White with the move plays PxX, calls for a Knight, says Check, simultaneously attacks Queen, then captures Queen and thereafter the immobile and helpless Rook. Mark the exceeding value of the right to move. Black to move would have an enormous superiority.
_Ceteris paribus_ notwithstanding, the exchange values of which a few are set down above, are therefore always somewhat problematical. For all that, they are to the Chess-player a most needed compass. If he conscientiously follows them, his ship nearly always, even though only after many moves, runs safely into port.
We are not without a method to probe the above values and to discover others. All we have to do is to build simple positions, in which the values under discussion, say Rook against Bishop and Pawn, with due regard to the __ceteris paribus__ are set to fight each other and carefully to analyse the course of that fight. Of the application of this method a few examples are here given.
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