Neil McDonald, in his book on the Middlegame, states that Piece
Coordination is the most important principle in chess. The problem is
that the concept Piece Coordination is abstruse. About the only
definition I could locate was in Hooper & Whyld: "the action of a
player's pieces when they work together." Duh! Can anyone in the
chess audience recommend some sources and/or definitions of piece
coordination that are instructive and useful? Any help would be
appreciated.

"drummerman" wrote:
.... Can anyone in the
chess audience recommend some sources and/or definitions of piece
coordination that are instructive and useful? ....

Only by example.

If you have a bishop and some pawns, it is generally better for the pawns
and the bishop to be on opposite color squares. If they're all on the same
color, you have no control over the squares of the other color.

As an example, if you have king, bishop, d-pawn, and e-pawn, vs your
opponent's king and bishop, with your and your opponent's bishops on
opposite color squares, as soon as you put both of your pawns on the same
color as your bishop, usually your winning chances vanish. All your
opponent has to do is occupy the key squares of the opposite color with his
K and B, and there's nothing you can do. If, by contrast, you leapfrog your
pawns, keeping them on the opposite color from your bishop, you usually have
good winning chances.

Another example: a knight and a bishop work best together if they are on
the SAME color, because then they control squares of opposite colors,
leaving fewer "holes" nearby for your opponent's king to penetrate. If you
look at any of the textbook solutions to K+B+N vs K , you'll find that
the moves of the knight generally come in pairs, so that the B and N are on
the same color most of the time.

Similarly, of course, a knight and two (or more) pawns work best if the N
and P's are all on the same color.

A classic example of a king and knight working together to fend off a queen
is: K on d3, N on d4, opponent's queen on d5. In this position, the queen
has NO checks (worthy of the name) at all. Knights are good defenders
against queens!

Bill Smythe

"Bill Smythe" wrote in message
...
"drummerman" wrote:
.... Can anyone in the
chess audience recommend some sources and/or definitions of piece
coordination that are instructive and useful? ....

IMHO: Try to understand the dynamic of Relative Value of each Chessmen and
Squares Value as the game progresses (therefore varies from a given position
to the next) coordination among pieces and their relation to the squares
would then be intuitive.

Second, try to figure out what those evaluation number mean and how a Chess
Playing Program derived it (An area if well documented could help a Chess
Player improve his game I suppose. Anyone know better of how the evaluation
algorithm worked?). For a given position not all Chess Playing Programs gave
the same evaluation point (otherwise a relatively same point but lost the
game, why?)

HTH.



snip

A classic example of a king and knight working together to fend off a
queen
is: K on d3, N on d4, opponent's queen on d5. In this position, the
queen
has NO checks (worthy of the name) at all. Knights are good defenders
against queens!

Where is my (winnning) Black King?... Bill Smythe, how could you??? Leaving
the Queen unattained by her King but only the enemy Knight and King.

CHESS VULGARISM at its best. ;-)



Bill Smythe

you need to play more, then you'll twig what piece coordination is - you'll
get a game where all your pieces seem to be on great squares, the tactics
just seem to flow and everything seems to work. Thats piece coordination

IMHO the pieces are like your army, they all have to go into battle together
and help each other reach the same end.
Beginners tend to have a couple of pieces working (usually for a cheap mate)
and all the other pieces sitting and watching from their original squares.



"drummerman" wrote in message
om...
Neil McDonald, in his book on the Middlegame, states that Piece
Coordination is the most important principle in chess. The problem is
that the concept Piece Coordination is abstruse. About the only
definition I could locate was in Hooper & Whyld: "the action of a
player's pieces when they work together." Duh! Can anyone in the
chess audience recommend some sources and/or definitions of piece
coordination that are instructive and useful? Any help would be
appreciated.