Exeter Chess Club: Mini Chess Games
For Beginning Chess Players

[TRAINING]
[cool blue cat says:] 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.


[TRAINING] Games for One


[TRAINING] Games for Two


[TRAINING] 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?

-+-+-+-+
+-+-+-+-
-+x+-X-+
+-+-+-+-
-+-+-+-+
+-X-+x+-
-+-+-+-+
N-+-+-+-


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

-S-S
+-+-
-+-+
+-+-
-N-N


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.

-L-L
+-+-
-+-+
+-+-
-B-B
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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