10 Ways To Save The Game In Chess

Hey , guys , I was recently playing a game against the lower rated player and I had a position very similar to what you see on the screen right now .

And I played the move queen takes G two .

It's obviously attacking the rook in the corner and my opponent played the move 92 H three .

I captured the rook and the game was basically over at this point , I just won the rook for free and a few moves later , I won the game but had my opponent played the move queen to F three , the game would have went on .

They would have actually saved their rook because the queen defends it and I could take the queen .

But then it's just a queen trade .

Yes , I did still get a pawn out of the deal , but it was just a pawn .

The game was gonna go on and it's a relatively equal position .

White lives to fight another day , but they weren't aware of that trick .

And like I said , just ended up losing .

And after that game , it occurred to me that there are actually a lot of these kind of situations in chess where it looks like something really bad is going to happen .

But if you know the secret or the trick to kind of save the position , you can play that and the game goes on , right .

So in this video , I'm gonna give you 10 of these very specific situations where it looks like something bad has happened or something bad is about to happen .

But I'm gonna give you the sort of secret to defend against that and either get into a good position or at least save your position to where you can play on .

So having said that , let's take a look at these 10 different situations .

All right .

So here's the first situation .

You're playing a game and your opponent plays the move queen a five check .

And you're like , oh no , I just got forked .

I'm losing my bishop .

I'm in trouble and you play a move like queen D two and they take your bishop , right ?

Was that the best that you could have done ?

No , absolutely not .

So let's go back .

What should we play in this position ?

Well , Knight to C three actually blocks the check , but at the same time , it defends your bishop and you're totally fine .

The game goes on .

You don't lose a piece , you're just fine .

Right ?

So I want you to remember that a lot of the times on queen to a five check .

If it's for king , your king and bishop .

Knight to C three is kind of a natural move that usually you will have available uh to defend your bishop .

Now , a little bonus tip for you .

Here's a position that's very similar , but a little bit different .

And again , black plays queen to a five check and you're like , OK , I know what to do .

Nelson told me this night to see three .

Wait a minute , I don't have a night to move to C three .

I guess .

I'm just losing my bishop right wrong .

In this case , you can play the move C three and we block the check with our pawn .

And we also unleash our queen to defend the bishop on a four , right ?

So this is another version depending on where your bishop is .

If it's on B five or if it's on a four , then your queen can help by just moving the pawn up .

OK ?

So I want you to remember those two options night to C three and C three .

And if you ever find yourself in a fork like this , usually you can save the bishop by doing one of those two things .

All right .

So here's the next situation .

Blacks turn and they play D four attacking your night and you're like , OK , let me move my knight to safety .

Wait a minute .

It's pinned .

I guess I'm just in trouble and I'm losing my night .

And a lot of people in this position would play something like bishop D two trade and you just lost a night for a , it's a really bad trade and now you're in big trouble .

But what you can do a lot of the times in these situations is attack that bishop with your side .

Pon .

So in this case , it's the aon .

It can also happen over here and you would use the H POD .

But we simply play a three .

And now if black takes their and guess what , we take their bishop and we just trade it .

Of course they can take here , but we just take and we're , we're happy with this , right ?

The other thing that they could try when we attack it , they can retreat the bishop .

Guess what ?

We attack it again .

And now we kind of have the same situation if they take our night , we take their bishop .

It's just a trade and we're happy , right ?

And of course , if they go back , well , now we can move our night somewhere to safety because there's no more pin .

Ok .

So remember if you find yourself in a situation where one of your knights is pinned can happen on either side and your opponent pushes a pawn forward and it looks like you're about to lose a piece .

Usually you can save the piece by doing something like this .

Ok .

So keep that in mind pretty common and that's gonna save you .

Uh , you know , more often than , than you realize right .

Here's the next situation and this one should look familiar but black plays queen takes G two and we're like , oh no , our rook is trapped .

I guess we're losing our rook and we have to do something and that's just too bad .

Right .

No wrong .

Remember queen to F three ?

OK .

It's defended by the night .

So you don't have to worry about that .

And this is defending your rook .

So if black tries to take your rook , you're just gonna take their queen , right ?

So a lot of times when your rook is stuck in the corner like this , the only way to defend it is with a diagonal piece .

Usually it's your queen or your bishop like this .

OK ?

And this could also happen if you imagine if your bishop was on E two , you could also play bishop to , to F three to defend your rook that way .

OK ?

So remember this , you don't have , have to lose your rook .

Just play queen F three .

Yes , you still lost the pawn , which is not great , but it's a lot better than losing an entire rook .

All right .

The next situation is very similar .

Notice , it's almost the same position except this time our night has already been developed .

So now black takes on G two .

We have to move our rook somewhere , right ?

Because our rook is still being attacked and sometimes people will play to move rook to F one here .

This is really a bad choice .

OK ?

What you want to do if this ever happens is play rook to G one because you gain a tempo on the queen .

You chase the queen around and usually the queen only has one place to go H three .

And sometimes you can even follow that up by getting some more attacks on the queen .

So for example , Rook to G three Jay and the queen around , right ?

