Be Brave and Fight With Your King | ChessKid

You know, in chess, when you study, you do better. Come on, Master Mike, that's the most boring statement you've ever made. Yeah, but it's true. In fact, I recently studied and I improved because I just recorded the Chess Kid lesson, The Fighting King. It was one of the most recent ones that we've revealed. That was Super King 21 for any of you who are really far advanced. And you know what? Sometimes in studying these examples to make videos for, I learn ideas that I can use. And just recently, I got to use a Fighting King example in one of my own games. And I want to show it to you. I was white in this position and I've sacrificed the exchange for two center pawns. And what I really want to do is get my pawns off of dark squares onto light squares. The minute those pawns start moving, the pawns are going to overwhelm the rooks. But the problem is, I don't have a light squared bishop. I have a dark squared bishop. So the key move in this entire game is Pawn E6. If my pawns can even out and I can move that snowplow down the chessboard, the pawns teamed up with my knight, my rook, and my bishop, they're going to win the game. Right now though, black has a really nice blockade going. Not that I can't push, but if I push, then I lose the pawn right beside. If I push right now, rook takes. And now, no more snowplow. I only have one tire on my snowplow and I don't think that is a very good machine. So what I did first was play the move Bishop C7, defending this pawn. And if I can play E6 in the next move, I officially trap this rook. Black would have to sacrifice a bishop just to save the rook. So black plays the best move, King F7, stopping me from being able to play the move E6. Now we've reached kind of a funny position. Black almost can't move. If black moves this rook, I can push. If black moves this rook, well, good luck finding a safe square. If black moves the king, I should be able to push. So all black can really move are some pawns and maybe toggle this bishop around the board. Maybe this square, this square. I knew black's position was almost zugzwang, but I didn't realize how bad it was. So I just started making moves. I played King F2. I didn't know what I was doing. I just thought, well, hey, you know, it's the endgame. Let's move the king up a little bit. Now black played G6. And I just played G3. Just put all my pawns in a pawn chain, make sure black never takes that pawn. And I was just making a move. Now black played H5. And I kind of realized black is just pushing pawns. So I pushed a pawn. I decided, hey, you know what? If I get this pawn further down the board, maybe I can target this pawn one day because it's on a dark square. So black got that pawn off of the dark square so I could not target it with my bishop or even with my knight. So I played the move A5. My opponent played Bishop C4, clearly just toggling. And here I played the move Rook to E3. There was a definite thought that I finally had. Yes, that's right. Every once in a while, even in a five-minute YouTube video, I get one good thought. I thought, I need to get my king in the game. But if I go back, if I start getting my king in the game right away, I've crossed over. And as we learn in Ghostbusters, don't cross the streams. The Rook needs to protect this pawn. I would just hang a pawn if I played the move King E3. There'd be two attackers and only one defender on my E5 pawn. Look, if you don't bleed, you have your arrows. So Rook to E3. And black just continues toggling the bishop. Now my king walks behind the pawn. Honestly, it doesn't matter if you go to E2 or E1. But I just wanted to avoid the light squares since, you know, I didn't want to give a check to my opponent. Just played King E1. My opponent played G5 and I continued ignoring. I played the move King to D2. Here comes the king, H4. And the fighting king continues. And you can see my plan is super simple. I'm just going to play king here, king here. And when the bishop moves, I can either play king here and go after the A pawn. Or I can play king here and go after the Rook. In fact, black... Well, I guess black could push more pawns. But if black starts toggling the bishop, let's say to this square, I'll just move the king up. Notice I'm using all dark squares. If you don't remember the path of the king, well, this is it, right? All dark squares. And then if the bishop makes another toggling move, I'll play king here. And when the bishop toggles again, remember the bishop has to keep an eye on the square at all times. I just play King C6. And my king is the fighting king that has broken down black's position. Now you might be wondering, What about bishop E6? Well, you know what? We're going to get to that because it happened in the game. If we go back to the position after H4 where I played King C3, black made an immediate boo-boo. That's a technical term, boo-boo. Black played bishop to E6. And that actually allows me to win right away. Not by taking. This knight is better than the bishop. But by pushing F5 with tempo. Black was preparing to meet F5 with pawn takes pawn. All of the previous moves. But in this position, black, of course, cannot play pawn takes pawn because I can take the bishop with check and, frankly, win everything before black can take my knight on D4. So black tried to sacrifice. But after takes, I had two minor pieces and a bunch of strong center pawns for the rook. This rook, by the way, basically can't move. And I went on to win in about... Well, actually, it took me about 40 more moves. But I got the job done. A great example of studying those chess kid lessons and using them. In this case, it was me studying me. It's very meta, but it worked. The Fighting King in action.