I hope you can see that white's Bishops are much better placed than black's, black's b-file is pretty blocked thanks to the doubled-pawn; black's d-pawn is isolated because it cannot be protected by her own pawns. White's Bishops are also attacking or looking at the opponent King

Double attacks are important and so the time (or tempo is the term used) it takes to form that double-attack are very important. Quite often games are lost not because we have fewer pieces but because they are somehow less useful than our opponents'.

In this diagram white's pieces are not co-ordinated (not working together) while black's are - her Bishops are also on the longest diagonals and control them - and also "looking at" the opponent King. But just imagine if it is white's turn to move and moves B to d3, count up the mobility points in all cases and what do you see ??

What about now - note the idea that black is being blocked by its own pawns, an important idea since mostly its our own pieces giving problems - not our opponents.

In the following the black King cannot take the g-pawn since the f-pawn will the Queen, so white can wander up the board (black King only goes from f7;g6 ;h7) gets to e7 & wins - use the idea that the black King MUST move away. White can go to e6 OR e7 - BLACK can't take the back pawn at all.

a simple example showing the weakness of the Knight sometimes N-c4 Knight must move away (run away?) and black simply captures the pawn

tricky example follows :

with white to move they capture the pawn on g6 - does black capture with the h-pawn or the f-pawn ?????

if with the h-pawn the Q-h8 mate (or Qh7 mate too)



capture with the f-pawn as long as the Queen is on c7 else it is also mate by white capturing the h-pawn

if the Queen (or some other piece protecting the h7 square (Question - what pieces would protect that square ?) were not on a protecting square it would be out-of-play and badly placed

another idea for white instead of capturing the g-pawn is to push it to h6, try to get the Queen on f6 & give mate on g7

example BAD idea for black to capture the Bishop on f6 since white would then have his/her pawn there and threaten Q to h6 and mate on g7 is unavoidable - so if black does capture the Bishop then has to be very careful - though it may be OK to do depending on the whole position.