The Art of Checkmate
What you'll learn
- Ability to leverage and amplify the important checkmating patterns for your own games
- Ability to construct mating nets - taking out key escape squares
- Ability to solve mate combination puzzles much better than before
- Ability to improve chess rating through ruthless checkmate combinations
- Ability to recognise key weakness of last move, support squares, liberational effects when calculating variations
- Ability to think of the key mating patterns concisely without necessarily worrying too much about remembering names
- Ability to have support remembering mating pattern names which does have advantage of looking up examples more easily
- Ability to have funny ways to remember the mate pattern names - and also "Name on Tin" methods especially
- Ability to amplify like never before mating patterns which may be heavily disguised in the position
- Ability to appreciate the great beauty of mating combinations played by players of all levels and times in chess history
- Ablity to make use of "amplification" as a key chess skill in general - on the same power level as calculation, evaluation, visualisation
- Ability to get a very low tolerance for sources of hassle or defensive resource - becoming skilled at removing them at source
- Ability to make use of amplification of mating patterns and their components to greatly simplify and ease calculation, visualisation, calculation pressure
Requirements
- Knows how the chess pieces move
Description
Chess isn't just a game; it's an intricate dance culminating in the ultimate checkmate. This course, 'The Art of Checkmate,' encapsulates this concept, focusing on the patterns and processes that enable and accentuate the beauty of checkmate opportunities.
Being able to effectively deliver checkmate can often change the dynamics of your game, incentivizing more aggressive and tactical play. In some cases, you could potentially sacrifice all pieces except one, to deliver that final, decisive move. As such, understanding checkmate patterns and strategies introduces a plethora of dynamic opportunities in chess middlegames, often leading to a more aggressive and attacking style of play.
The course's curriculum explores different forms of checkmate, taking an artistic perspective to delve into the depth of this fundamental concept. This includes basic forms of checkmate that introduce existing patterns, encouraging a more profound understanding of the game's mechanics and stimulating deeper calculations.
However, checkmate isn't solely about trapping the opponent's king; it's also about strategic displacement. In some instances, you may need to coax your adversary's king from its shelter, creating a compelling artistic spectacle. This can range from luring the opponent's king across the board to merely attracting it slightly towards your pieces, revealing the importance of king safety and creating a seemingly effortless artistic effect.
Even though the king enjoys relative freedom during endgames, it isn't exempt from the dangers of a potential checkmate. Thus, being mindful of checkmate dangers even during endgames is crucial and might be the key to winning certain endgames.
'The Art of Checkmate' course is a comprehensive exploration of this essential chess concept, designed to enhance your understanding, stimulate strategic thinking, and refine your skills in delivering the definitive game-ending move.
Who this course is for:
- Beginner to intermediate chess players
- More advanced players wanting to check out checkmates of World champions and other great players
Instructor
- 4.6 Instructor Rating
- 2,763 Reviews
- 13,787 Students
- 33 Courses
Tryfon Gavriel, also known as "Kingscrusher" on the Internet. I am a FIDE Candidate Master (CM), and British Regional Chess Master, and run a popular Youtube channel for many years with over 114k+ Subs as of 2021 and a Silver Button Award.
I have done many shows on commercial chess servers. I am also the Webmaster of the correspondence-style chess server Chessworld which emphasizes game quality and research.
Playing experience
Over 35 years of playing activity both online and offline. Peak ICC blitz rating of 2625 (18-Jun-1999). Peak ICC 5 min auto-pairing of 2383 (29-Jun 2012). ECF Grading peak classical: 212 (A) ECF. Peak Rapid rating: 217 (C).
Lichess marathon top 10 finishers in 4 marathons so far. Top 50 finisher in 8 marathons so far. Top 100 finisher in 4 marathons so far. And top 500 in 2 marathons so far. Won quite a few tournaments at lichess - in fact giving me 3rd rank overall behind Lance5500 and papasi in a recent detailed statistical blog analysis titled "Lichess Marathon Statistics".
One of my earliest Over-the-board achievements in Chess was winning the Lloyds Under 18 national UK tournament in 1989. My trophy was awarded to me by Grandmaster and Ph.D. Mathematician Dr John Nunn.
Teaching experience
I have done teaching in Schools and also have done teaching online with several Lichess students on a regular basis, and have a very good coaching rating at lichess.
Other experiences
Played twice in the main British Chess championship. Many of my Youtube viewers claim big rating increases after watching my videos.
Best skills
I particularly love attacking chess, chess tactics, and combinations, and it is probably no accident that my "Complete Guide to Chess Tactics" has been a best-seller shortly after its release here at Udemy.
In general, I will try and give you greater enthusiasm for the game and in particular the dynamic attacking, aggressive tactical aspects of playing chess. My favorite heroes are mainly Attacking style tactical players: Paul Morphy, Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Tal, Bobby Fischer, and Garry Kasparov. if you want to be a dynamic aggressive attacking style player, I may be able to encourage you and find you relevant resources on that path. The dynamic aggressive attacking players were particularly strong tactically and would often trade off pawn structure neatness and material to try and checkmate the opponent's kings. Checkmate does win the game :) They were masters of finishing combinations naturally as they sought to reduce the king's safety of the opponent in various ways including bringing the King out for often beautiful mating combinations.
Chess Openings
In terms of concrete openings to make use of potentially teaching here at Udemy through courses. I like King-Attacking aggressive openings even with the black pieces like the King's Indian Defence to 1.d4 which my heroes Fischer, Kasparov, and Tal made use of extensively.
As White, I sometimes like Solid openings on such as the London System. I also like provocative openings like the Knight's Tango systems to encourage weaknesses from opponents.
I am also at faster time controls especially, particularly fond of aggressive openings and gambits. For example, the Smith-Morra Gambit vs the Sicilian Defence, and other gambits can be used aggressively even with the black pieces such as the Albin Counter Gambit. Gambits vary of course in soundness and it is important to teach what "ticks many boxes" for use in various time controls. Also, I like surprising opponents with openings such as the Nimzo-Larsen attack, the King's Indian Attack, The London System, and Queen's Knight attack system 1. Nc3, all of which I have courses for here at Udemy.
In the search for the ideal courses to provide you, I like to search within myself for my core strengths and passions within the passion of Chess.
I truly hope you enjoy my courses and they improve your chess and your enjoyment of chess generally - and life generally :)