Is It Safe?

Hey!  You guys on the lower boards . . .

STOP HANGING YOUR PIECES!!!!  

Ahhh . . .  It felt good to get that out of my system.  

There are very few players in the Mid-Suburban League who do not hang a piece from time to time, but the players on the upper boards do it much less frequently than the players on the lower boards.  When a 1st or 2nd Board hangs a piece it is usually because he overlooked an attack on his piece.  when a 7th or 8th Board hangs a piece, it is often because piece safety is not a habitual part of his thought process.   The 7th or 8th Board may be perfectly capable of figuring out whether a piece is safe or not, but he only bothers to do so intermittently.

As usual, my favorite source of advice is Dan Heisman's Novice Nook column at ChessCafe.com   I recommend reading The Safety Table.