And we just got , you know , a rook kind of activated into the game .

Yes , we lost the pawn , which maybe wasn't worth it .

But a lot of times you , you'll be in a decent position if you do this .

OK ?

So remember if the queen ever comes down and takes that pawn , usually you can just slide your rook over .

It can also happen here .

One thing I want to point out , you do have to make sure that your night is defended for this to work .

So right now the queen is defending the knight .

If that's not the case , you might have to try to find another solution .

Otherwise you might just be losing your night .

But in this case , it is defended .

So Rook G one works just fine .

OK ?

So keep that in mind , this is a nice way to get some tempos with your rook on the queen .

And a lot of times that can counteract , you know , counteract the fact that you lost upon .

Sometimes you can even follow it up with knight to G five depending on what you're attacking over here , you might actually have a , some type of a fork , right ?

So , keep all those things in mind .

All right .

So here's the next situation you're playing the game and black plays the move queen to D one check , slams it down on the board and you're like , oh man , I'm in trouble .

I'm getting check mated because if I take the queen , the rook's gonna take me and that's , that's it .

I'm just done for .

So you resigned because you think you , you lost .

Was that the correct choice ?

No , not the correct choice .

Why is that whenever you have this back rank threat like this and you can't take the piece because then the other piece is coming in .

What you can sometimes do is block this check with another piece .

And in this example , our rook over here on E seven can actually just come back and we prevent the checkmate because if the queen tries to take it , guess what this rook is now involved .

And we just actually one black queen if black does that .

So this is an idea that a lot of people forget about .

They forget that if you have some other piece , you can swing it back .

You don't have to just immediately take that piece because then you do lose , right ?

Because if you take it first and now try to come back , it's too late .

It just doesn't have that extra rook defending .

Ok ?

So you have to do it right away before you make any trades because you need this guy to defend it .

And Black's rook now doesn't really play a role .

So you just kind of have your two rooks against Blacks queen and you're OK .

All right .

So that's a good technique to remember to uh defend against the back rank checkmate .

Also a little bonus tip here , be careful when you get to the end of the game like this .

Sometimes it's wise to push one pawn forward to give your king a little escape escape route , right ?

So that if something like this happens , you can normally just run away with your king .

So just keep that in mind .

But yeah , this , this rook blocking idea is really good to keep in mind .

All right .

So here's the next situation .

It's white's turn and they play the move queen 22 , attacking our night and we start to look around , ok , let's move our night back .

Wait a minute , wait a minute , everything is covered .

Wait a minute , our nights trapped , we're losing our nights .

We can't go anywhere right wrong .

So if you find yourself in a situation like this where it's being attacked by a queen or another piece , maybe a , a bishop or something , you can play like d five to defend it .

And even though there's on pass to take a pawn , whenever this happens , now , you can recapture with your night and you save your night because that pawn , which was kind of restricting your knight's movement is gone .

Right ?

And so this , you know , just keep that idea in mind .

Sometimes it also works with the other pawns .

So like f five , same kind of a deal if they pass on , you can take .

So depending on the situation , keep that in mind , it's a good way to save a night that maybe , you know , got a little bit overextended and it looks like it's trapped .

Probably you can do this uh And save it .

All right .

So here's another situation .

It's black to play .

They play the move night to B four .

And let's just say , hypothetically , you didn't see this , OK ?

You were focused on something else .

You played G four to attack the bishop and you didn't see that they could just take this pawn .

So they take it and you're like , great , I'm done for , I'm losing my rook .

I'm just completely lost .

You're thinking about resigning .

You're not sure .

Um What I want to remind you of is a lot of the times when this kind of stuff happens , you can usually get two pieces for your rook .

So how does this , how does this work ?

King to D two ?

OK .

They take your rook , you can take the bishop now , right ?

And let's just say they take you back and what , what do you notice about this night ?

It's trapped , right ?

It can't actually escape .

And so what we can do is say , OK , I'm gonna come over here with my king and take it or even just move this bishop and take it with my rook because it's trapped .

And if you can accomplish that .

So let's just say you play bishop D three and black .

I don't know if that's something and you take it , you ended up getting a knight and a bishop or a rook in a pond , right ?

Which is actually not a bad trade at all .

I would say you're in the lead .

Now , I think the two pieces is better than the rook in the pond .

So , what I want you to remember is even if you ever find yourself getting forked by a night like this , you always want to kind of ask yourself , ok , at the end of this fork , can I get that night at least ?

And then maybe if you can get another piece , like in this case , the bishop and you actually come out on top ?

Ok .

So keep that in mind the fact that after the night takes it as long as you kind of plan for that .

That's why we moved king to D two and not like king to E two , right ?

Because if you would have went to E two , let's say , and the night takes , we take , well , now the night's just gonna escape on us and we don't , we don't get it right .

So it's important that we played both of these really work .

I like D two a little bit better .

But , uh , it's important that you keep that in mind , you gotta keep it trapped .

OK ?

And as long as you get the night you should be doing OK ?

All right .

So , speaking of Knights being trapped , here's another example for you .

So we're playing this game against Black and Black plays the move night to before .

And they're feeling pretty clever about themselves because they just fork their pads and they're thinking , hey , look at that , I'm gonna win a pond , right ?

What you can do when this kind of situation happens is you can play C three .

And why are we playing C three ?

Well , the reason is if black takes this , which by the way is a big mistake , we can again trap the night by playing king the D one and notice how the pawns are kind of stopping these two squares from the night .

And so then all you have to do is somehow stop this square with , with another one of your pieces .

A lot of times there's a rook back there or in this case , it's our king , right ?

And the night is just stuck the night .

Can't go anywhere so black can do whatever they want .

We're gonna come over with our king and guess what ?

Once we get here that night is , is trapped , worst case or best case for Black , they have to give it up for here .

And the night is gone , we're probably gonna be able , uh , to win this end game now .

So , going back , sometimes you can just let the night take that pawn .

As long as you're able to play C three , there's a very good chance that that night is going to be trapped .

Ok ?

And you can see how it's different than if we play a three because now the night takes here and this is much more difficult to trap the night here because it has a lot of places , right ?

That it could potentially go to .

So you have to do it correctly and play C three and then you just go over there and , and get yourself a free night .

Ok ?

So keep that one in mind , right ?

And the next situation is actually very similar .

You can , you notice this position is almost the same , but I've swapped blacks knight for a bishop and let's just say that they take this pawn .

What do you think my recommendation is going to be for what we can do ?

That's right .

We're gonna play B three and we're gonna trap the bishop and learn it .

It can't go anywhere , it can go here .

But then our king just comes over and guess what ?

We're gonna trap it , right ?

And eventually we're gonna come here over here and just take it .

We just want a piece .

Ok ?

So , same idea .

Except , you know , the way that you trap it is .

Obviously different depending on if it's a knight or a bishop that takes your pawn .

But keep that in the back of your mind .

Now , a little bonus tip for you here , let's just say for the sake of example , here we're playing black , we capture the pawn and white plays B three on us .

And we're like , oh no , this is what Nelson said .

Now , my bishop is gone right wrong .

If this happens to you don't panic , what you wanted to do is immediately start pushing this pawn down .

And why do I say that ?

Because if we can get here right away and force White to capture us , guess what ?

Then our bishop is gonna be able to escape .

OK .

So for example , a five white's coming over to , to trap it , right ?

A four and notice now , well , first of all , if white takes us , we we're fine .

Our bishop can't survive .

So that's great .

Right ?

We saved our bishop .

But if white , let's say he goes here to try to continue trapping us .

Well , now we can just take and if , if white does this , they lost too many ponds , right ?

We take here and we're about to get a queen and they can't , they don't have time to take our bishop .

They can take our pond .

But still our bishop is fine .

We actually got all of white's pawns in the process .

So if that happens to you remember , start pushing that pawn , OK ?

Now , depending on how , where the king is , you might not have time .

But in this example , you , you would have time because the king needs three moves to get over there and you have , you know , two moves and you're ready to go .

So , uh just , you know , some tips there regarding trapped bishops .

Definitely something you want to think through before you take the pawn , right ?

Like if , if White's king was sitting over here on C one .

Absolutely .

I would not take that because of course , I'm just gonna get trapped .

So those are the things you want to , you know , keep in mind .

Ok ?

So the last situation I have for you is this position right here .

It's white to play and they hit us with the stunning move .

Bishop takes F seven check .

And as we sort of try to figure out what's going on , we notice that if we take the bishop , it lures our king away and then White's queen is gonna come down and take our queen for free .

And so we kind of have a moment of panic and we're like , well , let me try to go to E SEVEN to defend my queen .

And then White hits us with bishop G five and we're toast .

We are absolutely toast .

We lose the queen , we're losing the game .

Everything is just , that's it .

So , uh what do we do wrong ?

Well , there's a little trick here .

Ok ?

And first of all , this is a nice tactic to be aware of .

If you haven't seen this before , you sacrificed the bishop to lure the king away so that your queen can take .

So whenever you have tension between the queens and your bishop is lined up , keep that in mind .

But here's what I want you to remember if this happens to you .

OK ?

Takes , takes sometimes depending on the position .

But in this case , it works , You've got a rook lined up with the queen .

So if we can take advantage of that somehow and actually we can bishop to be for check , unleashes our rook and it's check with the bishop .

So if White just blocks our bishop , we take the queen , right ?

We get our queen back .

The only other thing they could do is block with the queen , but again , we still take it , we still get our queen back .

Yes , we lost the pond .

Yes , White's probably a little better here , but the game goes on , right .

You still have a fighting chance and it's not like immediately over when you lose your queen .

So keep that in mind a little discovered check idea there with the , the bishop and you know , to get the rook to come over to , to , to save your queen .

So , um yeah , that's uh what I have for you there .

All right guys .

Well , I hope you enjoyed those 10 different ways to kind of save the position even though it looks like it might be really bad .

A lot of times you do have tricks to get out of it .

I'll see you over here in this video where I present you with three positions and you have to choose which one is the winning position .

But as always stay sharp , play smart and take care .