Earlier in the ABC’s of Getting Out of Check, three methods were given to get out of check: abandoning the square that is under attack, blocking the attack of the checking piece, and capturing the attacker. These are the only three methods that the king can employ to get out of check. However, when other pieces than the king are under attack, three additional methods of avoiding capture may be possible. For completeness, I’ll refresh your memory with the earlier mentioned options while presenting the other three methods, dubbing the presentation the alphabet of responding to attacks because it is based upon a alphabetized mnemonic.

In general, you have six methods of responding to attacks upon your pieces (other than the king):

p Abandoning the attacked square,
p Blocking the attacker,
p Capturing the attacker,
p Defending the piece,
p Enriching the tactics by counter attack, and
p Failing to respond.

The method failing to respond may not be as it bad as it superficially sounds–as long as you actually see that your piece is attacked. You may have a valid reason for not moving the piece, such as a sacrifice. Therefore, when your opponent seemingly fails to respond to your attack, consider that he might be baiting you to take the piece before you gobble it up!

An attack upon your piece by a pawn, the lowest-valued unit, reasonably allows you but four of the options because all the pieces are higher-valued than the pawn. Therefore it is not often that one defends a piece attacked by a pawn when the piece can simply abandon the square. Likewise, defense is generally not an option when any lower-valued piece attacks a higher one because the exchange is generally favorable to the attacker. For example, who does not rush to move their queen when a rook attacks it or backs off their rook when a bishop threatens it? Of course there are always exceptions! And it is knowledge of when to take exception to the rule that distinguishes the better player. Diagrams 1 and 2 [not shown on web page] of the following page illustrate a couple of such exceptions. In Diag. 1 [not shown on web page], White is simply restoring material equality; in Diag. 2 [not shown on web page], White fears that moving the knight will allow a mating attack to dissect him before he gets his pieces out.

Because the option of failing to respond to an attack is well understood, this option will not be illustrated. Too, if one truly does not respond to an attack, it is because one did not see it. We will illustrate some instances where the player appears to be failing to respond to an attack but has a very good reason for seemingly ignoring his piece’s plight. Most of these instances are cases of counter attack or enriching the tactics.

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