Today's Lesson

was about the hurdle and skewer - two powerful tactics. It's much more effective to look for patterns of weakness to exploit rather than explore all possible moves.

     Two big pieces in a line?

    Look out! It's hurdle time!

We also went over the fork worksheets. Here's a good puzzle for you to figure out. It is White's turn. What's the best move? (That black pawn is just about to turn into a queen.)

Tournament

This Saturday (Oct. 14) at the Diamondhead Educational Center in Burnsville. New players may want to wait until their ratings get closer to 300 before trying a tournament, but if you don't mind losing, it's a good way to learn a lot. Sign up at SchoolChess.org before Saturday.

Opening of the Week: The French Defense

The French Defense is similar to last week's Caro-Kann Defense. Both are responses to e4 and both move a pawn up one square to guard the empty d5 square. After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 e5 3.Nc3 Bb4, the board would look like this:

Black's idea is to eventually play c5 and Ne7. White often plays Qg4. Black may need to be patient and creative in order to activate his light-squared bishop.

RATINGS

Cavan	738
Simon	570
Thomas	558
Q	530
Alex	244
Jack	197
Santi	154
Audrey	152
Hunter	137
Soren	135
Eldrych	127
Harrison	125
William	121

Puszle Solution: 1.Rb8 a1(Q) 2.Ra8+