General Question

Eggie's avatar

How do prevent from losing a game of chess when my opponent trades queens with me?

Asked by Eggie (5926points) December 24th, 2010

In most of my games now I have noticed that whenever I have the upper hand the opponent annoyingly decides to trades queens with me. After that he just trades pieces with me until he can get a pass pawn and promote to a queen and I end up losing the game. Do any of you chess players have some tips to help me improve my games?

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6 Answers

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poisonedantidote's avatar

Well, obviously it depends totally on the individual game. There are no special all purpose moves to help you out on this one.

You could always try and work it so that his queen is pinned, make it so he cant trade queens without putting him self in check.

You could also take the iniciative and take your opponent’s queen first. However I suspect the queen is not the main problem. This sounds more like you have the habbit of getting in to bad positions, that cause you to be down on material once the exchange beginns.

I would recommend you look in to your openings some more, and have a look at some gambits and traps that you could set.

Paradox's avatar

There is no way anybody could explain to you how to do this over the net. I can give you some basic advice however. Try to castle as early as you can (castling kingside is quicker). Try to prevent an early queen exchange that will prevent you from castling (especially when the majority/or all of the other pieces/pawns are on the board yet. Try to avoid having one of your other pieces/pawns getting “pinned” to your queen.

I would suggest any of the chessmaster games for your pc or ps2 (I’m not sure if they have a version for ps3 out yet). You can practice games against alot of different AI personalities which vary greatly from very easy all the way up to super hard. These games also have a great step by step tutorial to specifically designed for helping beginners to improve their game. If you don’t know how to play chess at all they will even show you how. Not a bad investment for less than $20 if chess is important to you.

Nullo's avatar

Avoid trading queens. Free up some space around your important pieces and try to keep your heavy hitters out of range of your opponent’s heavy hitters. Consider what your opponent has on the field, and what it can do.
If the queen trade is happening early in the game, the solution might be as simple as picking a different opening move. I’ve had a lot of success with deploying the knights first, to cover further sorties.

Paradox's avatar

@Nullo That center pawn exchange in the beginning of the game in which the queen file is open which will usually lead to a queen exchange in which the white king is forced to take the queen which prevents castling was the one situation I had in mind. Now you have an uncastled king stuck in the middle of the board with the center pawns gone with all of the other pieces (both rooks/minor pieces) still in the game. I forget what they call that move set, it’s considered some type of gambit but not a good one.

@EGGIE Watch out for the fishing pole trap if you’re white or the costage as well if you’re white as well. I will post these two traps if I can find them. I’m much more familiar playing as black over white.

Paradox's avatar

@EGGIE If you’re playing as white watch out for these two common traps (where the opponent gives you “free” material early). Fishing pole and the costage.

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