Surf Wiki
Save to docs
general/chess-tactics

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Windmill (chess)

Chess tactic

Summary

Chess tactic

In chess, a windmill (or seesaw) is a tactic in which a piece repeatedly gains while simultaneously creating an inescapable series of alternating direct and discovered checks. Because the opponent must attend to check every move, they are unable to prevent their pieces from being captured; thus, windmills, while very rare, tend to be extremely powerful.

A windmill most commonly consists of a rook supported by a bishop. The bishop typically sits on the long diagonal (see Fianchetto), while the rook moves to the seventh (White) or second (Black) rank and checks the king, who is forced to the corner due to a friendly piece (usually a knight, but it can also be another rook) blocking it. Moving the rook leads to a discovered check by the bishop, giving the player a tempo by forcing their opponent to move the king. The rook then moves back to its original spot, and the process repeats until no more pieces can be captured. Windmills can also be done with other pieces, as seen in the Game of the Century.

Examples

Torre vs. Lasker

| tright | |rd| | | |rd|nd|kd| |pd|bd| | | |pd|pd| | | | |pd|pd| | |pd | |qd| | | | |bl|ql | |pl| |pl| | | | | | | | |nl| |rl| |pl| | | | |pl|pl|pl | | | | |rl| |kl| | White to make his 25th move In the position diagrammed, from the game Carlos Torre–Emanuel Lasker, Moscow 1925, White sacrifices his queen in order to set up the windmill:

: 25. Bf6

Black must accept the sacrifice, as his own queen is unprotected, 25...g5 26.Qxh6 leads to unstoppable mate on g7 or h8, and any other attempt to stop the windmill would simply give White the queen.

: 25... Qxh5 26. Rxg7+ Kh8 27. Rxf7+

White gives discovered check by the bishop.

: 27... Kg8 28. Rg7+ Kh8 29. Rxb7+

White simply repeats the checking cycle, capturing as many pieces as he can with his rook.

: 29... Kg8 30. Rg7+ Kh8 31. Rg5+ Kh7 32. Rxh5

White concludes the windmill by taking the black queen. Black forked White's rook and bishop with 32... Kg6, but White still emerged three pawns ahead after 33.Rh3 Kxf6 34.Rxh6+ and went on to win.

Byrne vs. Fischer

| tright | |rd| | | |rd| |kd| |pd|pd| | | |pd|bd|pd | |qd|pd| | | |pd| | | |bl| | | | | | | |bl|pl| | |bd| |ql| |nd| | |nl| | |pl| | | | |pl|pl|pl | | | |rl| |kl| |rl | Black to make his 17th move The Game of the Century featured a windmill involving a knight and a bishop. The game continued from the diagrammed position as follows:

: 17... Be6!!

Black sacrifices his queen in order to initiate an attack.

: 18. Bxb6

Accepting the sacrifice allows Black to set up the windmill.

: 18... Bxc4+ 19. Kg1 Ne2+ 20. Kf1 Nxd4+ 21. Kg1 Ne2+ 22. Kf1 Nc3+ 23. Kg1 axb6

Black emerges with an overwhelming advantage.

References

References

  1. Edward Winter. "The Chess Seesaw".
  2. [[David Hooper (chess player). David Hooper]] and [[Kenneth Whyld]], ''[[The Oxford Companion to Chess]]'' (2nd ed. 1992), Oxford University Press, p. 363. {{ISBN. 0-19-866164-9.
  3. "Carlos Torre Repetto vs. Emanuel Lasker, Moscow (1925)".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

chess-tactics chess-terminology
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Windmill (chess) — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report