Hello all,

SO I was playing the other day, and I made a move; can't quite remember the exact details, but I ended up losing a bishop, but in doing to, forced my opponent to move his kingside rook, thus preventing him from being able to castle.

So my questions are: 1: was this a good exchange on my part, and 2: if so, where would you draw the line when it comes to pieces you would be willing to lose to keep your opponent from being able to Castle.

Thanks

Without being a strong chess player, I'm pretty confident the answer here is going to be "it depends". But it's not worth sacrificing a bishop unless you have a huge attack ready to unleash on the uncastled king. How volatile was the position?

Unless you have a very forcing, immediate attack, this is usually not worth it. But as always, "it depends."

Not very. It was early in the match, and I think I just overvalued preventing my opponent from castling.

Yeah, definitely not worth it then. In some positions the king can still be relatively safe staying in the center, and if not, your opponent might have the option of taking a few moves to castle by hand (move up the king, move the rook out of the corner, then move the king into the castled position).

just setup a position, allow castling, leave houdini on for a few minutes. then uncheck the castle allowed and see how the evaluation changes.

Normally, material is quite important so if anyone is sacrificing even a pawn, there must some form of compensation. Usually, if a sacrifice of a piece is sound, there is a strong attack resulting in either checkmate or getting back the sacrificed material ( or most of it ) with a decent position; that's why it's important to analyze positions to some depth. Now I realize you're just starting out, but it would help you considerably to practice tactical exercises, no matter how easy/difficult they are and make notes where you tend to overlook possible candidate moves, so practice, practice, practice!

When players are < 1800, it's simply important to hold on to your material ( not hang pieces, pawns, etc. ); of course, if you're up material after the dust has settled ( there's no tangible threats, etc. ), you may need some technique to convert whatever material/positional advantage(s) there are. You can't sacrifice even a pawn if after the initiative peters out, you're just left with a bad ending or a position where the natural course of events will lead to one. Usually, the material advantage of two pawns is decisive and being down a piece for almost nothing is considered losing; exceptions will include endings/fortresses/closed positions.

there are some openings that sacrificing a piece to keep the king in the middle of the board is a good play. some lines in the king's gambit for example. however, it is definitely better to hold onto the material in general.

I like Silman's beginner instruction a lot so here we go once again http://www.jeremysilman.com/chess_in...chess_und.html