Beginners' Tips 1: Defender's Check

Hello, fellow chess players! This post is the first in a series of tips and tricks for beginners. I am not exactly a chess pro, but I've been involved for about 6-7 years, so I hope I can be of some help to newer players.

#1: The Defender's Check. This is actually not a move, but a very simple system you can use to check moves before you play them. Maybe it's obvious, but learning to go through this check before moving has helped me a lot in the past. 

The basic idea is that you check the number of attackers vs defenders on each piece before moving it or attacking it. If your piece, for example, has 2 defenders and 1 attacker, you can know that you'll come out on top. But if it's vice-versa, 2 attackers and 1 defender, you'd better add another layer of security or you're in trouble. 

It gets a bit more complicated. If you're attacking, always check to make sure that you have more attackers on your target than your opponent has guards for. If there's an even number of attackers and defenders on a certain piece, that means that defense will emerge victorious. Don't attack a piece you don't have enough troops for-- you'll end up losing points (unless, of course, it's a tactical sacrifice). 

This may seem super simple. But it's always great to review. Before you move any piece, quickly scan the board and run through your head, attackers vs defenders. This rings true whether you're being attacked or whether you're planning an offensive advance.

There's a great video on this from Chess.com that explains it succinctly. If you want to you can also complete the challenges involved in its lesson-- they're very helpful for really getting the hang of this strategy in-game.

I hope this little post has been of some help to you and will remind you to do a quick status check before making any risky moves. Hopefully, I'll also be able to publish the next tip in the series by next week, but in the meantime, I trust you'll enjoy the simple trick I've just shared. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

***EDIT: The following thread of posts has to do with some experimental puzzles I deleted due to their many flaws. Please ignore.

This first puzzle doesnt make any sense to me. The E4 pawn is not available for capture. Did you mean "should white capture the E5 pawn?" If so, this is a good capture, and is the engines 2nd suggestion.

In what sequence do you see white losing its queen if it captures the E pawn?

Regarding the second puzzle, this also confuses me:
"What about the capture of this black knight? There's an equal number of defenders and attackers, right? So we should attack.

@Kraig--

I am so sorry, I had two weird typo's (brain farts? miss sights?) in there. What I was trying to say is if white went for the capture of the e5 pawn they would end up losing their knight for no good reason. In my mind, the following capture sequence would be 5. dxe5 fxe5 6. Nxe5, resulting in a loss for white. I have edited that to fix it-- mia culpa.

As far as the second puzzle goes, if you attempted to capture with 1. fxe4 fxe4 2. Qxe4 Qxe4+ it would lead to a check and a useless queen loss for white. Maybe I made a mistake in the coordinates so it doesn't show you whose move it is? Did you just miss this, or am I still missing something?

Again, I apologize if this is my mistake. This is my first time posting anything like this as well as my first time making puzzles, so there was bound to be plenty of user error. I appreciate your feedback and hope you found the rest of the (accurate) information useful.

OK, in puzzle one. dxe5 is a perfectly reasonable move. The blunder arises after fxe5, nxe5?? There's no reason for white to play Nxe5 at the end of that sequence. However, after the first move, dxe5, the engine analysis of the position is already +1.8, which is usually a good advantage in the position. After fxe5, the engine recommends castling. I believe the +1.8 advantage comes from white's lead in development from this new position.

In puzzle 2, after fxe4, fxe4 - this is the end of the tactic. Black has lost a Knight, and White is already in a winning position. In a normal game, black should resign here. If not, it's an easy plan for white to simplify and win.
White should never follow up with qxe4?? however, as thats a losing blunder. But there is no need for white to play it. So white shouldn't be discouraged from taking the knight, they should only be discouraged by following up with qxe4?? at the end of your sequence.

I think the problem with the puzzles are, the first sequence of moves are actually good, but I think you are assuming white will then follow through with a continuation of losing moves. It seems, therefore, you are discouraging even the first sequence of good moves from being played, as it leads to the losing line... but that continuation does not have to be played. Again, I am an intermediate-level player at best, and by no means an expert, but this is just my opinion of what I've reviewed. Please correct me if I am missing it!

I understand the general theme of what you're trying to show, I just personally think those puzzles aren't necessarily the best for illustrating that theme.

in the second diagram you want to capture the knight because it's a free knight for a pawn, in the original post

@Kraig--

Thanks so much for your opinion. I get exactly what you're saying; a player with much experience would know exactly how to manage these specific puzzles to their advantage. But maybe I'm just not being clear on what I want to illustrate:

1. You'd be shocked at how many horrible plays I've seen beginners make. It seems as though once they set up their attackers/defenders, they decide to go all-in and play it out till the "end". Maybe it doesn't make sense. Maybe you doubt that people would actually do that. But as have lightly mentored a few new chess players (reminder, this article is for the NEW to chess), they really just don't think these things through as much as you might think they would or as an experienced player would. (Also, no, white wouldn't have a reason to necessarily follow up with its queen, but it would still lose points even if it didn't, due to the loss of other pieces.)

2. I'm also not trying to demonstrate particularly good vs bad moves here; mostly just driving home the point to check for this type of trap and plan ahead. I may not have chosen the primest examples in terms of realistic or reasonable games, per se, but I think that just the VERY basics-- "if you attack this piece, you'll end up losing points"-- goes home. I'm not really trying to go into whether the move is good because it's a strong development, or because it opens a lane, or makes a necessary sacrifice-- just read it at face value. Attackers vs Defenders. In future time I may go into the former topics but for now, I'm literally just trying to make it simple. Not to mention I'm about as inexperienced as you can get...

I agree with the last part of what you said, mostly. I may have made a fatal error in trying to venture into the world of puzzles! But in any case, I hope the basic idea of what I'm saying is still of some help to infant players trying to learn good playing habits.

Thank you so much for giving me feedback and questioning my points! It's always good to have some constructive criticism (which was completely warranted). I hope you have a great day!

Also, @SNUDOO, yes, you're right. It's key to always take into account the point value of pieces and weight that aspect-- it might be worth it and if so, go for it! (Look at the discussion between @Kraig and I as well-- you can see that these puzzles are extremely flawed to say the least, por favor perdoname.)