Master Level Opening Play/The "In Your Face" Checkmate & the Royal Fork!
What to Highlight
- Try to move your pieces one time in the opening.
- Try to attack opponent's pieces to gain time to develop your pieces faster than your opponent. A Queen in the middle of the board should be like a red flag to a raging bull!
- Remember Chess is a two-player game, before you can go for your plans always check to make sure your opponent isn't threatening something more important!
- Once you see your opponent has a threat it's important to not freak out, but instead find the BEST way to meet the threat and hopefully improve your position in the process.
- Castling is a defensive and offensive move! It tucks your King to safety while also allowing the Rooks to access more central files.
- Things to point out during the lesson: White moved his pieces one time unless it was necessary for them to move, White gained time by playing Nc3 and attacking Black's Queen, Bb7 was a fianchetto'd Bishop, White castled when it was safe to do so, Bb7+Qc6 was a battery, Black threatened to trap the Bb3 with pawn to c4, Bxf7+ is a decoy tactic, Ne5+ was a royal fork, and there was two possible checkmates with the battery powered, "in your face" checkmate with Qg2# and a weak "Freddy" pawn checkmate with Bxf7#
- The decoy tactic and fianchetto are a little advanced so if you want to gloss over those until they are more advanced. I like to highlight how fast White got his Bishops & Knights out and how fast he castled.
