What’s on the The Desperado poster
The rule, 3 worked examples, and the mistake everyone makes.
- A piece that is certainly lost should capture the most valuable thing it can reach.
- lost anyway → sell it dearly
- Your knight is trapped = Capture whatever it can before it falls
- Both sides have a hanging piece = Take first with the doomed one
- Mutual captures pending = Count carefully
- Common mistake: Trying to save an unsavable piece → Getting maximum value from it
Also applies defensively: check whether their trapped piece has a desperado before assuming you have simply won it.
Questions about the The Desperado poster
- What’s on the The Desperado poster?
- The rule, 3 worked examples, and the mistake everyone makes. A piece that is certainly lost should capture the most valuable thing it can reach.; lost anyway → sell it dearly; Your knight is trapped = Capture whatever it can before it falls; Both sides have a hanging piece = Take first with the doomed one; Mutual captures pending = Count carefully; Common mistake: Trying to save an unsavable piece → Getting maximum value from it. Also applies defensively: check whether their trapped piece has a desperado before assuming you have simply won it.
- Who is the The Desperado poster for?
- The Desperado belongs to the Chess section rather than to a school year, because games is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning tactics can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the The Desperado poster?
- If a piece is lost anyway, take something with it first. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so The Desperado belongs on the wall where that games work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with The Desperado?
- Trapping Pieces, Back Rank Mate and Calculating sit alongside The Desperado in the Chess section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Trapping PiecesBack Rank MateCalculating
- Is the The Desperado poster free to download and print?
- Yes. The Desperado downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Chess section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the The Desperado poster print at?
- The Desperado is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of The Desperado loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside The Desperado on the same wall.
Browse every Chess poster, or start from the full catalogue.