How to identify Hanging Pieces | Chess Fundamentals | IM Alex Astaneh

so this particular final part of the topic of training pieces basic exchanges has to do with hanging pieces and it's a distinction between a piece that is hanging in a piece that is unprotected that is kind of to my mind at least not a super important distinction to understand the theory of because what

really matters is being able to put it into practice so the difference is quite simple here is a knight on f3 clearly that is and on defender piece note of course that I use undefended or unprotected interchangeably and this Bishop on b7 is also quite clearly and on the feather piece likewise the rock on t1 however

there is a difference between the rock on d1 and the Bishop on b7 which can both be said to be unprotected pieces and the knight on f3 and the difference is that if it were black to play the knight on f3 would fall immediately so it is a hanging piece so that is the

definition that we use for a hanging piece it's simply a piece that is not being defended and can be taken we can also say one thing one more important little detail in the case of hanging pieces let's imagine that white was having a bad day and he played the move Knight to g5 this would be a very silly

move since the pawn on h6 can take the knight but let's say that black himself is feeling a very generous move and place to move Bishop to d5 instead just completely ignoring the knight which is an unprotected Knight and it's also a hanging night and now white says oh damn my knight is unprotected so I better

defend it and place the move h4 well clearly here if you're black you will be very happy you captured Knight sure you'd lose the pawn but it's no big deal a pawn is worth very little relative to a knight so in this case can we say that the night is unprotected no we cannot can we