Life as a pawn

By Eric Morrow
Chess Column

September 22, 2008 06:57 pm

— “My life I never held but as a pawn/ To wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it/ Thy safety being motive,” asserts the Earl of Kent in Shakespeare’s “King Lear.”
With this hint in mind please try to find black's best move.
In chess notation, the board is a grid: the vertical columns are numbered “1” through “8;” the horizontal rows, “a” through “h.” Each square on the board is identified by a specific letter and number.
For example, if the black bishop at g7 were to move to h6, the notation would be bh6 (b=bishop, q=queen, n=knight, r=rook, k=king, x=take, etc.).
Black’s best move is to snatch white’s pawn at b4 with its knight at c6. If white captures the knight with its a6 pawn, black recoups the loss of the knight by winning white's knight at c3 with qxc3.

From here, black will also win white’s c2 pawn. The knight sacrifice therefore nets two pawns. This is a winning edge.
White’s best reply to nxb4 is to move its knight at g3 to e2. This connects the knights and in turn shields white’s c2 pawn.
However, black continues to pressure the white knight at c3 by moving its knight at b4 to d5. White trades knights and slides its rook behind the c2 pawn.
White’s pawn is safe for now but black owns the superior position.
The lesson here is that a knight’s value is the same as a pawn’s, if, in the end, that knight will net you more pawns.

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