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Subject: Re: New computer chess book now available from Gambit

Author: Robin Smith

Date: 09:19:31 05/27/04

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On May 26, 2004 at 16:20:58, Mike Taylor wrote:

>
>Two of the Chapter topics are:
>
>1) King Drift
>
>2) Prison
>
>Can someone inform me what these concepts are in chess.  I thought I had a good
>foundation for the game until now -:)

Hi Mike,

Neither of these terms is in pre-existing chess literature. Your foundation is
fine. :-)

A "prison" is a term I use to describe certain structures that involve
permanently immobilizing one or more pieces. I think the traditional term
"trapped piece" is typically only applied to pieces that are contained in some
way (most often by pawns), where attempting to leave the trap will result in
capture of the trapped piece. I have not seen the term trapped piece applied to
situations where they cannot move beyond a certain range due to pins or other
threats, even when those threats are permanent in nature. My intension is for
the term prison to be more generally applicable to any form of permanently
immobilized piece(s). For example, in a king and pawn ending where one of the
kings must stay within a certain area to prevent a pawn promotion, that king is
in a prison, but not trapped. Plus I think a chapter on "prisons" sounds better
than a chapter on "trapped pieces".

"King drift" is a term coined by a friend of mine many years ago, that describes
gradual king attack buildups of the kind that are particularly effective against
computers. As I'm sure most of the readers here are aware, you slowly drift your
pieces and pawns towards the enemy king (or with long range pieces, aiming at
the enemy king). Traditionally people would call it a gradual king-side buildup,
or preparation for a king attack, or some such. I liked my friend’s term, "king
drift".


Robin



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