How to Watch for Middle Game Dangers in Chess

Video Transcript

"Now one of the things you can learn about the middle game is certain dangers that tend to reoccur and which you can keep a sharp eye out for because they can be pretty devastating. Now the first one is the fork; the trap called the fork and the fork in essence is this, it's white to move; white knight moves here. White knight is now attacking both the black queen and the black king. That is a pretty devastating fork and it means white; black has to move out of check as we know and so really we probably move here but he's going to loose his queen. Ok, he'll recapture the knight but he's lost a queen for a knight; a terrible exchange. Now the next type of fork I would like to show you is essentially a fork which can be done by other pieces; usually forks are identified with knights but they don't have to be, other pieces can also give; get into this, this thing with the forks. Now closely aligned two forks are the two and one attack and again can be pretty devastating. Here's an example of a two in one attack; the black bishop moves here and is now attacking both white rooks. Remember a rook is quite a bit more powerful than a bishop and whites going to loose one of his rooks. I mean whichever one he moves the other one is going to be lost. So that also is something to watch very carefully for."