2/13/2025 – Imagine that you are at a party. A person you are talking to is just speaking endlessly. It feels like they will never stop, and there is only one thought in your head: "How can I interrupt this person before I go deaf?" Changing the course of a conversation is sometimes a tricky task. Changing the course of a chess game might be similarly challenging, but not for those who know the noble art of intermediate moves! | Photo: Christine Schmidt, Pixabay
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These moves are more frequent than club players usually think, but they are not always simple to find. To do so, you must resist the tyranny of the obvious. Of course, we all have an in-built chess autopilot: an exchange should be completed, a piece that is attacked should retreat.
The trick is to be conscious even at these seemingly obvious and almost automatic decisions. It does not cost you a lot of time, and only a tiny bit of mental energy. And the results – as you will soon see – can be very visible.
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The first example is from the Tata Steel tournament 2025. Caruana was White against Van Foreest and had to solve a seemingly difficult question. How should he deal with the pin of the c4-knight?
Caruana's solution was very elegant. He played 21.Qc2, and after 21…Bxc4 he resisted the urge to answer with the obvious recapture. Instead, he played 22.Qxc3, creating a pin on his own!
Now Black should have played 22…Qb4, and after 23.Qxc4 Qxc4 24.bxc4 f6! (Another pin!) the position would be equal. Instead, Van Foreest did not resist to play an intermediate move on his own, and after 22…Bb6 23.Be3 Qb4 24.Qxc4 he started to experience some problems in the defence.
Nota bene: Not every intermediate move is automatically good!
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In the second example, White needs to tame Black's dangerous counterplay.
Kasparov-Shirov, Match Russia-The World 2002, White to play:
Kasparov is a pawn up, but his task is far from easy. Black threatens not only to open the queenside, but also to sac a piece, blowing White's mighty centre in the air. I have tested this position in several coaching sessions and can confirm that most players under 2200 Elo points struggle with it.
However, not Kasparov. He played the self-confident 17.b5!. Black's possible knight sacrifices are now refuted with two different intermediate moves. After 17…Nxe5 White responds 18.Bf4!. Therefore, Shirov chose 17…Nxc5. And he ran into an even more beautiful intermediate move, 18.Bf6!.
The h8-bishop is hanging, and after 18…Bxf6 19.exf6 the e7-knight is hanging. Therefore, White will be a piece up in the following fight. In the following course of the game, Shirov tried to stir things up, but Kasparov returned the piece and won easily. Worth seeing!
17.b5Nxc517...Nxe518.Bf418.Bf6Bxf619.exf6Ng820.dxc5d421.Nf3!dxc322.Qxc3Qf423.g5and White winsRd824.bxc6bxc625.Rd1Rxd1+26.Bxd1Qe4+27.Kf1Bh528.Qb3Qf429.Qb7Qc4+30.Ke11–0
Let us stay with the chess giants. In the following position, Magnus Carlsen contemplated how to cash in material without allowing too much counterplay.
Carlsen-Aronian, Norway Chess 2015, White to move:
White is a pawn down, but that is not an issue. More important is that the f5-rook is pinned. Should White grab it at once with 36.Nh4, or play an intermediate move 36.Rc2 first, so that the f2-pawn is not hanging?
In the post-mortem it transpired that 36.Nh4! is enough for a win, because after 36…Qxf2 White can play 37.Nxf5 exf5 and 38.Rc2!. Only this intermediate move wins.
Carlsen decided to "go safe" and played 36.Rc2. However, now Black gets an unexpected chance. After 36…Qb8! (Aronian played the weaker 36…Qa1?) 37.Nh4 the diagrammed position arises:
Now it is Black's time to play a killer intermediate move. After 37…Rd4! the rook is taboo (38.Qxd4?? Ne2+) and White has to bail out with another intermediate move 38.Rc8!. After 39…Qxc8 40.Qxd4 Rf6 the position is about equal.
The last example is exceptional. Black ignores that his queen is attacked for full four moves!
Praggnanandhaa – Abdusattorov, Tata Steel 2025, Black to move:
A truly wild position with opposite castlings. Although 23…Qc6 is good for Black, Abdusattorov decided not to lose momentum and played 23…b3!?. After 24.Qxb3 came another intermediate move 24…Nc5. The game continued 25.Qa2 Nd3+ 26.Kb1 Bxf5!
The queen simply refuses to retreat! Now White finally took it: 27.Bxa6. However, after …Nd3-b4xa2 was on the verge of losing.
You probably noticed that two out of four examples in this article were from the same tournament, Tata Steel 2025. This nicely shows that intermediate moves are far from rare. Surely you will be able to find them in your games as well.
Sometimes it is enough to ask a few simple questions:
My piece is taken. Should I retake it, or can I do something more important?
My piece is attacked. Should I retreat it, or can I attack something else?
My opponent threatens something. Do I need to parry the threat, or can I create a threat on my own?
Let us learn together how to find the best spot for the queen in the early middlegame, how to navigate this piece around the board, how to time the queen attack, how to decide whether to exchange it or not, and much more!
Jan MarkosJan Markos is a Slovakian chess author, trainer, and grandmaster. His book Under the Surface was the English Chess Federation´s 2018 Book of the Year. His last book, The Secret Ingredient, co-authored with David Navara, focuses on the practical aspects of play, e.g. time-management over the board, how to prepare against a specific opponent, or how to use chess engines during the training process.
Markos was the U16 European Champion twenty years ago. At present he helps his pupils from several countries to achieve similar successes. Apart from focusing on the royal game, he is also the author of several non-chess books, focused on critical thinking, moral dilemmas, and phenomenology.
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