{"id":15464,"date":"2025-12-01T20:23:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/aesops-chess-fable\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:48:11","slug":"aesops-chess-fable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/aesops-chess-fable\/","title":{"rendered":"Aesop\u2019s chess fable"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

In Aesop\u2019s \u201cFour Oxen and the Lion,\u201d the oxen keep the lion away by joining forces and locking horns. After a quarrel, the oxen split up, and the lion ate them one by one. This fable is the origin of the adage \u201cUnited we stand, divided we fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this week\u2019s position, white\u2019s rooks are divided, and their king sits between them, breaking their link. With this hint in mind please try to find how black wins a pawn.<\/p>\n

Black\u2019s rook on e5 is under siege by white\u2019s f4 pawn. The rook has several escape squares but best is for the rook to capture white\u2019s pawn on d5. If white\u2019s rook on d1 captures black\u2019s rook, black\u2019s other rook checks white from c1 (see next diagram).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

The skewered white king runs to e2 or f2 and black\u2019s rook snatches white\u2019s rook on h1. Black\u2019s loss of the rook on d5 has been replaced and black has won a pawn.<\/p>\n

After black\u2019s rook takes white\u2019s pawn on d5, white\u2019s king could have defended its rook on c1 by moving its king to e2 or f2. This connects white\u2019s rooks. However, it allows rook to c2, check, and black wins a pawn and achieves a dominant position with its coordinated rooks.<\/p>\n

The lesson this week is that rooks should work together like Aesop\u2019s oxen.<\/p>\n

Reach Eric Morrow at ericmorrowlaw@gmail.com<\/a> or (505) 327-7121.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

move and win a pawn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1091,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-columns","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15464"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19671,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15464\/revisions\/19671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15464"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}