h-pawn... try with 2 pawns vs. one, 2 vs. 2 symmetrical, 2(bc) vs.
2(cd).
- Pawn power: play with just your King and pawns each.
Variations:
(1) White plays with only abc pawns, Black with only fgh;
(2) White plays with only abcdefg pawns, Black with only bcdefgh;
(3) play with Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation pawn structure i.e.
White pawns on a2,b2,c2,e4,f2,g2,h2, Black pawns on
a6,b7,c7,c6,f7,g7,h7. Swap sides in each game.
...etc!
- "Play the pawn game recommended by GM Lev Alburt and Roman Pelts in their
COMPREHENSIVE CHESS COURSE. Set up all pawns in their normal starting positions, with
NO OTHER PIECES on the board. Play continues normally, all pawn moves (including en
passant) as in a regular game.
You win the game if: a) You capture all of your opponent's pawns;
b) you get any pawn to a queening square; c) your opponent has no legal moves, but you still have
a legal move.
The game is drawn if: a) you agree to a draw; b) neither side has a legal move (all
pawns are blockaded). This is more challenging than it first appears, and I have had a number of
reports from parents of a 5 or 6 year old beating them at the
pawn game. ;)
" -- Duif
[This is very much like an 8x8 version of the old
3x3 computer game of hexapawn,
which you can play on different
sized boards]
- Rook Ending: play with Ke1+Rf1+Pf2 against Ke8+Rf8. Variations:
try different pawns a-h, two pawns, two pawns vs. one...
- Cut-down chess games: Play with K+8p each and...
- just the rooks
- just the bishops
- just the knights
- just the queens
- just the minor pieces (knights and bishops)
- just the major pieces (queen and rooks)
Exercises
There are also a few chess exercises that are worth checking out:
the well-known knight's tour (visit each square on a
board ONCE with a knight: there's a Solution
here and a Windows
programme to practice with!)
and the eight
queens puzzle (place eight queens on a chessboard so no queen
attacks another).
The Number of Knight's Tours Equals 33,439,123,484,294, so you
should be able to find one, eh? ( Counting
with Binary Decision Diagrams. Abstract: Comments on: Martin Loebbing
and Ingo Wegener, The Number).
There's a couple of evil ones I have come across for Knight and
Bishop:
Knight puzzle: Visit in turn the squares a1-h1,
h2-a2, a3-h3 WITHOUT ever moving to a square occupied or attacked by a
Black Pawn. Not too difficult, but can you beat 5 minutes against the clock?
































































Knight puzzle: Exchange the positions of the
White and Black Knights.




















Bishop puzzle: Exchange the positions of the
White and Black Bishops WITHOUT ever allowing a Bishop to be attacked
by an enemy Bishop. You may make more than one move for each side at
a turn.




















SOLUTION:
1. Bbc2 Bbc4
2. Ba4 Ba2
3. Bb5 Bb1
4. Bba4 Bc4
5. Bcd3
6. Bab3 Bb5
7. Bd5 B1d3
8. B1b3
9. Ba2
10. Bdb3
11. Bd1
12. Bab3 Bb1
13. ... B5d3
14. Ba4
15. Bdb3
16. Bd5
17. Bab3 Bb5
18. ... B1d3
19. Ba2 Bc2
20. ... Bba4
21. Bac4 Bd1
22. ... Bac2
23. Bb5 Bb1
No problem! - unless you know a faster way...
Does any body know any puzzles for Rooks or Kings?
Back to Chess Coaching Page
This document (minichess.html) was last modified on 8th March 1996
by
Dr. Dave
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