First Essay EXAMPLE I.
Reading edition
FIRST COUPLET OF MOVES.
White. The king’s pawn 2 squares.
Black. The same.
2.
W. Queen’s pawn 1 square.(a)
B. King’s knight’s pawn 1 square.
3.
W. King’s knight at king’s bishop’s 3d square.(b)
B. King’s bishop’s pawn 2 squares.(c)
4.
W. The king’s pawn takes the black[23] pawn.
B. The king’s knight’s pawn takes the white pawn.
(a) Unless necessity call for it, no one of the other six pawns should be moved until you have ascertained on which side to castle. The queen’s pawn advances but one square, not so much because the black one prevents his going farther as to support that of his own king.
(b): This move is partly accounted for by the remark on the last.
(c) The same remark will shew, that the whites are played with more propriety than the blacks.
5.
W. The king’s knight takes the black pawn.
B. The queen’s pawn 1 square.(d)
6.
W. King’s knight at the king’s bishop’s 3d square.
B. Queen’s bishop at queen’s 2d square.(e)
7.
W. Queen’s knight’s pawn 2 squares.(f)
B. Queen’s knight at queen’s bishop’s 3d square.
8.
W. Queen’s bishop at queen’s knight’s 2d square.(g)
B. King’s knight at his bishop’s 3d square.
(d) If this move had been made before, the king’s pawn of this party might have been preserved; the snatching away of which, has rendered them in situation and comparative strength, much inferior to their adversaries.
(e) The chief object of this, and some subsequent moves, is the having the king in readiness to castle.
(f) Finding that his adversary means to castle with the queen’s rook, the player of the whites begins to get his opposite pawns ready to advance.
(g) This attack on the black rook is not a good move; for the bringing out of the black knight, which it incites as the only, though an easy mode of parrying it—a movement which his player might not otherwise have meditated—or if he had, must have lost a move in effecting—gives the rook an opportunity to be very troublesome to the opposite pawns.
9.
W. The queen’s rook’s pawn 1 square.(h)
B. Queen at the king’s 2d square, giving the white king check.(i)
10.
W. King’s bishop at king’s 2d square, covering the check.
B. King’s rook at his knight’s square.
11.
W. The king castles with his rook.(k)
B. King’s bishop’s pawn 1 square.(l)
(h) This is to protect the knight’s pawn from the black knight.
(i) There is no impropriety in the queen’s standing thus before her king, so long as no guarded rook of the counter set can be brought to attack her; and while her player has several pieces that he could interpose.
(k) If he did not castle now, he could not preserve his knight’s pawn in it’s place, without forfeiting the privilege. To have advanced him a square, would, however, have been better.
(l) To make way for the following move. If the white queen’s bishop had not quitted his house, the command he would have had of the diagonal into which this move is made, would have prevented it; which it will be presently seen it was the interest of that player to have done.
12.
W. Queen’s bishop’s pawn 2 squares.(m)
B. The queen’s bishop at the white king’s knight’s 4th square.(n)
13.
W. Queen’s knight’s pawn 1 square.
B. Queen’s knight at his king’s 4th square.(o)
(m) Any move that is properly made, and which preceding remarks, or a subsequent move will shew the reason of, we shall not observe on. It may, however, be of use to review the situations of the two sets of pawns; those of the white party to the left of the king, are advanced so as to derive from themselves all the support they want: whereas the pawns to the left of the other player must depend entirely on the superior pieces for protection. When pawns are seated, like these, on files that do not adjoin, they are, considered by themselves, as insecure as they can be.
(n) But if the pawns are played worse, the bishops and knights of this party are played better than those of the other.
(o) The move of the white pawn, which was necessary to the prosecution of the white queen’s scheme, gave the black knight an opportunity of coming here without suspicion, as he seems to remove merely for his own safety.
14.
W. Queen at her rook’s 4th square.
B. Queen’s bishop takes the white knight.
15.
W. King’s bishop takes the black bishop.(p)
B. The queen’s knight takes the white bishop, and gives check.(q)
16.
W. The king retires to his rook’s square.
B. The knight at the 4th square of the same rook.(r)
17.
W. The queen’s knight’s pawn 1 square, discovering check.
B. The king castles.
(p) From the cramped situation in which the player of the white’s too eager attention to projects of offence, had left this bishop, whether he takes the black one or not, he must be lost.
(q) Though the player of the blacks is a knight, and the difference there is between a king’s bishop and a queen’s bishop, the better for these exchanges; he might have conducted them in a way by which he would have profited more essentially; as the third example will shew.
(r) To avoid being taken by the knight’s pawn.
18.
W. The queen takes the black pawn, and gives check.(s)
B. As the king, if he takes the queen, will be in check
with the pawn, he is check-mated.(t)
(s) Had the white pawn made this capture, the black king, instead of receiving the defeat which the present move has given him, by retiring to his rook’s square, would have been a long while secure from any further attack.
(t): But as he was made to castle when he did, merely to shew that it is not always a measure of safety; we shall, in the next example, point out how he might have acted better.
⁂ When the student is conscious of having done wrong, and yet at a loss to know what rule he has broke, he may conclude it to be the last, that contained in section xxxii.: this is indeed so comprehensive, that all the others might be resolved into it.
EXAMPLE II.
THE PRECEDING GAME CONTINUED FROM THE SIXTEENTH COUPLET.
Note—Games which, like this, are taken up from others, are called Back-Games.
COUPLET 17.
W. Queen’s knight’s pawn 1 square, discovering check.
B. The knight covers the check.
18.
W. The pawn takes the bishop’s pawn.(a)
B. The king’s rook takes the opposite pawn.(b)
19.
