How Does the King Capture?

 Remember the set up of the chess board game.  In another blog, we talked about the subject we are continuing - Chess in 30 Minutes. Lets look again at the set up of the entire chess board.

Starting Chess Board Set Up

A King's moves are limited and for that and other reasons, he is the most valuable of all the chess pieces. We'll talk about that in another blog.

Right now look and see how the White and Black Kings are placed at the very start of the game. They are both in the center of the back row. They both face each other from the opposite sides of the board.

Now that seems ominous, but there is a reason for these standard positions that we can discover from this initial starting places. Think about the reasons the Kings may have to start up this way.

The next diagram shows the King has a choice of capturing either of the black pieces. He places himself where the opponent piece was. This is called capturing. Which one of those pieces would be the most beneficial for the Kings side if he were to capture it?

King can capture the Bishop or the Knight

The King is the most valuable, but also the most vulnerable as we will discuss later. There is chess history and the chess pieces that add to your understanding chess and knowing that information enables you to make good, solid strategies.
much research behind

Good strategies start with getting as much information as you need to understand the subject, in this case, the King. Think about it like this - how would you move and what is your strategic intent if you want to win.

Have fun learning!

Center - King and Queen

marblechessboard.com

The King Plays Chess

There is only one King for each chess player. In order to know how to play chess, you need to know what to do with each chess piece. The King piece can move spaces and can capture other pieces. The King can move only one square in any direction. That is forward, backward and sideward, but also diagonal. See this diagram where the X shows the direction the King may move and that he can only move 1 square at a time. Do not forget that the King piece moves only one space, so he will need to protect himself.

How a King piece moves

The King moves very slow and needs time to plan his move way in advance. If he protects himself then he protects his "court" or kingdom, however you choose to look at it.

Capturing is the process of making a move to land on another pieces's spot for the purpose of taking the opponent piece out of the game. It goes without saying that you need to make sure the one you are taking out of the game is not your own piece. Actually you can not do that anyway.

So ... if the King is on a square and another opponent piece lands right next to him, he can capture, or take that opponent piece out of the game.

Just remember that the King can not move to a space right next to an opponent and expect to capture him instantly - of course the other piece has the next move and can capture him. That is unless - the piece is unable to move in the direction of the King.

Gothic Style
King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, Pawn

That is why you need to learn the moves of the chess pieces, because you can sneak up on an opponent very easily. Once you learn chess and memorize all the ways a chess piece can move, you can plan a really good strategy.

marblechessboard.com

Mom's Strategy Books Disappear

Mom always kept books, the one book I came across took me a long time to find though. It was a small book, dated 1955. It was a book by E. S. Howe on "Chess in 30 minutes." I like to collect things like that on chess and board games and I was really distressed that the next time I went to see her it had disappeared. Now imagine my anxiety when I thought about where Mom had put other things.

One time my son, Craig, had brought all his snacks over to eat while he helped Grandpa cut cordwood.  All of a sudden he realized that his snacks were not where he left them. Of course I told him that it serves him right for not putting things "up". But anyway he went down to buy some more because he realized that Grandma had "put them away." Later, way later, that day they found them - in the microwave oven, and sure enough, Grandma had eaten some, but not all. They were energy bars full of protein and my son was worried that Grandma had eaten too many because "she had a lot more energy than normal."

Why did she put them in the microwave? My other family asked that question. Well, think about her way of thinking: it is food, it is going to be eaten soon by my son, food needs to be cooked, therefore the quickest way to accomplish all this is to put it in the microwave. I have no idea if she turned the microwave on or not. We are still chuckling over this. I have not yet figured out why she left them in the bag, but I am assuming she forgot to finish her task.

If you follow a possible train of thought, it does make sense. But it also shows that the brain waves can really get mixed up and take a completely insensible route sometimes. But there is always a reason, there is always some kind of path. If mom could, she would retrain her mind. She always talked about the fact that it is possible to "retrain" and would talk much about how to accomplish that by certain exercises connected to other body systems like eye/hand coordination. The point is is that the brain is a marvelous creation and needs to be protected and if possible, retrained.

Anyway, the short of the story is that the book "mysteriously" showed up, my Dad grabbed it and gave it to me. I now get to make use of it and have a good memory with it. So I'll address that book in another post on learning chess and chess moves.

Here is a picture of my Mom and Dad. I feel loved seeing the love in their faces.

