A better trick than scholars mate

This is a bit of an old trick for quick wins. It's better than fools mate or scholars mate, but its not as well known :-

A couple of quick games to enjoy ...

... both by Paul Morphy who burst on to the chess scene in the 1850s and blew away all the opposition. These two games give you an idea of how he did it.


This one has one of the standard checkmates - a smothered mate immediately after a Queen sacrifice.

To kick off our Christmas Challenge this year here is the first problem:-

White to play and win next move.
(Easy isn't it?) hopefully you'll find others less easy - but to do that you need to come on Monday night !

Chess in Schools

there is an interesting chess article in the dailymail online.

A very instructive game - with one or two fireworks!

Todays game is a pretty instructive game which shows what can happen if you fall behind in developing your pieces. Black goes after a fairly 'hot' pawn early on and never recovers from the onslaught that comes.

33rd Northamptonshire Junior Congress

The 33rd Northamptonshire Junior Congress takes place on Saturday 17th November at the Malcolm Arnold Academy (NN2 6JW) just 40 minutes drive from Rugby.   Here is an entry form.   Instead of putting your school on the form, put "Rugby Junior Chess Club" and lets see if we can turn up in force :).

A rock solid opening for Black

The position below is one of the most common ways of starting for Black and nearly all the time is an absolutely solid opening.


1. The pawn on d6 stops the White pawns overrunning the Black centre.
2. And later Black will put a pawn on e5 to strengthen his centre even more - like this:

and these moves lead to this position for Black:


The important parts of Blacks position are:
1. The pawn on e5 which stops White pushing through the centre and
2. The pawn on c6 which stops White putting a Knight on d5 or b5.
Black can put his Queen on a5 or c7 and also his Rook on e8 to look after the pawn on e5. There is very little for white to attack here.