The Swallow's Tail's Swallowed Tail Tale Part 1

The Tale of the Swallow's Tail (Part 1) ...by Ms Jessica Martin (aka BoundingOwl)

Buon giorno my friends!  Today we are going to hear from a bird.  Not the song of a pretty morning dove, or a pigeon as city doves up north are called. We also will not be hearing from a woodpecker (those things used to drive me nuts when I tried to sleep in sometimes). Nor will we get a story from a scary huge, blue-necked, bone-headed, giant-taloned Australian Cassowary.

Apparently these birds could shred dogs with their talons (which totally confuses my understanding of the animal kingdom).  So I am curious to know their story.

Instead we will hear the story of a Swallow!  This is a Swallow Tail Kite:

preeetttyyy  biirrdddiieeee

And this is Sir Sammy Swallow's Story.

Hi!  My name is Sammy.  I like chess.  When you are good at chess, you get stuff named after you.  It's true!  Have you heard of the Caro-Kann?  I mean, that's not any normal real-thing kind of name.  That's two people, Mr. Caro and Mr. Kann.  And what about the Alekhine Defense?  The Lucena Position?  (pronounced Loo-CHAIN-uh) Personally I prefer the Sicilian Dragon, much more vicious-sounding...

But ok, so I'm pretty good at chess; I've been studying forever, and finally the chess people said I could have my own checkmate.  I kept beating up on people with my tail feathers.  That's right.  You saw how long they are.  The ol' one two.

One day I bet you could get your own checkmate.  Everyone I know is always trying to make up their own, but so many of these patterns have been taken already. 

Here is my superfamous checkmate position; the Swallow's Tail Mate:

 

Do some imagining.  Pretend that my head is the white king, my body the queen, and where my amazing tail splits: the black king and pawns.  See it? The pawns take away the two squares the queen cannot reach. (Notice they are knight's moves from the queen!)  Okay, no wings, they are frankly too big for this little board. Now imagine it's a fire-breathing dragon. Wow! You have a wild imagination!

Keep looking for your very own checkmates, and tell your coach or friends if you find an unusual-looking one!  Bye!

-----------------

Here is a quick review of the things we have covered over the past few weeks of our column "Tactics and Checkmate Patterns"!

Remember that chess is patterns:  lines, triangles, squares,...and, um, birds!

Knight forks usually make triangles.  Do you see them?

 

 

Pins, skewers, and disco attacks are always in straight lines.

 

The Queen Dance uses a box (or square). 

If you had one of those cool computers where you could draw on them like an Etch-A-Sketch (before your time) then I would tell you to draw these lines on the chessboard on the screen. 

But probably you don't have that type of computer and your parents would be really honked off if you drew all over their stuff like a baby.  So don't do it.  Chess is really all about visualization (seeing stuff in your head).  So you're going to have to pretend to draw lines all over the place. 

Puzzle time!

 

Notice how this time it's a knight guarding the queen, and a rook blocking off the king's escape squares?  The great thing about patterns is their flexibility.  More on that stuff later. 

What else do you think could guard the queen?  And what else could take away the king's escape squares?  Send me a note with your answers!

There will be a follow up to this lesson.  So stay tuned, looney tunes, there will be more tail swallowing for you and harder puzzles.  Ci vidiamo!  (Pronounce:  chee veedee AH mo!)  See you later!