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correct moves to a problem by
setting his level to 73, and then
pressing the
MOVE key.
8.3 Opening book trainer:
learning book openings
the easy way, with King
Arthur’s help
One of the most stunning
innovations of King Arthur is
his special ability to teach you
“book openings.” Book open-
ings are the beginning patterns
of moves that have been worked
out by chess masters over the
centuries as the best ways to
begin a game. Previously, play-
ers had to spend tedious hours
searching out lines of play from
hard-to-follow columns in
books.
This practice required a confus-
ing process of looking back and
forth between a book and a
chessboard. But with your King
Arthur’s special training feature,
you’ll find yourself learning the
openings extremely quickly,
saving yourself many hours—
and having fun while you learn!
Use this training mode as often
as you wish—keep improving
your knowledge of opening
play!
At the beginning of a game,
you may choose to learn one of
34 popular book openings. Press
ENGLISH
Make your first move. Your
object, as in regular chess, is to
checkmate the king. Normally,
this means both sides will try to
force a pawn through to the
other side of the board safely to
promote it to a queen. You’ll
learn lots of principles, tricks,
and traps in this training mode
that will win you many full-
fledged chess games!
The mating-practice
positions
To win at chess, you have to
know how to checkmate! Just
knowing that you have enough
material to mate doesn’t earn
you the point. King Arthur’s
mating-practice exercises will
make sure you know the tech-
niques.
After pressing
MODE until
“
TrAIn” appears, again press >
until you come to positions
without pawns and with the
Black king in the middle of the
board. These are the mate-train-
ing positions. The three different
mate-training positions give
White, besides his king, either
two bishops, two rooks, or the
queen. These are excellent exer-
cises, used by the greatest chess
teachers in the world. In all three
positions you can force mate in a
number of ways. Work on these
mate-training exercises until
you can mate Black efficiently.
8.2 Mate-problem training
You can further hone your
checkmating skills and have fun
at the same time by solving the
32 separate problems available
on King Arthur. At the start of a
game, press
MODE
until “MATE”
is displayed. Then press > or <
to select the problem you’d like
to solve. Problems 1-31 are
mate-in-two problems, which
means White can force mate in
two moves. There may or may
not be other ways to win, but
you’re looking for the two
moves that will result in check-
mate. Most of the time, the first
of these moves is the hardest to
find. Problem 32 is a mate-in-
three.
If you can’t find the solution,
make King Arthur show you the
26
ENGLISH
ALL OF THESE TRAINING MODES CAN BE MADE EVEN
MORE EFFECTIVE BY COMBINING THEM WITH OTHER
TEACHING FEATURES OF
KING ARTHUR:
A
SK FOR A HINT ANY TIME IT’S YOUR MOVE.
G
ET KING ARTHUR’S POSITION SCORE.
(S
EE SECTION 3.8.)
S
WITCH SIDES WHEN YOU WANT TO PRACTICE
FROM THE
BLACK SIDE.
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