Jayden's Chess Journal Edition #_

Joke of the Week

Why was the chess player thrown out of the restaurant?…

He didn’t want to accept the check!

💡Puzzle #4

Black has a sequence of two moves that will lead to a forced checkmate, can you find it?

✅Solution

The Solution is the sequence Bh3+ and then Rxf1#. With the move Bh3, we are attacking White’s pinned bishop on f1, because of our rook. White has no checks to give us, so they are forced to play a random move, and we deliver the very nice Rxf1 checkmate!

♟️Tip of the Week

Amazing moves in chess don’t always happen in just one move, they require sequences, so in games try to look for moves that can create positions for great moves. Greatness comes with time.

🪶Chess History

Last week we looked at La Bourdannais, this week we are going to take a look at his biggest rival, and arguably one of the strongest players of all time, Paul Morphy. Born in Louisiana in 1837, Morphy picked up chess simply by watching his father play. He soon became a chess force to be reckoned with easily beating the world's top grandmasters. Morphy retired from chess at 23 in 1860, because he offered to play any grandmaster with a handicap, and no one accepted.

This game was played between Morphy (White) and Charles Maurian (Black)

Morphy just played the devastating Bb5!! This move forces Black to decide whether to lose the Queen (through the bishop’s pin) or take the bishop and get checkmated with Qe7# This shows the beauty of Morphy’s play and how much of a genius he truly was.

 That wraps up this edition of Jayden’s Chess Journal

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and if you know anyone looking for more chess knowledge, send them this link so they can access this awesome newsletter.

Thank you so much for reading this edition, until next time!