in general, the material value of a queen is higher than that of a rook
+ knight/bishop. But it really depends on the positon as well as on
the dynamics (tempo gain, combination, etc..).
Who needs a queen, or even queen + rook + knight, if you can
checkmate with a pawn?
sin.
For the benifit of those who have never seen it before, the list of
relative piece values:
Pawn: 1
Knight: 3
Bishop: 3 (some consider it slightly stronger)
Rook: 5
Queen: 9
King: Infinite
Thus, Rook+Knight = 8 but Queen = 9, so in general it's probably not
worth it.
However, throw a pawn into the deal and you're technically equal since
R+N+P = 9 too. The question in this sort of situation is: "Which option
fits in with my strengths as a player?"
Some people would rather have a rook, knight, and extra pawn. Some
people feel more comfortable with a queen at their command.
Personally, it's easier for me to calculate possible tactical tricks with
just a queen, rather than all three pieces. Plus, I think it would be
easier for me in the long run to win the pawn back with my queen. My
style may not be the same as yours. You may want to take the queen.
As a side note, I seem to recall that a number of Fischer's games
finished with a R+N+P vs. Q type of ending. I think he usually chose
to keep the Queen.
--Rein
As always, your mileage may vary.
PS. Ever try to pronounce "mileage" the way it's written?
Hi!
As gilbert said: It all depends on the position. The numerial value of
pieces are very relative. B & N same value? Yes & No. Again it depends
on the position. As a general rule Knights feel very much at home in
closed positions (they can 'jump', can't they?). Bishops on the other
hand like open positions, preferably with long diagonals to move
along across the board.
I've always been taught, e.g., that when your opponent has the
Bishop-pair and you have B+N, it's advisable -if the opportunity
occurs, that is- to exchange your Knight for one of the opponent's
Bishops.
By the way... Try to pronounce the word 'eschew' as it is written! Many
englis native tongues don't know! Jan
Jan,
I usually end up in positions where Bishops are more useful, so I tend
to try to hold on to them in the openings.
Funny thing is, if you're in a position where you're down a pawn (or
two) but have the bishop pair to the opponents B+N, you can many
times simplify to a drawn ending by exchanging your like colored
(same color as opponents) bishop for a knight. Opposing bishop
endings are notoriously drawn, even w/ extra pawns thrown in. So it all
depends on the position and what you hope to get out of the game. A
half point is always better than none.
Then again, it's a good thing that a pawn difference isn't usually a
winning advantage at the level I play at... 😉
--Rein
Amazing. How did you learn to speak/write such good English?
Eschew is quite a formal word in English, and not especially common or well-known. I
imagine most people would use 'shunned' or 'rejected' in the context of your maxim. In fact,
I asked my dad about it, and he didn't seem to know exactly what it meant, let alone how to
pronounce it!
I did know how to say 'eschew' and what it meant (:-P), though I did have to look it up to be
sure.
Spelling and pronunciation are a nightmare, even for native English speakers. Eg: say
'hideous', then say 'hideout'. Only the last letter is different. Or how about the name of the
town I live in: 'Loughborough'!
Also, are Bishops 'runners' and Knights 'jumpers' in Flemish? Just guessing based on German.
Being a speaker of American English, I would have to say that most
people who use English as a second language and people from the UK
know far more vocabulary and pronunciation than us Americans. I
would have to guess that 80% of all Americans would not know what
eschew means. My theory is that it comes from watching too much TV
(lol)
Hello America, good morning! I've just read your post after having
replied to Acolyte's.
That we, for whom English is our second language, know more
vocabularly, etc. will only be partly true. Very partly, I think. All
depends on your level of education (please, no one should take
offence!, see below). The difficulty is that America & England (or
should I say UK, GB?) are two countries divided by the same
language. I, for one, often find it difficult, if not impossible, to
understand what's put forward here at the RHP Forums, because of the
language used. American, Canadian slang I suppose.
