14th The last one

Let’s go with the last one.

It’s been a wonderful year, I have learnt a lot and I do hope you too.

The last activity

I want to thank everyone of the participants, parents and teachers. Your feedback has been simply amazing.

That is the aim of this final activity:

I want to receive pictures, drawings, videos… related to CHESSGAMES.

I mean all the chess games you think can be original, curious, odd.

• Because of the materials they are made of
• Because the place where you found it
• Because of the size
• Because they are strange.

In short I want all of you participate and collaborate with this easy and simple activity.

I am going to post some of them but I rather prefer your contributions.

For instance, Cascanueces and Pepaiti (Logroño – Jesuítas) found a curios chess game in London (UK)

This chess game is made out of onyx and it is from Mexico Thanks to Tomás and Jeanette for this wonderful present.

I found this chess game in a purse. It is a small portable magnetic chessgame:

There are many other examples:

Now it is your turn.

One more challenge before ending:

Try to solve this challenge and send me your solutions during the next two weeks, or just think about it during your vacations

White pieces play and win in two moves:

The hint there is a lethal combination when a Bishop and a Knight put their strength together.

See you soon

Profesor Jake

13th More A.N. and sacrifice your Queen

Activity 13th 

It is known as a bad luck number but it isn’t. I do think it is going to be fantastic and we are going to learn a lot about our favorite game.

Last week we worked with the Algebraic Notation but just the position of the pieces and you did it fantastically as you can see in the solutions.

Let’s go further with this exercise.

When we need to write down the moves we and our opponent make during a Chess Game is because we can learn from our mistakes, or to review how the game has been.

Short Algebraic Notation is the most common form used in any Chess Book.

As we know the pieces are:

K: King (R in Spanish)

Q: Queen (D in Spanish)

R: Rook (T in Spanish)

N: Knight the K cannot be repeated (C in Spanish)

B: Bishop (A in Spanish)

(blank): Pawn (en blanco in Spanish)

The board squares are identified by their coordinates a letter in lower case (column) followed by a number (file or row)

From a1 to h8 the 64 squares:

THE MOVES:

In Short Algebraic Notation the format for recording moves is:

Piece (abbreviation) target square

For Instance:

The Pawn is moving from c2 to c4, as we know the pawn has not any symbol this move would be: c4

The Knight is moving from g1 to f3: Nf3

The Rook is moving from h8 to h4: Rh4

THE CAPTURES:

They are indicated with an “x”.

The Pawn is capturing the Rook: Symbol + position column-file): xc6

The Queen: Dxh4

THE PROMOTION:

For this move we use the “=” sign

For example:

a2=Q (could be: B, N, R)

THE CASTLING:

Castling King side (enroque corto): 0-0

Castling Queen side (enroque largo): 0-0-0

THE CHECK

Check: +

The Knight gives Check to the white King: Ne2+ and the white King has escape.

Check Mate ++

The white Knight has moved to f7 while the Bishop on e4 is covering the only escape for the black King so it is Check Mate: Nf7++

Well there are some more NOTATIONS but I think it has been enough for this week.

Now the activity for beginners:

You have to send me the algebraic notation for the moves indicated by the arrows. I know you can do it.

1)

2)

There are 3 answers for this activity and the "?" (question mark) means you can choose one piece.

NOW IT'S TIME FOR THE SECOND ACTIVITY

The second activity is another problem where we have to find out how to win a Chess Game

This time the black pieces win the game and here you are a couple of clues:

There is a surprising move for the opponent when sacrificing our Queen.

Second hint: although everybody knows the Queen is the most valuable piece and in the contrary the PAWN is usually looked down.

I HOPE YOU CAN ENJOY THE GAME AND FIND THE SOLUTIONS

SEE YOU SOON.

12th Activity A.N. and let's play some chess

Here we are again with a couple of activities

As usual one for beginners and the other a little bit more complicated, although every week I am delighted with your accuracy and good level.

Let's start with the easiest but you can try both

I promise to answer according to my possibilities.

We should know that it is very important to write down the moves we make with our pieces and try to do the same with the pieces of our opponent:

Algebraic notation (or A.N.) (o “Sistema algebraico” in Spanish) is a method for recording and describing the moves in a game.

We use a system of coordinates to uniquely identify every single square On the CHESSBOARD

Algebraic notation exists in most of the language and is based on a system developed by PhilippStamma (very interesting person form the beginning of the C: XVII. He used the coordinates letter (lower case-minúscula) from a-h (the 8 columns and following by the numbers from 1-8 the 8 lines.

