Exceptions to the Chess Rules | ChessKid

By this point in your Chess Kid levels, we've already given you about 75 ideas. Can you fit them all in your head at once? Well, now's the time to throw them in the trash. Okay, not quite. What we are going to do, though, is look at some exceptions to some of the lessons we've already taught you. Part of becoming a better chess player is knowing when the rules apply and when they don't. Or more accurately, when one rule trumps another rule. Let's take a look at our chessboard here. If it looks familiar, we've actually gone over this position earlier, White, a grandmaster, played the amazing move Qa3. Now, why did he do it? After the Queen's trade, are double pawns usually bad? Yes, but there's an exception. When you create double pawns, you're also going to create an open file. And in this position, the open file is more important than the double pawns. Black cannot very well attack those pawns. Let's go really quickly through the next couple of moves. White, of course, occupies the half-open file. And then White has now an entry point to the d5 pawn, which is a new weakness. And advancing forward a few more moves, we all know that the White king plays an attacking role in the endgame. He has two rooks on the b-file. But wait, we're not done because I want to show you this position. There's a triple attack on the pawn on d5. Black played Rook takes Rook to get rid of some of the pressure. Now, I know you probably had Rook takes Rook all lined up, but here comes another exception. White has given himself double pawns again. Unbelievable! All of these pawns are doubled and isolated. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Yet none of them are weak. Now, why did he capture with the d pawn? Well, it was to give his king an entry square and put more pressure on this one. All of White's pieces are more active than Black's, and White went on to win the game. Taking a look at a little bit more standard example of doubled pawns, Fun Master Mike completely made up this position. And let's just say that White plays the move Bishop takes Knight. Not a very good move, but I see kids do it all the time. Probably, you can capture back with the Knight or the Bishop, and I wouldn't really complain. But if you wanted to be an aggressive player, you could actually intentionally give yourself double pawns. Remember I just said, when you do that, you give an open file to attack on. And on the next turn, Black can play the move Rook to g8. There will already be a double attack on the g2 pawn, and there's not much there guarding the White king. That looks like a very promising attack for the Black pieces. Now, you'll notice in this position, that Black's king has decided to stay in the center of the board. That represents another exception. Usually, we castle, but is there any danger to Black's king here? No, not really. So, another exception. Two exceptions in one move. Moving on. One of the most fantastic moves I've ever seen played. White is Godachomsky. He's won the U.S. Championship more times than I can count. Black is Anatoly Karpov. He was one of the best world champions of all time. Chomsky here had his queen under attack and played the move Queen h4. Looks pretty decent. And the idea is that if Black castles in this position, Black very well might face the sacrifice in the next turn. And uh-oh, White's attack is really scary. The knight's coming to g5, and there's all kinds of pressure. So, what did Karpov do in this position instead of castles? Well, nothing more than play one of the most amazing moves of all time. Hold on to your chair, chess kids. King to e7. I can't even explain this move. Actually, I have to. It's my job. Why King e7? Well, one reason, the main reason, is to connect the queen and the rook. Why is that so important? Well, he wants to play the move g5. But if he had done it on the last turn, let's just back up and show that. If he had played the move pawn to g5, White could have just captured because this pawn is pinned since the queen's lined up at the rook. Going back to the actual game, after king to e7, now the queen and the rook are connected. White actually has a big problem here because on the next turn, this pawn is going to come forward to the square g5, and your queen is not going to have a lot of squares. Notice, after pawn to g5, let's just give White some random chess move. Your queen only has this square, and there's two bad things that can happen. I might play pawn e5 and make a discovered attack on your queen. But if I want to make things simple, I'll just play the move pawn to g4 and fork your queen and your knight, winning a piece right out of the opening. Moving on, our next exception. In this position, pawn to e4 is a great move for Black. Now you might wonder, aren't we just forcing that knight to the center of the board? Actually, the knight better go back to d2. Instead of going to d2, if he goes toward the center of the board, you're allowed to break my all-time rule. You know what that is. That's right. In this position, you have my permission to move your f-pawn. I know I've been warning you for years not to do it, but there are exceptions in this position. Pawn f6 wins a knight. You never want to play this move if there's any doubt as to the security of your king. After f6, this knight has no safe squares. Notice the bishop on c8 guards the g4 square. Black's not 100% out of the woods. The trickiest move is this move, pawn to e3. Now, if you take the knight and your opponent gives check, you better not play g6 because queen takes pawn, forks your king, and it forks your rook. However, Black can survive this position by playing king to e7. And after queen takes pawn, you can block with your bishop. And if Black plays perfectly, he should survive and have an extra piece. My advice is to trade queens. That's what you're supposed to do when you're being attacked. Going back to our starting position though, definitely do not play f6 unless you're 100% sure that you're going to be okay. If you're not sure, just play bishop e7 and castle. You can play a regular chess move and still get a decent position. Moving on. Our final exception I'm going to talk about is the rook pawn. In endgames, rook pawns can be your best friend or they can be your worst nightmare. Some exceptions, chess kids, you just have to memorize. Now, all of what I'm about to show you, we've actually been over in previous lessons, but I'm putting it all together here. Sometimes rook pawns are good. Sometimes you're going to hate them. In this position, is the rook pawn good? Yeah, it is because it's an outside pass pawn. That means the Black king has to go running really far to get it. So White's going to win by pushing, advancing his king in. And while the Black king runs all the way over to get that pawn, now the White king invades and wins all the remaining pawns. Moving on to our next chess position. I know it's not a rook pawn. We're going to talk about that in just a second. The white pawn is one step from promotion. Can White win? Actually, he can't. When you attack the knight and the knight runs away, the knight can dance around your pawn forever. Notice you can never get that knight out of there and Black will very happily sacrifice the knight for the pawn. However, what if I change the position and make it a rook pawn? Now it's your best friend because when you attack the knight and he blocks the pawn and you attack the knight again, there is no square he can move to safely. Do you see a square called alpha six? Nope, I don't either. Look, I'm trying to move the knight off the side of the board and my computer won't let me. White's going to take the knight. He's going to back up. He's going to make a promotion. So now you're thinking, but Master Mike, I love rook pawns. But wait a minute, there's an exception. Actually, there's several. We only have time for one more. You know this position. We have a rook pawn, but the Black king is in front of that pawn. We also have a bishop, but what's the magic rule? You remember. If the bishop is not on the same color as the pawn's promotion square, you can't win. The bishop's on a dark square. The promotion square is a light square, and nothing white can do can win. Pawn to a7, well, that's just stalemate. If you play bishop to the square e5, still stalemate. And if you make some waiting move and the king moves over and you give checks and he moves back, you can either stalemate him or you can give up the pawn. No matter what you do, you can't win the game. Boys and girls, exceptions are what makes chess exciting. When you start figuring out when to make an exception, you know you've become a chess master.