LESSON

Today we went over the pin worksheet and learned that you can actually pin a piece against an empty square if that square is an important square. 

We also learned that the discovered attack is probably the most potent weapon in chess. We had a difficult worksheet and here's a problem from that worksheet.

PROBLEM #6 (which no one solved)

After studying the position a while, you should notice that our Bishop on c2 is aimed directly at our opponent's King! Remember to imagine the Bishop's power extending all the way across the board. Now in order to export the power of that bishop we need to get two pieces out of the way - our Rook, and their Bishop. Rd6 fails because their queen takes it and we're no better off. Can we get Black's Bishop off that diagonal? Well, at great price, but ...  wait this might be worth it - 1. QxNh5+ BxQh5 (if he doesn't take, we got a free knight) and now the discovered check works perfectly! 2. Rd6+ (checking with the bishop) Bg6 3. Rxb6 (we're ahead a knight) .Bxc2 4. Nxc2 and we came out a knight ahead!

TOURNAMENT this Saturday at the Burnsville Educational Center. Looks like we only have 5th graders interested this week, so I'd recommend signing up for the 3rd-5th section.  No teams, just individuals. If some of our 6th, 7th, and 8th graders were coming, I was going to have us all play on the middle school team.

RALTINGS

Merit	Name	5-Apr
9.5	Cavan	531
3	Quillan	440
4.5	Grant	409
8	Thomas	390
4.5	Simon	370
2.75	Owen	363
1.5	Warren	329
	Luke	287
	Lucia	231
	Jack	194
	James	147
	Kellen	127
	Alan	118