For instance a1 is the black square where the white Rook is placed

Then the pieces are named with the first letter of their name.

p (0) for Pawn

R for Rook

N for Knight (K is for the King, the most valuable piece)

B for Bishop

Q for the Queen

K for the King

In Spanish and other languages there are different initials because of the name of the pieces:

P or (0) for the Peón

T for the torre

C for the Caballo

A for the Álfil

D for the Dama

R for the Rey

NOW the CHALLENGE

Can you send me the A.N. (Algebraic Notation) for this imaginary Game.

I know you can be very creative and you can send me your solution in a video, message, song...

Let’s go with the second challenge.

Here you are a Chess Game:

In this challenge we have to check mate with the white pieces

There are a couple of hints:

You can get it in just two moves.

Our Knight is the main character of the action.

First we have to think about that the Knight is protected by the Bishop e4
Have you noticed the bishop is in front of the blck K...?

11th Activity Openings

Welcome back after the Easter holidays

I had a great time and I played chess very often.

After this vacation time I think it is time to start with some tactic.

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO START A CHESS GAME?

Of course the OPENING

This activity is going to deal with this

As you know the very first moves we can make are very important in the development of the game.

So first we are going to think about the FIRST activity, for beginners:

Can you send me How many possible openings are there if you start the game (obviously with white pieces) ?

Here you are a HINT: Remember every Pawn can move either 1 or 2 squares forward.

(Send me some videos, pictures, e-mails. Whatever you want,  because you are really creative.

After thinking about the challenge we can watch the video I want to teach you an opening for starting with a tactic, The idea is to receive your comments how this tactic worked when you play Chess against anyone who dare to accept your challenge:

Watch this video (I posted the subtitles in English and Spanish for helping).

10th activity the mistakes.

GUESS THE MISTAKES

HEY HEY HEY

Hi again and welcome everybody to your favorite blog about Chess.

Today I am thinking about two more activities for your smart minds.

The first activity will be for beginners, but you must pay attention because it can be a little tricky

Last weekend I tried to play Chess with some friends and we made some mistakes:

I show you three pictures and my good friends, beginners all of them committed one mistake each.

NUMBER 1:

NUMBER 2:

NUMBER 3:

Can you guess what are the mistakes we made?

Let’s go with the second for advanced players.

The second activity is related with Pure Chess Game.

Try to play with the black pieces and get the white pieces in CHEKMATE in three moves:

UUUUUUUUUUUUUMMM!!!

Let’s start with a hint: Why don’t you try “sacrifice” the Queen…

I know this is the most powerful of your pieces but...

That’s all for this week.

Remember to send your answer by email, whassap or twitter as usual.

Have a nice week and have a look at your wonderful answers for the previous challenges.

See you very soon

The 9th THE SCALE

Sorry Today I feel really upset, he was one of the greatest :(

9th Activity THE SCALE

One more week here we are with new challenges. I am very proud of your works and I enjoy showing your achievements on the web… Blog, Twitter, Youtube and Whassap. It is amazing how you collaborate and with the help of your parents.

BRAVO!!!

First Activity:

I have been talking to my good friend Profesor PI, and he suggested me this challenge:

This is a Scale and we are going to learn the value of the chess pieces:

You have the full explanation in the label of the blog: “The Class” and then go to “The pieces” (http://explorajake.blogspot.com.es/p/the-pieces.html)

But anyway we are going to review it again:

1 point each

3 points each

5 points each.

9 points each (some books set 10 points)

The King is not in the list because it is worth the whole match.

I propose a game:

Could you tell me in a photo, video, drawing… Be creative because I really know you are.

The solution for balance the different scales as in the example.

Second exercise:

We are going to be creative, because Chess let us be:

Take the next white pieces in your hand and place them on a chess board, so that the resulting position is Checkmate when Black King is placed on f5

BE CAREFUL!!!

It is not so easy and try to avoid the STALEMATE, that means a draw.

Third Activity:

I have a third activity but this is related with app's

Last I strongly recommend this APP:

It is in Spanish “La Era del Ajedrez”: Travel through the wonderful lands of chess. Accept challenges in beautiful places. Train your skills. Fight against hard opponents. Compare with your friends. Play exciting chess games, resolution tactics, learn chess strategies.

Enjoy this chess game and have fun!

Why don’t you send me a screenshot of your evolution in this app.

The levels are very interesting as well for beginners and no so beginners.