W. Queen at black queen’s knight’s 4th square.(c)
B. Queen at her king’s 3d square.
(a) He is thus ready to be converted into a capital piece, and as long as he remains there, will prevent the black king from moving into any square on the queen’s part of the file.
(b) If the rook’s only object was to snatch this pawn and retire, it was worth the effort; he has, however, something else in view.
(c) Intending at the next move, by taking the opposite pawn, to secure making a bishop of his own.
20.
W. Queen takes the black pawn.
B. Queen at the white king’s rook’s 3d square.(d)
21.
W. Queen takes the black rook, and gives check.
B. The king at his bishop’s 2d square.(e)
22.
W. Queen at the black queen’s 4th square, giving check.(f)
B. The king at his knight’s 3d square.(g)
(d) To seize this advantageous post, he has left a rook to be taken and his king to be checked. The bold kind of play which each pursues, can only be justified by a conviction that the result will be favourable. Both, however, cannot have this conviction. The event will shew which is right.
(e) He prefers this to his own second square, that he may not be checked by the white rook.
(f) As the black queen, who cannot be dislodged, will, at her next move, by taking the pawn, give the king check-mate—the player of the whites has no other resource than constantly checking the black king—if he cannot mate him, and can be stopped from checking, the moment he is, he will lose the game.
(g) He takes care to move on white, that he may not be checked by the bishop.
23.
W. The queen at the black king’s 3d square, still giving check.(h)
B. The king at his rook’s 4th square.
24.
W. Queen at her own king’s 2d square, still giving check.
B. The king’s bishop’s pawn 1 square, covering the check.
25.
W. The queen at the black king’s square, still giving check.
B. The knight covers the check.
26.
W. Queen’s bishop at the black king’s 4th square.(i)
B. The pawn takes the bishop.
(h) If this player could give perpetual check, it would be a draw game—fifty moves in this way would make it so—or a less number, if a course of moves was begun that had before been made.
(i) As the queen can no longer check the king without being taken, the bishop is placed here to prevent the black queen from taking the pawn; which, however, he can do but for a moment.
27.
W. The queen takes the pawn, and gives check.
B. One of the knights takes the queen.(k)
28.
W. The pawn is made a queen.
B. Queen takes the rook’s pawn, and gives check-mate.
(k) If the player of the whites could in this way have lost all his pieces, he would have won by being in a stale; this, however, from their number, was never possible; or it would not have been prudent in the adversary to have made the 20th move—a move which has won him the game.
EXAMPLE III.
A SECOND BACK-GAME.
Continued from the Thirteenth Couplet of Example I.
COUPLET 14.
W. Queen at her rook’s 4th square.
B. The knight takes the white knight, and gives check.
15.
W. The king’s bishop takes the knight.(a)
B. The bishop takes the bishop.
16.
W. The rook’s pawn 1 square.(b)
B. The rook takes the opposite pawn, and gives check.
(a) If, instead of the bishop, the pawn had taken the knight; the black bishop, by taking that pawn, would have given check-mate instantly.
(b) The object of this and the future moves of the white player, is to prevent check-mate, which he now perceives the other thus early to meditate. When the tyro has seen what these moves are, it will edify him to try whether better ones might not have been adopted. On this, however, and similar experiments, he must not hastily conclude; because was he to move the whites not so well, and the blacks more than proportionally worse, the necessary consequence might lead him to think that he had moved the former better.
17.
W. The king at his rook’s square.
B. The rook takes the pawn, and discovers check from the bishop.
18.
W. The king at his knight’s square.
B. The queen at her king’s knight’s 2d square, giving check.
19.
W. The king takes the rook.
B. The queen advances to the white knight’s 3d square, and gives
check-mate.(c)
(c) Without the co-operation of the black pawn, this could not have been done. The player of the whites should have taken this straggler before he proceeded to detach the queen.
EXAMPLE IV.
VARIATION TO THE FIRST BACK-GAME.
Beginning from the Nineteenth Couplet of Example II.
COUPLET 20.
W. The rook at his knight’s square.(a)
B. Queen at her king’s knight’s 3d square.(b)
21.
W. The rook at the king’s square, checking.(c)
B. The bishop covers the check.
22.
W. The queen takes the pawn.
B. The queen takes the pawn.
23.
W. Queen takes the rook, and gives check.(d)
B. The king at his bishop’s 2d square.
(a) He offers to change rooks, that such a dangerous neighbour as the black one may be either taken or driven away.
(b) This, however, not only prevents either, but keeps the white queen from going to the black king’s rook’s 4th square; by which the black knight, whose vicinity is as incompatible as the rook’s with the safety of the white king, would have been obliged to remove to cover the check.
(c) To remain, or to remove without checking the adversary, would have been equally dangerous.
(d) As the player of the whites cannot remove either of the pieces menacing his king, he has now, as he had in Example II. no other way of defending him than attacking the black one.
24.
W. The pawn becomes a bishop.
B. The queen’s pawn 1 square.
25.
W. The bishop takes the knight.
B. The rook at the black knight’s square giving check.
26.
W. The rook takes the rook.(e)
B. The queen at the white king’s 4th square,
giving check-mate.
(e) If the king had taken the rook, the game would have lasted one move longer. In that case the black queen must have gone to her king’s knight 3d square, and then to the black knight’s 2d square; so she should have done, if, at the 24th move, instead of that set down, the white knight had gone to his queen’s bishop’s 3d square.
Remarks.
⁂ Of two different modes of playing, both of which end in a defeat, that is the best which protracts the game the longest.
†§† No game can end so soon as the longest form of that we have already given, that is played throughout well on both sides.