Date Night Chess @ Huelo Bar! 🍷♟️
#casualchess #otb #beginnerchess #relax
Huelo Bar in Newtown, Sydney Australia, is one of our (Mrs Chess Noob and me) favourite places to go to chill out! Even better, the owner is planning on running the Inner West Chess Club that will run periodically on-site!
We thought that it might be launching today, so I brought along a chess set and some cameras, but it wasn't the right day. No worries, we played a game, had some of the excellent food, and each had a glass of delightful beaujolais!
Tonight, we played a game of the Four Knights, Spanish Variation. As usual, I choose to not play the most accurate moves, even in the opening as in short casual OTB games, I find this more interesting and fun!
This game does demonstrate a couple of tactical ideas, and one strategic one.
- The aggressive early tactic of trading material for initiative and development (for instance, a gambit, or by forgoing a recapture in a trade) can be very winning.
- Beginner players often have trouble seeing the implications of diagonals, so threats along diagonals are often more effective.
- Capturing the opponent's rook in the corner with a knight is often not as good as it first appears. At the early stages of the game, the knight is usually active while the rook is not. Moreover, the knight in the corner is often trapped. The material advantage might not be felt for some time.
- And strategically - don't forget that one of the most common ways of winning is by the opponent choosing to resign! As such, positions that make the opponent feel like they've lost can be just as winning in real games.
