Jayden's Chess Journal Edition #17

Joke of the Week

I played chess with Picasso once!

It ended in a draw.

💡Puzzle #

White’s Queen just took Black’s pawn threatening to take the rook, where should Black play?

✅Solution

Black here should play the very nice Bc6, this directly traps the Queen. While White might gain some recourse by taking the rook, Black takes White’s strongest piece off the board.

♟️Tip of the Week

Sometimes it is necessary to give up material to gain more. It is best to look at the big picture when you are analyzing the position for the best moves.

🪶Chess History

In this segment of Chess History we will look at a very famous chess master who has a famous opening named after him, Mikhail Chigorin. Chigorin learned chess at a very late age, learning the moves at 16 and only became serious about the game at around 24 years of age. While he did not win any World Championships, he was considered one of the strongest players of his time. Let’s look at a position from one of these great grandmaster’s games!

Here Chigorin plays the very complex Rf7, but there’s a reason why this move made his opponent resign. Chigorin has multiple threats on the Black King, with this rook move he is directly threatening to take Black’s Queen or an inevitable checkmate. As a result Chigorin’s opponent promptly resigned.

 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!