Jayden's Chess Journal Edition #22

Joke of the Week

How do you make a small fortune playing chess?

Start with a large one.

💡Puzzle #

White just made a blunder, how can Black punish it with checkmate?

✅Solution

The solution to this puzzle is a check by Black given with Nh3+, this forces the White king to move with Kh1. Black can deliver the crushing blow with Rxf1#. This is checkmate because the White king cannot move to the 2nd rank due to the Black rook on c2, therefore Black gets a very nice checkmate.

♟️Tip of the Week

Knights are some of the deadliest pieces on the board, so make sure to utilize them with their ability to evade other pieces with their L-shapes.

🪶Chess History

Let’s take a look at a Grandmaster who is arguably one of the most famous today. This week we are looking at the 5-time US Champion, and World Fischer Random Chess Champion, Hikaru Nakamura. Hikaru began playing chess at the age of 7, getting coached by his FIDE Master Sri Lankan step-father and he would earn his Grandmaster title at the age of 15, the youngest at the time. Since then Hikaru has been a dominant force in the Chess world, credited for spreading the popularity of online chess. Let’s take a look at a position from one of the greatest Grandmasters of all time.

In this position, Hikaru by checking the king with his bishop is forcing Black to give up their rook in some way or another. If Black tries to capture the Bishop with the rook, Hikaru can play Qf7+ and force the king to move and then capture the bishop. However, if the king decides to move to h8 square, Hikaru can play Qf6+ forcing Black to block with their bishop on g7, but now Hikaru can simply take the rook again. Black resigned in this position and I can see why.

 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!