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Woodpushers’ Corner: Watch Your Back!

By FeticheNouvelle
March, 22 2008

I "caught a fish" on Yahoo yesterday. (Well, if Fran won't play chess with me, I have to find my opponents somewhere else. They're not always as good as they say and think they are.) The game was lopsided, but it did include two "teachable moments."

White has fooled around in the center without a plan. If he did have one, it certainly escaped me! Look at the interdependencies among his pieces. No firm support; everything tied to everything else, and all just hanging there in mid-air. We have Pawns for a reason, you know! He probably thought he had an edge, because his pieces were further forward than mine. But after:

...he's in a spot of danger. He could extract himself to a drawish middlegame with 12. Nxe7+ Qxe7 13. Qxf4, but the game continued:

...costing him a piece.

A little later, we reached this position:

The mate threat compels White either to play Qh3, which looks really sad, or Ne1, which looks even sadder, or to open a lovely diagonal against his King. He chose the third way, and look what happened:

That wins the Queen for nothing. (My King Bishop had a nasty appetite yesterday.) Too many players forget about a piece lurking on the sidelines...right until the moment it snaps their heads off. Watch your backs, fellow woodpushers!