Is TV to blame? Definitely 'yes'. But that's not an exclusively American
problem. The same in Europe, you know. It all depends on what
you're watching. Most people -and are they really to blame?- opt for
the easy way. Soaps, soaps, soaps... Big Brother, silly sitcoms, et al...
Personally I find all this sheer rubbish, a waste of my valuable time...
Millions & millions enjoy 'easy television' after a working-day. No, it's
not America. However, I don't know what American television stations
have to offer, really. Here there's also a lot of rubbish on tele (that is
English English slang I suppose). I suppose there's no public stations
in the US, like we have in European countries, next to the commercial
stations. The latter need the income from advertising and therefore
only the rating figures count. So, they only offer/produce the, so to
speak 'easy-to-watch' programmes. A public broadcasting company
(BBC to name one known to you) are not that much 'hunted' by
ratings. This gives them the opportunity to produce 'quality
programmes', news can't be influenced or (worse) 'doctored' by
advertisers. You see, the same goes for the printed press as well, of
course. Daily I receive (free!) The New York Times, The Independent
and The Guardian. I can read teh Arab News and -to keep the balance-
The Jerusalem Post. But I don't (just can't) read the 'tabloids',
although a Page 3 Girl (Teh Sun, england) would always be welcome
to cheer up this tired old man! LOL!
I'll have my linch now. cheerio! Jan
USA does have some public television, called "PBS" - The Public Broadcasting
System. Some percentage of the budget is public, they rest is raised via
corporate sponsers and viewer pledge drives. However, the public part of the
budget is always under fire, generally by conservative politicians unhappy with
the program content.
Though they do not run commercials, they get to run "acknowledgements" for
sponsers before and after shows (Am I the only American to learn how much the
company Arthur Daniel Midland has done to "feed the world" just from watching
those 2 minute PBS spots time and time again?). And the pledge drives last days
or weeks, during which there are 45 minutes of "why you should send money" for
every 15 minutes of show, several times a year.
The quality and depth of the shows is somewhat higher than commercial tv. But
still often mediocre (there are a few gems). I've found that if I actually want
in depth coverage, with even a modicum of analysis, of current events
(especially international), I tune into Canadian TV or listen to BBC
rebroadcasts. Embarrassingly, I've often learned more details about solely
domestic issues from the international news sources than from local sources.
Morning Aco! Yes, in English there's quite a difference in what
you 'see' (read) and what you 'get' (hear/say). E.g.: 'lieutenant'
(=French) you pronounce in (British) English 'lef'tenant'. Search me!
In American English it's 'lu'tenant'.
'Eschew', by the way, has Dutch/Flemish roots (as many more words in
English, actually: 'apartheid' is proper & original Dutch - 'rucksack' =
the Dutch 'rugzak' with the same meaning). 'Eschew' stems from the
Dutch ''schuwen' (you notice the likeness? - and means exacltly the
same, but expresses utter disgust. Be careful with words that have
the 'same meaning'! The nuances may differ quite often. They are not
always just synonysms.
Why my English is 'so good'? Good heavens, I wish it were still as
good as far back as in the late 60s & early 70s! I just happened to be
lucky: 1. A tremendously competent & dedicated teacher at high-
school. 2. When I was 17 (1957!!) I met a Canadian in my hometown,
Antwerp. He was well-educated, studying medicine at a Belgian
university. He taught me some chess (he managed to beat me
blindfolded!). He showed me the way to philosophy, developing one's
mind, literature, etc. This meant -we met almost daily- he became
sort of father to me. You see, I've never known my dad; he died in
World War II. The Canadian, Morton Daniel Elman (I wish I knew
whether or not he's still alive and his whereabouts!), was twice my age.
This son-father relationship had a very nice side-effect: I was listening
to and speaking English on an educated level almost daily and for
many hours.
