Best chess strategies

In chess one cannot name any strategy as the best or the worst as it may work differently in different kinds of situations. But one can term a strategy as an advanced one depending upon level of out of the box thinking used to create the strategy.

Lasker – Bauer combination is considered one of the advanced strategy for the same reason. This strategy was first played by Emanuel lasker in a game between him and johann bauer in Amsterdam .1889.It is famous for the tactic used by lasker to sacrifice both of his bishops to open up the pawn cover made by bauer around the king. Lasker used his bishop to force bauer to give up his queen to save himself from checkmate. This forking of two bishops denies the compensation for the bauer’s queen thereby giving lasker decisive material advantage which he uses to eventually to win the game. Strategies similar have been used on numerous occasions over the decades like in games between Nimzovich-Tarrasch, St Petersburg 1914; Miles-Browne, Lucerne 1982; and Polgar-Karpov, 7th Essent 2003.

Even though naming a strategy as the best is very difficult in the deceptive game of chess, this Lasker – Bauer combination is considered to be one of the best chess strategies of all time by many chess players. Another strategy that is ranked as one of the best is Boden’s mate which is a checkmating pattern characterized by two bishops on criss-crossing diagonals with possible flight squares of the king being on the range of friendly pieces. In this situation most often the king has castled queenside and is mated on another square. This strategy was developed by Samuel boden who played this game in Schulder-Boden, London 1853.