IS IT SAFE?

While a good thought process is flexible, there are certain elements that usually are included. A comprehensive checklist of what questions might go through your mind after your opponent makes a move might start with:

1. Is it legal?
2. Am I in check?
3. Can I checkmate him by a series of forced moves? (If so, nothing else usually matters…!)
4. Is his move safe (for him)?
5. What are all the things his move does? (In other words, how does his move change the position, and what can he do now that he could not do before? What are his threats for next move?)
6. What are my candidate moves?

…etc.

In this month's Thinking Cap we are just going to consider #4, “Is his move safe for him?”

Often I am going over my students' games and as soon as his opponent (or sometimes my student!) makes a move, I say out loud, “He can't do that – it's not safe!”

What I mean is that the move played leaves the piece in immediate jeopardy on that square. I am NOT talking about falling victim to a combination, but rather one of three simple possibilities:

1. The piece is en prise – that is, it is attacked and not defended at all
2. The piece is subject to capture and there is a sequences of captures on that square that loses material for the player that just moved, or
3. The piece is instantly trappable – usually that means it can be attacked by a piece of lesser value and has no safe way to retreat.

As an example, take the sequence 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4??

The Bishop is not safe because Black can perform a simplified “Noah's Ark” trap with 4…b5 5.Bb3 c4.

Yet interestingly enough, in many cases neither my student nor his opponent realizes right away that the piece is not safe! They are too busy asking themselves some of the other questions, like “What does that move do?” or “What are his threats” or “What are my candidate moves?” Often when I show a position to a student and say, “Black has just moved X. What should you do as White?” the first thing they do is start to look for candidate moves! This may work if it is a “White to play and win” problem but, in a game, looking for candidate moves before you check for the safety and purpose of your opponent's move can be disastrous. I almost always see the unsafe piece immediately, but my student sometimes only sees the problem after I bring the issue to his attention! And the fact that sometimes they see it immediately means that the student's thought process is faulty, because they obviously can see the move was unsafe, they just never considered the possibility. So what is automatic – and important – to me, is not automatic for them.

Another interesting aspect is that many students are almost as likely to spot an unsafe piece move by their opponent in a speed game as they are in a slow game! The reason is simple: in a speed game they expect their opponent to make silly, material-losing moves and look for this kind of mistake. In a slow game they assume their opponent will not make such a bad mistake and just skip that step of the thought process, even though the opponent might be weak or playing fast anyway and may just be giving them material.

A common, related safety mistake is for a player to remove his own guard! He takes a piece that is defending another one and moves it away, leaving the one that was adequately defended as now un- or under-defended. For example, consider the position after 1.e4 c5 2.c3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.cxd4 d6 5.Nf3 g6 6.Bc4 Bg7 7.0–0 Nf6 8.Nbd2 0–0 9.Ng5?

In this common beginner error Black often follows this White blunder by becoming so fixated on the new “threat” to f7 that he forgets that the Knight that moved to g5 was guarding d4 and is no longer doing so. So, since f7 is adequately guarded and 9.Ng5 has made the pawn on d4 unsafe, Black should just calmly capture it with 9…Nxd4. Thanks for the pawn! From this example, you can see that you should not only ask yourself if the moving piece is safe, but if the moving piece is just leaving something else unsafe. Any basic safety issue that was affected by his move is equally important.

Often players analyze a capturing sequence and evaluate a position which they think is worth evaluating, but it is too early because the forced sequence (all the checks, captures, and threats) are not complete. This is called a quiescence error because they think the position is quiet when it is not, and stop analyzing the sequence too soon. Consider the following simple example:

Black has just played 1…Rd8-e8. Now White might calculate the sequence of captures on d5 and think that Black has removed his own guard as in the previous example, but the d5-pawn is still safe because if 1.Nxd5?? Nxd5 2.Rxd5? Re1 mate. To stop your analysis after 2.Rxd5 and conclude that you are up a pawn would be considered a quiescence error because you are not considering the further devastating check on e1.

Sometimes players assume an opponent's piece is safe, but they don't consider all the aspects and see that the entire capturing sequence is good for them. An excellent example of this is in the Ruy Lopez after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 O-O? 7.Bxc6 dxc6 8.Nxe5 Qd4 9.Nf3 Bg4??

Even after I tell my students that Black's move is a mistake and that now White can win, many often make the error of assuming that their Knight is pinned and cannot move, and so look to preserve their extra pawn with a move like 10.d3?. But when you see a good move, look for a better one, and White has a much better one by moving that pinned Knight with 10.Nxd4 Bxd1 11.Rxd1. This wins a Bishop since Black's Queen was unguarded and White's Queen was not. Therefore Black's move 9…Bg4?? did not make his Queen safe, as you should readily see if you ask yourself the right questions. If White misses playing 10.Nxd4, this type of error is similar to a quiescence error because White wrongfully assumes the position is quiet – and bad for himself – if he ever moves his Knight and allows his Queen to be captured. The tactic that wins the material after 10.Nxd4 I simply call COUNTING. Counting is one of the most important parts of chess, and it is clearly the most underrated and under-taught tactic. Readers of The Thinking Cap will encounter the subject of Counting again!

None of the above mistakes involve difficult combinations; all are much more basic safety issues. Even good players can make these kinds of simple mistakes occasionally – especially in time trouble. So unless you are playing a very high level of competition, don't assume that your opponent's move is safe – even if it is safe “only” 99% of the time, that means once every 2-3 games you are likely going to be given a gift! So don't overlook this important part of the thought process.