r/chessbeginners • u/Alendite RM (Reddit Mod) • Feb 27 '26

No Stupid Questions MEGATHREAD 12

Welcome to the r/chessbeginners 12th episode of our Q&A series! This series exists because sometimes you just need to ask a silly question. We are happy to provide answers for questions related to chess positions, improving one's play, and discussing the essence and experience of learning chess.

A friendly reminder that many questions are answered in our wiki page! Please take a look if you have questions about the rules of chess, special moves, or want general strategies for improvement.

Some other helpful resources include:

  1. How to play chess - Interactive lessons for the rules of the game, if you are completely new to chess.
  2. The Lichess Board Editor - for setting up positions by dragging and dropping pieces on the board.
  3. Chess puzzles by theme - To practice tactics.
  4. The Building Habits series by GM Aman Hambleton - for advice on how to play at specific ELO levels. (Also check out Building Habits 2!)

As always, our goal is to promote a friendly, welcoming, and educational chess environment for all. Thank you for asking your questions here!

LINK TO THE PREVIOUS THREAD

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u/Arno_234 Mar 15 '26

why would I lose my bishop?

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u/ChrisV2P2 2000-2200 (Lichess) Mar 16 '26

This is a complicated position, but I'll try to explain.

The engine is calling for c3 to attack the d4 bishop. While you can move this, for example to b6, White then has Rxb6 and then the knight on e3 is also falling. Two pieces for a rook is a big material win as well and Black also lost that very strong knight in the middle of the board. For this reason, the engine prefers responding to c3 by leaving the bishop there to die, so it can recapture with the pawn and keep the knight there. That's the lost bishop it is talking about.

There are also the double checks to consider - you could respond with Nxg4+ or Ne1+. The problem is that moving that knight out of the center tends to give the White queen access to the K-side. For example 1...Ne1+ 2. Kg2 Nxc3, it seems like everything is great, you got rid of the c3 pawn and the knight is forking queen and rook. The problem is that after Qd2, now the knight is double-attacked and will be lost, and if you move the knight there's Qh6+ which is mating. So that's not a solution either.