Devastating Rook Pin Along your Opponent's 2nd Rank

 I was reminded of a former chess buddy J.P. Hyltin who resided in Austin Texas and often played in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. He once drew with legend Joe Bradford after memorizing Big Joe's Benko Gambit line if I recall and wore a T-Shirt about his pregnant wife's GM candidate fetus. 

He was probably a genius in many regards including his profession in some branch of engineering, but I remember him saying that an overwhelming number of decisive tactics involved exploiting or creating a lethal pin. I also respected his views on the absurd DWI laws in our country where way too many repeat offenders end up killing people never having spend a day behind bars!!! His Austin friend and lawyer Mike Simpson Esquire defended many of those types usually the weekend when the Longhorns played the Sooners. I think  Victor Yaward  and Luis Salinas had strong opinions on vehicular homicide as well.

The following position involves the latter. See if you can figure out the winning move in the following position with White to play:

ICC player Danifrani had just withdrawn his Queen to the f6. Can you see how this move is a losing blunder due to the presence of the White Rook on the c7 square? I missed it in the game, but eventually won on time in a 3 minute no increment time control blitz game.

Outside Passed Pawn Wins Again

 A very common error in King and Pawn endings is to keep pushing your pawns forward in a middle game attack fashion. However, that often leads to lost endings! 

In the following three minute blitz game played at the Internet Chess Club in Pennsylvania, Black played the losing move pawn to b4. Do you see why?

After some pawn exchanges on the b4 square, White(Gianky59 from the country of Switzerland ) wins easily by capturing Black's f5 pawn which forces the creation of outside passed White h pawn which will drag the Black Monarch way out of play!!!

ChessFactor content provider IM Andrey Ostrovskiy does an above average job of explaining the mechanisms associated with these type of structures that involve "on the edge of the board" type of motifs. Istanbul, Turkey chess benefactor Mert Bahadır is an ardent fan of Andrey's pedagogy and self-effacing style.

BTW Black would have easily drawn by replacing the blunder b4 with the drawing Kd6 which leads to a sterile, innocuous drawn position!

Benoni-Three Minor Pieces for a Queen

Chess luminaries Pachman and Silman both had astute observations regarding when 3 minor pieces were stronger than a Queen. Irascible "How to Reassess your Chess" Jeremy stated that as long as the Queen did not have a "disruptive pawn" that the Queen would usually lose to the three minors.

 Rewan Demontay and David Miedema have also thrown in their opinions on this fascinating imbalance which happens to be the term that made Silman's book famous but also with the significant flaw of oversimplifying at times.  Jeremy now spends some of his time reviewing Kung Fu Movies or some other Asian themed avocation. 

Cristinel Leaua of Romania unwittingly sacrificed his Queen for three minor pieces in the following Benoni Defense played at the Internet Chess Club in the United States of America.  His move Ng4 was actually a blunder as he amateurishly saw only Bd4 pinning Queen at e3 to the White King located on g1 square.  White wins two Horses and one Prelate which led to a convincing victory for the first player!