When I'd done my service, I left for London and there I lived, worked
and (self)studied in 1963-1964. I was a civil servant (not so evident
then!) for the London County Council (City of London College,
Moorgate, EC2). Life being so scandalously expensive in London, I did
my bit of suffering from famine, cold flats, no money for electricity,
thus no reading in the dark of winter, etc. But I didn't want to go back
home, without 'something of value' (actually, I'd ran off from home
with an Antwerp lass -my pet-name for An was Little White Rabbit- to
Paris, where we stayed a bit and then she travelled on to North Africa
and I to my 'Beloved England'. At the office my English, which was
already very good then, I listened to, spoke, read and wrote...
English. After a while, I was thinking in English and had to translate
my English thoughts either into my native Dutch or French, whenever
the situation called for it. My goal was the Cambridge Diploma English
Language & English Litarature (self-study). As a test, just to see where
I stood, I first took my Royal Society of Arts Exam English for
Foreigners, without studying for a minute. I succeeded in getting that
bit of paper, 1st Class Award. So, now I knew where I stood and what
to study for the Cambridge. I took the exam and succeeded, receiving
good marks.
By that time my English was better than my Dutch, for which I always
had the best marks in high-school, though. During my career, first as
a shipping clerk, and from 1968 on as an advertising
copywriter/account-executive I used both English & Dutch intensively. I
mean: CORRECT & creative Dutch & English. Alas! In, 1989 the agency
closed the books (we were a daughter company of Bell Telephone/ITT,
who were then taken over by the French Alcatel (who are doing very
poorly I've read in financial papers) and Paris Headquarters decided
that Bell/ITT had to sell all non-telecom daughter-companies). I was
out of work and only managed to get a job (being 49 already!) in a
special statute for unemployed people. You work full-time in a full-
value job. If I translate this literally from Dutch: one is a 'Subsidised
Contractant', but you only get a small pay-cheque at he end of the
month. Because of all this I lost my daily contact with the English
language for many years and by now it's gone quite rusty. Of course,
it's still better than just 'good'. Mind you, when in England they
wouldn't believe me I was a foreigner. But that's normal: I studied the
language much more in-depth than the average English. Also the
vocabularly I used was above average. After all, not all English read
William Golding, D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Malcolm Lowry, G.B
Shaw, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Shakespeare (of course) and, my
alltime favourite Lawrence Durrell (years ago The Times Literary
Supplement in a review wrote: "Mr Durrell is not capable of writing one
single dull sentence" - if I were a writer, I'd be quite happy and
flattered with just that one excerpt!).
By the way, that 'ersatz'-job from 1989-1991 (I retired on 1 November
then) was lowly paid, but after all very interesting: I was working -
again!- as a civil servant for the council of a small town near Antwerp
on what we here call the 'Municipal Information Service', where I
learned to work with the computer, writing (Dutch) articles, doing the
pre-press work for brochures, magazines, folders, posters, flyers, etc.
with the software programme Adobe Pagemaker 6.0. Job okay, pay
not, while colleagues in a 'normal stature! being paid much more,
rsulting in a far better pension's pay-cheque. So much for equality!
That's why I now have to live on a small pension on wich I can't afford
many things I was used to in the passed. Still... I'm not complaining,
really. I've got my PC, my chess-club, my Web-friends. Actually, I
took up chess (again, but I never played it seriously before and
hadn't touched a piece for years) only more or less seriously since last
November. It's too late by now to study the game upto a standard
that would match my ambitions. So be it.
Sorry for babbling on for so long. Lonely old men sometimes tend to
do that. Sincere apologies.
Jan
PS
From all this it should be obvious I'm an Anglophile and, whatever my
level, a fervent chess-enthusiast.
Very interesting, Jan. I am afraid that, compared to this, I have only
a very rudimentary knowledge of the English language.
I work for Alcatel HQ in Paris, but based in Antwerp (Bell Telephone as
you mentioned). It is a tough time indeed - headcount worldwide
going down from 130 000 to 60 000 and we are only halfway that
path. But, if its any consolation, we believe all the others in the sector
are doing worse, and we expect to emerge as n°1 in telecom when
demand starts to grow again, which inevitably will happen soner (I
hope) or later.