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Discovered Attack: It is What it's Called

The discovered attack is a theme, which, as the title implies, is based exactly on what it is called. Right now you're probably telling yourself, "Ok, it is what it's called, then we must discover an attack, ummm, yeah, how's that gonna happen?". Here's how it works:

A discovered attack occurs when one piece would be attacking a piece if it weren't for another one of your pieces blocking the attack. The discovered attack then occurs when you uncover the attack by moving the piece. The trick to discovered attacks however, like the pin, is to take best advantage of them. Let's take a look at an example.

In the above example, whenever the black knight moves an attack will be discovered on the white queen. While this is good, if we examine the position a little further we can see that although moving the knight will result in a discovered attack, there is no useful way to do so, a rather dismal feeling when you realize this comes over you, "so close", you thought. Now let's look at an example where a player does have a useful discovered attack, meaing the player can take advantage of the discovered attack.

WHITE: "Darren"
BLACK: Cone, J
DATE: 05.24.97
EVENT: Internet Game
LAST MOVE: 17. Rb6

The position, as you can see, comes from one of my own games. Looks pretty complicated! We've got a lot of stuff happening.

TIP : An easier way to notice if there may be a potential discovered attack lying in the position is to look at all potential attacks, that is, look at each piece an pretend your other pieces don't block it, this may help you discover them.

Ok, so, using our new tip, we can now lok at black's position and decide if there is a discovered attack waiting to be played.

Hmmm, black's only bishop might uncover something later on, the problem is that our pawn is blocked so it's not going anywhere for a while. What else? ... Aha! The black queen could potentially attack the white rook if only the bishop were out of the way. We've found our potential discovered attack.

"But, now what?", you're probably asking yourself. the next step is to find out if we can exploit the poor position of the white rook. The way to think of this is that the rook can play a move for free because white will have to spend time saving his rook. NOTE: Keep in mind the Point System (also called the point count) when considering if this is a good trade, you will have to think a couple moves ahead to the end of all the exchanges.

Well, since we can play a move for free, the only way we can take advantage of it is to either take off a piece, or perhaps even threaten something. Because the two rooks are of even value we fulfill the point system requirement: If white decides not to save his rook and attack our rook, it will either be an even trade or we will com out on top. Now, let's look at what the rook hits:

Hmm, not very many moves, but wait! That bishop on c4, since we can play a move for free, we can take. Aha! That's the move! If we played that following sequence would be played:

17. ... Rxc4!! 18. dxc4 Qxb6 When we find out that we win a whole bishop for free!

Whew! If you've read this far, good for you, that was a rael big mouthful there, I hope you understood all of it.

The Discovered Check: Even More Powerful

Hopefully the example above proved to you that the discovered attack, although sometimes quite hidden, can be quite powerful. However, during a discovered attack we offer the opponent a choice of what he wishes to do, meaning that a miscalculation on our part may well lead to our loss when we see our opponent play something we weren't expecting. But, what if we were to discover an attack on the enemy king? Then our opponent wouldn't have a choice, he must save his king, therefore, our free move is truly free. We may now take the piece that moves to discover the attack and dance around the board, unnoticed by the enemy army because they are too preoccupied with their highness! NOTE : The attack doesn't have to discover the attack, the piece which moves may also give the check. One example should suffice:

In the position above we can see, usng the tips and notes considered earlier, that the white rook would hit the queen if not for our bishop in the way. BUT, if we were to move the bishop to try to take advantage of this position, black take the unprotected white rook, giving checkmate and says, "thank you". So, how can we make use of this? The answer is to give check with 1. Bh7+!!. All of a sudden black must deal with the check and he can kiss his queen goodbye.

EXAMPLES COMING SOON

The last example before the tests should suffice to show the difference in power between the two types of discovered attack, however, they are not the only discovered attacks, move on to the next section as you learn about the Double Check.

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