Chess II Trivia Quiz

Answer: Three

Let's suppose that the knight starts on b4, and wants to get to b7. First, it would move from b4 to c6, then it would move from c6 to a5, and then it moves from a5 to b7.

Answer: True

Although every piece can fork, not all of them are equally good at doing so. Knights are the best, because they target specific squares rather than lines. Queens are the next best after that, then rooks, then bishops, then kings/pawns. It's very rare to see a pawn or king forking in practice, but by the rules of chess it's perfectly possible.

Answer: The large amount of sacrifices

Andersson gave up his bishop, both his rooks and his queen before checkmating with the remaining three minor pieces. His pressuring of the opponent's queen preventing them developing early on, and when he sacrificed his rooks, Kiesseritzky's queen and bishop were in bad positions for attacking white's artillery. Finally, the queen sacrifice surrendered the knight's defence, allowing Andersson to checkmate, despite the huge material advantage black had.

It is often considered one of the finest chess games ever played.

Answer: No, but it was once legal

Until 1883, you were allowed to keep a pawn unpromoted if you wished, but nowadays, you have to promote it to something. At first you might wonder why anyone would want to leave a pawn unpromoted, and in most cases you wouldn't, but there are a handful of scenarios where it produces stalemate, whereas promoting to anything else sees an unavoidable checkmate.

Answer: 27

Depending on its position it may only control 21. Rooks always control 15 (regardless of its position), knights control 8 in the centre, 4 on the edge and 2 in the corner, bishops control 7-13 squares, kings 3-8, and pawns two (unless it's on the a or h file, in which case it's just one).

Answer: True

It won't happen much in practice, but in theory it's very much possible. The king must be along the edge of the board. For the sake of example let's suppose that the black king is on a4. If the bishop is on b3, checking the king, and the white king is on c3 or c4, the black king cannot take the bishop or move to b3. Thus, his only option would be to move to a3, and if there is a pawn on b2, this becomes checkmate.

Answer: Four

At the beginning of the game it's the weakest piece in the game (more so than pawns) since there are still plenty of pieces that can attack it and thus it's unable to move much. However, near the endgame, the king becomes a lot more influential. It's the only piece other than the queen which can move in all eight directions, thus making it very good for protecting pawns that you're trying to promote.

They're also sometimes used in checkmates, primarily when your only other piece is a queen/rook.

Answer: Three minor pieces

The 'opening' part of the question is key here. If it was the endgame specified the answer would be 'two rooks'. But as it stands, rooks aren't all that great in the opening, since they take a while to develop. Three minor pieces have greater mobility than the queen, the bishop having its infinite range, and the knights having highly specialised movement that the queen doesn't have.

Overall order in terms of effectiveness in the opening:

Three minor pieces > One queen > Two bishops + two pawns = Two rooks

Answer: One square diagonally at a time

Ultimately it was a fairly weak piece. Another piece which moved very differently from modern chess was the Alfil (bishop). It moved two square diagonally at a time, but jumped over the first diagonal square, and was scarcely stronger than a pawn... Rooks, knights, pawns and the king moves as they do in normal chess.

Among other things, castling didn't exist, stalemate was a win for the player causing it (rather than a draw), pawns couldn't move two spaces on their first turn and pawns could only be promoted to a 'fers'.

Answer: Knight

The mentioned situation can only happen with a knight and only if one of the bishops is a promoted pawn since they need to be on the same color square for a knight to attack both. The queen and the bishop can also do this, but can be taken by one of the opponent's bishops. A rook cannot do this, though it can pin or skewer the two bishops, which can also be an effective tactic.

Answer: Developing the queen as early as possible

When a bishop is in 'fianchetto', basically the pawn in the front of the knight has been moved forward, allowing the bishop to move onto that square, helping it become more active. Protecting squares around your king immobilises a couple of your pieces, but is useful early on to avoid early checkmates. Moving the e-pawn early frees up diagonal movement for the queen and bishop.

However, developing a queen very early on can often backfire. Although it can wreak havoc if used properly, when almost all of the pieces are still in the game, the queen can easily be pressured by constantly attacking it (knights are best, but bishops work too if protected). This forces you to waste moves placing your queen in a safer position, whilst they have the advantage of developing their pieces meanwhile.

Answer: Usually a disadvantage, sometimes an advantage

Having two pawns on the same file is not usually a good thing, since it limits the movement of the pawn that is behind, they cannot defend each other, and also it can isolate pawns in other areas. That's not to say that it's always bad though. This means that they can attack two squares each along adjacent files, and if other pawns are available it can created a 'wall' of pawn defense.

It can also open up a file for a rook to start attacking.

Answer: A type of chess problem

Specifically, it is a chess problem (any puzzle involving chess moves with a particular task to be solved) with an extremely unlikely initial position. They are generally intended to be humorous.

Answer: King d2, Knight d3

With 'King f4, Knight g5', the knight can move to either h3 or e6 to check the king. With 'King c6, Knight e6' the knight can move to d4 or d8. With 'King d5, Knight e2' the knight can move to f4 or c3.

With 'King d2, Knight d3' checking with the knight would require three moves, assuming that the king does not move.

Answer: Black: King a3 White: Queen b3, Pawn c2

'Black King b4, Rook c7, Bishop e7, Knight d4' and 'Black King d8, Queen e7, Bishop b4' result in there being only one place that the king can go (a4 and c8 respectively). 'Black King g8, Pawn g7, Pawn f6, Knight e5' is stalemate. 'Black King a3, Queen b3, Pawn c2' is checkmate because the king is attacked by the queen in such a way that the only way to escape check would be to capure it, but he cannot do this because the queen is protected by a pawn.

Answer: Two

The two in question are the bishop and the queen. In this context, "dominate" means that regardless of where the knight moves, the bishop or queen will be able to attack it. For example, if the knight is at a4, and the bishop d4, the bishop dominates the knight.

This is especially potent with a queen, because she can also take the knight if it doesn't move anywhere, whereas the bishop can't.

Answer: True

In practice it won't happen much at all, but if you get a pawn to the end, and it's on a black square, you can underpromote to a bishop (situations where this is advisable are rare), and if you still have your other black-squared bishop, you'll now have two bishops attacking black squares.

Answer: Four

First he would go from f1 to d2, then to c4, then b6, then finally d7 which puts the king in check. He can take slightly different routes if he wishes, but it's impossible to do it in less than four moves.

Answer: Three

First of all, the king can only move to one place: h7. The rook on g7 will then move down the file to avoid capture by the king. Black will then move back to h6 to prevent immediate checkmate. The rook on b5 can move anywhere along the file, or alternatively the rook on the g-file could move forward, anything which doesn't change the basic positional advantage of the rooks.

The king should then be forced onto h7 again, and finally the rook on the 5th row moves cross to h5 to deliver checkmate.

Answer: Immortal Zugzwang Game

The other three all involve queen sacrifices (in the case of the 'Peruvian Immortal Game', both rooks as well), leading to checkmate with much less material (two bishops in Peruvian Immortal and Evergreen, one rook and on bishop in Opera). However, in 'Immortal Zugzwang', sacrifices were made, but not of the queen, and consequently white ended up in such a hopeless position that if the option were available, skipping a move would be the best option (this is called 'zugzwang', hence the name of the game).

In this game, black managed to induce one in the middlegame (they usually only appear in the endgame). White resigned.