Chess in 30 Minutes

I found a book in my Mom's old collection of strategy books that many of you are familiar with. It is E. S Lowe's 'Chess in 30 Minutes'. This book was published in 1955. Very simple to understand, I was struck by this thought. (No, it did not hurt too bad).

We can start playing chess in 30 minutes, but how long did it take the ancient chess players to learn how to be great chess players? I know that they probably grew up learning chess and it did not take long for them to learn it because chess playing was taken from many war tactics. They knew war, they knew chess.

My Mom's old Chess Book

My point is that you can begin learning chess and can play chess within 30 minutes, but it will take a life time to really learn chess strategy.

Besides learning the chess piece names, the most important aspect of playing chess is to know where to place the chess pieces once you learn their names.

Two players can play chess at a time. There are chess games for more players and you can play in teams, but for the basics, chess has room only for two players at a time.

There are 64 playing squares on a chess board. Every square will be used in the chess game.

There are 16 chessmen and traditionally they are "white" and "black." Any set that has the chess pieces identified as opposite will work just as well.

This a diagram from the book that lays out the set up. Each chess piece is identified by a character.

Chess Board Set Up

The only thing left to remember on this is that the "white" always, without exception, is the first to move. The right handed corner square on "white's" side has to be a white square.

The white side is pictured with white pieces and is at the bottom side of the picture. Notice that if you were sitting down at this chess table, the right lower most square is white. Of course it does not matter which side you will start on, as long as that right corner space is white. This prevents you from playing chess sideways.

Next - the Chess Piece names.

Strategic Intent For Developing Critical Thinking Skills

I was watching my Mom today. She is 82. Guess that dates me too, but she is amazing and I just have to talk about her because she is so relevant to the topic of strategic intent.

When my Mom was younger, she had a strategy for everything. I learned much from just watching her. She was so organized in her thoughts and in her actions that all I remembered when I was very young was that the house was always clean and errands were completed with minimal wasted efforts. My Mom was into everything. She would be there helping out at school, she would be teaching me how to make bread, she eventually worked into going back to school before I was out of school and became an Xray technician. 

I was impressed that my Mom could be so productive. She always told me to make a list, to make a picture in my head of all the things I had to do and make sure I had an order to do them in so I would not waste any time. She never did waste time that I could tell. 

She never liked TV, so she never sat with us except on the one night a week that we were allowed to sit in front of the TV to eat dinner. But she loved puzzles, she loved crossword puzzles and she loved board games and card games. So we had a lot of interaction and opportunities to learn strategy. 

Strategic intent is a plan, or a statement of what you intend to accomplish. That I think, was my Mom's middle name. But not anymore.

My Mom has a combination of things that affect her mind now. She has dementia setting in, she has glaucoma and eye conditions that cause her to see double. She has high blood pressure that is controlled by medications, but those medications along with her other conditions cause her to visually hallucinate. She has to be watched over every moment. 

Today was the day I was able to watch her for my Dad. I asked my Dad one day, he is 85, how I could help him take care of Mom. I knew it was futile to suggest that he place her in a home, although I really believe she would love it, and my Dad agrees. But he just stated, "I'm doing what I really enjoy doing. I really enjoy taking care of her." 

She can get very stubborn, but her fun nature and easy going personality now is making it very easy to care for her. She knows she is not thinking right, and it is very difficult for her, but I see a lot of peace in her life that I would like in mine. I don't know whether it is because she has lived a full life, or whether she is just accepting her situation better, but she stands out to me as a very real example of using and developing strategy; and also the harsh reality of not being able to develop a strategic intent anymore. 

Learn How To Play Chess

Marble Chess Board

Why should you learn how to play chess? Practice in developing your mind skills is very important. Practice, practice, practice.

We have not even begun to tap into the greatness of what our minds were created to do. Sharpen and develop your thinking skills by playing chess often. Practice chess, learn how to play chess and develop your own chess strategies.

It is a lot of fun and and entertaining to broaden the scope of your thinking. Medically the brain can reproduce, can develop new pathways. Let us test that by training our minds to think strategically.

When you think right, your brain will react accordingly. train it right by learning the right chess strategy and chess rules. If you train your brain wrong, or get lazy (Oh my), your brain will act accordingly.

It is so important now to make your brain think critically. Start with truth, start with the right way to learn and learn away. Do not loose what your brain can do. Keep trying to get where you want to get. Keep learning and improving whether it is chess or whatever you do that is right.

Learn how to play chess by learning how chess is set up, learn chess moves and develop your strategy.