GENERAL INFORMATION
The Chess Society aims to provide space and equipment for students to play chess. You can drop in to our sessions whenever you want and play with whoever you want to. And if you cannot play chess or hardly know the rules there will be somebody to teach you. Also, if you are not a member of the Chess Society, just pop in and find out you would like to become a member!
We intend to improve the interested members' chess playing abilities. A player with a coaching certificate and experience in tournaments will hold regular coaching sessions for players of all levels. If there is sufficient demand we will also set up a team to compete in the ULU league. This will give you the opportunity to match opponents under tournament conditions. We hope to see you at the sessions this year!
The Summer Term arrangements:
Tuesday: 01/05/12 and 08/05/12 in OLD 3.24 15:00 - 17:00
Friday: 04/05/12 and 11/05/12 in OLD 3.23 17:00 - 19:00
If you're interested in what we do apart from just playing against each other, here are a couple of puzzles we were trying to solve recently at one of the sessions. If you wanna get more, contact us - ideally at one of the sessions!
Aljechin - Shishkov
White to move wins.
From Boy's Own Paper, 1892, by Otten, H.
White to move wins (for a couple of hints, see below).
Try to solve the puzzle yourself first before looking at the other hints. If you cannot solve it straight away, don't worry and come back to it later – it's likely that you will find thinking about it the second time much easier (also a good essay strategy, as far as I'm concerned)
Approach the puzzle by trying to exclude options/variations of the game – this should leave you with single, unique moves the succession of which only will win for White. (Do that for Black as well, always find the best move for Black!)
Obviously, you want to convert one of the pawns into a queen – as a consequence, you can rule out one of the two candidates straight away!
In order to prevent the pawn from conversion, Black will have to use the bishop (the king is too far away – are you aware of the Rule of the Square? If not, ask me!). So, White's idea must be to prevent the Black bishop from preventing White's pawn to convert. To this end, it will help you to deflect (is that the right word?) Black's king at least once!
You've probably already guessed, but your first move is a pawn move.
The White king moves forth and back at least once.
Good Luck!