Chess
Welcome to PSP's Chess & Checkers Club!!
Club meetings: Tuesdays & Thursdays (after school)
Even if you're a total beginner, you're invited to come to Mr. Sanders's classroom (D-208) after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That's when the Chess & Checkers Club meets. Mr. Sanders has plenty of photocopied material that will help the rank beginner get up-and-running and playing a game almost immediately.
New to the game? Our stronger players will help you learn by giving you "odds," a form of handicap that gives a weaker player a better chance of beating a stronger player. Want to know more? Well, Click here.
On Tuesdays, Mr. Sanders tutors math students but that's also when the Chess & Checkers Club meeting is devoted to student-vs.-student games. Thursdays are when students can expect to play a game or two but that's also when Mr. Sanders devotes time to instructing students who want to be part of Perry Street Prep's Chess or Checkers teams.
How to Play Chess
This hyperlink is for a complete, online Wikipedia book (Wikibook) that covers all aspects of the game.
Chess Endgame Strategy and Tactics
The objective in Chess is to win, to checkmate your opponent. So, with that in mind, here are some important links to pages on the Web that outline, clearly and concisely, the important points about checkmate.
Checkmate
For those new chess players who need a quick overview of what checkmate is and how it works, you can go to the following Wikipedia page, or look in the appropriate section of the above-cited Wikibook:
Click on this link to see Wikipedia's page on checkmate.
Checkmate Patterns
There are certain types of Chess-piece combinations that work better than others at producing a checkmate. This link is to the Wikipedia page that explains some of those patterns in detail.
Here is a Wikibooks page reference that goes into greater detail about this fundamental form of checkmate. This Wikibooks link leads to part of an in-depth treatment of the game of Chess. The above-cited page, in fact, is a very good way to familiarize yourself with the basic forms of checkmate. This link is for a basic form of checkmate: The King and Two Major Pieces
The text below comes from the above-referenced Wikibooks page.
Basic Checkmates
-- These include positions that have no pawns. When one side is ahead in material and has pawns, the easiest winning plan is typically to queen one or more pawns and use them to checkmate.
-- The situations where one has a king and queen, king and rook, or king and two rooks versus a lone king occur very often and it is essential to know how checkmate is achieved in such cases. The other cases, with minor pieces (bishops and knights) are more rare and more difficult to perform, but nonetheless are covered here for completeness.
-- Click on the following text to go to the Wikibooks page(s) dealing with the titled form of checkmate.
Minor Pieces
Here, checkmates become a bit more difficult to complete—perhaps even impossible—if you have only one minor piece in addition to your king. If white has only one minor piece against a lone king, it is not possible to arrange the pieces so that the black king is checkmated. If white has a king and minor piece and so does black, checkmate can occasionally occur, although it cannot be forced. If white has three pieces, the mate is easy. Follow this link to the Wikibooks page(s) on Minor Piece Endings.
Pawn Endings
These can also be tricky checkmates to complete. They're not impossible. They just require some familiarity with a few game tactics: The Rule of the Square, Kings in Opposition and Passed Pawns. Follow this link to read about Pawn Endings for checkmate.
More Advanced Endgames
These are situations that occur less commonly in games, but are still very important. Most intermediate-to-advanced players are expected to have at least a basic understanding of how these endings work.
And now for something completely different . . .Chess Openings and Chess Strategy
While the objective of the game is to checkmate your opponent, it's also important to have a plan on how to move the game forward so that you can, in fact, force your enemy king into checkmate. To do that, you should be familiar with how to begin a game well (by quickly occupying the center squares). That's where the following Wikibook on Chess openings comes in.
Chess Openings
-- Follow this link to read about Chess Opening Theory.
-- Another important part of a successful Chess player's repertoire is a good sense of Chess strategy.
-- Here's a Wikibooks link that addresses Chess Strategy.
Chess Game Review for Free!! Here's how you can make copies and review your own online Chess games!!
Directly below these easy instructions are two links you can use to save and review your own online chess playing at Chess.com.
First: Play a game against the computer. To do that, go to Chess.com and choose "Play against the computer.
Second: When you're done with your game, click the "Show PGN" button.
A small window will open that has your game's move history. Copy that information to your clipboard. We'll use that information in the Apronus Chessboard editor. If you also save this PGN information in a text file, you can print it out later and review your game move-by-move.
Third: Open a new Web-browser window and go to Apronus's Chessboard editor. Paste your move history in the right-hand space of the Chessboard editor window that's labeled "Absorb PGN."
Fourth: Click the "Diagram" button above the chessboard that's in the middle of your screen. A new Web window will open with two JPEG pictures of your game history. Save these pictures and you can study your game! If you print out
Click here to play Chess at Chess.com.
Click here to open the Apronus Chessboard editor.