Going Postal, Part 1

Usually when you play chess you have a board and pieces and play against someone in the same room as you. Maybe the board will be green and white, or maybe black and white. The pieces might be fancy...

...or simple...

Usually you are in the same room as your opponent, looking at the same pieces. But you might know that you can also play chess over the internet. You can play on the chesskid.com website, for example.

People also play chess through the mail. The game I am going to show you was played that way. It is called "postal chess" or "correspondence chess". There is a big difference between this and regular chess. In a normal game of chess you cannot move the pieces around to see what you are going to do. You have to imagine them moving in your head. Also, in a regular game you cannot think for three days about a move! At least, not unless you want to annoy your opponent and make him/her very bored!

In postal chess you can do all of that. You can move the pieces around, trying to see what is going to happen next ("I go here, he goes there..."). Also, games might last years!

Why would anybody play this? Well, our hero in this game, Paul Keres, played postal chess when he was very young because he lived in a very small town in the country of Estonia. There was nobody there good enough for him to play! Later, when he became a grandmaster, he travelled to tournaments all over the world, but when he played this game he was only sixteen years old.

Even though Paul was not very experienced in chess at that time, he played a really great game here. Let's see how it began, and then you can find the finish (with dazzling combinations) in Part 2, next week.

Black has a pretty nice position, I think we can agree. He has more space, a passed pawn, and his king is safer. He also has a lead in development. But in order to win a game, you need to know how to attack! And Keres is going to show us how to do that. Check out Part 2 for the rest of the game. So long!