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420 POLISH DRAUGHTS.
tage of it, you must abandon it, and occupy yourself with another coup that may indemnify you for the loss.
Towards the end of a game, when there are but few pawns left on the board, concentrate them as rapidly as possible. At that period of the game the slightest fault is fatal.
With equal players the loss of a pawn may incline the victory to one side or the other : there are, however, several cases when one or more may be advantageously sacrificed. This may be adopted when there remains no other means of parrying a ruinous coup of the adversary, or of being blocked up.
If your adversary is eager to seize the corners, take up a position in the centre, and block him up. The position of the corners is, after all, a very doubtful one, for the player who occupies them has not, as in the centre of the board, the facility of playing to the right or the left. Five or six pawns frequently remain blocked up in the corners till the end of the game.
The queen is such a powerful piece that you must not hesitate to sacrifice one, two, or even three pawns for the sake of gaining a queen ; but in doing this great prudence must be observed. Assure yourself that the queen will be in safety, and in a position to recapture the pawns sacrificed without being taken herself. There is nothing so harassing as to have a queen opposed to you when you have none of that arm, arising from the rapidity of her march compared to that of the pawn ; when, therefore, a queen is captured under these circumstances, the coup is generally a brilliant one.
This game is played in various other ways, as follows : |
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