In the previous lesson you learned about ATTACKS and THREATS.

If your opponent THREATENS you you have to do something about it.

There are several things you can do.

Let's look at them.





The first thing you can do if someone THREATENS you is RUN AWAY.

In this position the Black Pawn has just moved to THREATEN your Knight.

There's nothing for it: you have to RUN AWAY.

Move your Knight to a safe square so that it doesn't get CAPTURED.


The second thing you can do if someone THREATENS you is CAPTURE the piece that's THREATENING you.

Here it's your Bishop that's under THREAT from the Black Pawn.

You could RUN AWAY, but it would be better to CAPTURE the Black Pawn instead.




But in this position if you CAPTURED the Black Pawn it wouldn't be safe. The Black Pawn on d5 would take you back.

You'd win 1 point but lose 3 points.
The third thing you can do if your opponent is THREATENING you is to SUPPORT the THREATENED piece by moving another piece to DEFEND it.

Here, White can SUPPORT the THREATENED Pawn by moving his Pawn from f2 to f3.

Then if Black CAPTURES the Pawn on e4, the Pawn on f3 will CAPTURE the Knight in return. White will lose 1 point but win 3 points.


SUPPORTING only works if the enemy ATTACKER is of GREATER OR EQUAL VALUE than the piece it's THREATENING.

Because the Pawns are the weakest pieces they can always be SUPPORTED if they are THREATENED.


It's no good supporting a Queen that's attacked by a weaker piece. If you do that you'll lose points.

If you can't CAPTURE the attacker safely the Queen may have to RUN AWAY.

If a Rook is THREATENED by a Pawn, Knight or Bishop it may have to RUN AWAY.

If a Bishop or Knight is THREATENED by a Pawn it will probably have to RUN AWAY.



Another way of DEFENDING against a THREAT is to BLOCK the THREAT by putting a piece in the way.

In this position the Black Rook is THREATENING the White Queen.

The Queen could CAPTURE the Rook but it wouldn't be safe. If she did this she would be CAPTURED by the Black Pawn.

The Queen could also RUN AWAY to a safe square.

But there's something else White could do as well. Can you see it?

The other thing White could do in this position is BLOCK the attack by moving his Pawn from f2 to f3.

Black would then be able to CAPTURE the Pawn on f3, but that wouldn't be SAFE (for two reasons).

So White can safely BLOCK the THREAT by moving from f2 to f3.



You can only BLOCK a THREAT from a Queen, a Rook or a Bishop.

You can't BLOCK a threat from a Knight because it can jump over anything in its way.

You can't BLOCK a threat from a King or a Pawn because they can only THREATEN you from the next square.





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Don't forget to look for EVERY capture EVERY move in EVERY game you play.

The Black Bishop is THREATENING your Pawn. You can't RUN AWAY. You can't BLOCK the THREAT. The Pawn can't capture the Bishop.

But your Knight CAN - and should - CAPTURE the Bishop.

That's the end of the lesson.

What do you want to do now?




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