Talk:Zwischenzug

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When and where was this game played? JPF 11:48, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Am I missing something here, or does the discussion on the page not make any sense? It looks to me like anything Black can do will result in White mopping the floor with him. --Carnildo 03:34, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, White can't stop Black from queening a pawn and getting an overwhelming material advantage. Recall that Black is moving down the board, and White is moving up the board, so White is nowhere near queening. --Fritzlein 04:56, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I see it now. I'd gotten the algebraic notation mixed up. --Carnildo 05:14, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

It would be better for white to force a draw here, which he can do with ease, rather than winning the second rook. So in that respect it isn't necessarily Zwischenzug. - Matt L

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[edit] good example?

In my opinion, the game in the diagram doesn't illustrate what I think Zwischenzug is. I may be wrong, but I thought Zwischenzug came in two flavors:

1. as a tempo move. For instance, if a rook, bishop, or queen is attacking on a rank, file, or diagonal, (or a king attacking something) it moves to another square on that line and the opponent is in zugzwang.

2. pretty much as described in the first paragraph. For instance, your opponent forks two of your pieces. But you give check with one of them, opponent has to get out of check, then you rescue the other one.

To me, the game shown doesn't illustrate it. --Bubba73 23:13, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the position isn't a typical zwischenzug. Typically one is expecting a certain move (or one of a very small number of moves) and the zwischenzug is outside of that set of moves. But what is the expected move in the given sequence? White surely doesn't expect Black to queen the pawn and lose it. White just thinks he has defended adequately and is waiting for Black to make some other plan. Black's winning move is surprising, to be sure, and interferes with White's planned tactical sequence, but that seems to be a few croutons short of a salad.
In my experience a zwischenzug interrupts a chain of "if I do X, he MUST do Y, and then I can do Z". It turns out that my opponent doesn't have to do Y, and I never get to do Z, but if I didn't think "he must do Y" then any move other than Y isn't really a zwischenzug. The thoguht process given in the article is a subtly different "if I do X, then he CAN'T do Y, or else I can do Z". Sure enough, the opponent DOESN'T do Y, so it isn't clear in what sense the move actually played is a zwischenzug. --Fritzlein 03:10, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I agree this isn't a good example, so I removed it. Broken S 23:44, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ....but the article still needs an example

I can see from the previous versions of the article that an incorrect example of zwischenzug was posted and then removed, but the example should have been edited or replaced. Completely getting rid of a section of an article without attempting to fix it isn't a very good thing to do on wikipedia.--67.184.163.248 18:11, 6 November 2005 (UTC)Ikiroid


[edit] Stub?

A year later, it looks like there are two extremely good examples. I don't think this article is a stub anymore. If no one disagrees, I'm going to remove the stub template from the article.

...Done. --Jorend 19:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronounciation?

Can someone post a pronounciation of Zwischenzug? Is it Zwee-shen-zug? Zwee-shen-zoog? or something else? Ziiv 08:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

It's a German word, pronounced "tsvishen-tsook". 84.70.166.114 14:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] g5?

The last line says: "After a move like 11.Qc1, Black could then either take the bishop or consider still a further zwischenzug with 11...Bd6 or 11...g5.". I understand the whole article, except for the last move. Why would black play g5? What am I missing here? Thanks. Van der Hoorn 18:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Image:chess zhor 26.png
Image:chess zver 26.png a8 rd b8 c8 bd d8 e8 kd f8 g8 h8 rd Image:chess zver 26.png
a7 pd b7 pd c7 d7 e7 f7 pd g7 pd h7 pd
a6 b6 c6 d6 e6 f6 qd g6 h6
a5 b5 c5 d5 nd e5 f5 g5 h5
a4 b4 bd c4 pd d4 pl e4 f4 bl g4 h4
a3 b3 c3 d3 e3 f3 g3 h3
a2 pl b2 pl c2 d2 e2 bl f2 g2 pl h2 pl
a1 rl b1 nl c1 ql d1 e1 f1 kl g1 nl h1 rl
Image:chess zhor 26.png
position after 11.Qc1
Because the f4 bishop is pinned against White's king, so it can't move and Black will soon capture it. However, he might prefer to do this with his bishop or pawn rather than his knight if he wants to leave the knight in a good position. Here's the situation: