from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit
Do you find yourself wondering what to do in a chess game? When there’s nothing obvious, like a piece you can capture, or a checkmate, what do you do when it’s your move? One thing you can always focus on is improving the position of your pieces.
Steps
- Make sure that your pieces are “developed.” Remember that when we are talking about pieces in this context we are not talking about pawns. Pawns are more like the terrain you fight on, not the pieces you fight with. Make sure your pieces are not sitting on the back rank like wallflowers at a dance. Get them out there, first the knights and bishops, then what they call the “heavy pieces,” meaning the queen and the rooks. It’s easy to find squares for the knights, they are quite nicely placed on toward the center on the first square they can legally move to, “f3″and “c3″ as white and “f6″and “c6″ for black. (see “How to Read a Chess Game” if you don’t know what “f3″ and “f6″ refers to.) Make sure you do develop your center pawns though, because these guys help you control the center, and they also allow you to develop your bishops. Try not to allow your opponent to kick your knights off their squares by pawn pushes. Place your bishops where they can control strong diagonals like “c4″ for white and “c5″ for black. Make sure you castle, so your king is safe and your rooks are lined up. Rooks like to be connected. Try not to place other pieces between them.
- Now that your pieces are out, what should you do? Of course you always look for captures, look for tactics like skewers, forks and pins. But after that, if you don’t find something, what to do? This is where a plan comes in. Of course you want to improve your pieces too. So make sure Bishops have open diaqonals, try not to block them in with your own pawns. Look to trade your weak pieces for your opponents strong ones. An example would be to trade a bishop that is on the same color as your center pawns for a knight that has an oupost. An outpost is a square far into enemy territory that cannot be kicked out by a pawn, and that is protected by one of his own pawns. Look for open files on which to place your rooks. Double them if you can. Try to get a rook firmly posted on your opponent’s second rank. In white’s case this would be the 2nd rank, in black’s the 7th. When your pieces are well place then more opportunities for tactics will appear.
- Have a plan. What is a good example of a plan. A plan can be as simple as trying to place your knight on an outpost near your enemy’s king. Or to double your rooks on an open file. Once that plan is accomplished you look for another plan that fits well with your goal. Let’s say your plan was to have a strong bishop on an open diagonal not blocked in by it’s own pawns. Then once you have that, you might try to get your queen to a square where your bishop and queen can cooperate to threaten mate. When your opponent blocks the mate with a piece, say a knight posted on “f6″ to guard the capturing square on “h7″ then your new goal can be to dislodge the knight. You might even look for sacrifices. The rook is worth more than the knight, generally, but you might threaten to sacrifice it for the knight so that you can remove th knight from guarding the square where you can checkmate. Sometimes you might be castled on opposite sides. Then a good plan is to “pawn storm” your enemy king. Pawn storming is when you march your pawns toward the enemy king to create weaknesses, and open up files for your rooks and queen. Make sure you have rooks and a queen behind your marching pawns so you don’t just give up pawns for now reason. These are all examples of plans, but you have to come up with your own plans to fit your unique position on the chess board.
- Each position is unique. There are no general formulas for chess, you really have to think for yourself and apply basic principles and understanding to your individual situation. That’s what’s so great about chess. That’s why we recommend it for children, so that they will learn how to think and plan on their own, and not just follow in lockstep to their leaders. In chess there is opportunity for creativity. Do not be afraid to try things in your plan just because you haven’t seen or heard of it before. Above all, don’t be afraid to lose a few games, that’s how you get better!
Tips
- Develop pieces not pawns.
- Use your pawns to control the center.
- Don’t block your bishops in with your own pawns.
- Connect your rooks.
- castle so your king is safe
Warnings
- Don’t be afraid to lose a chess game
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Improve the Position of Your Pieces in a Chess Game. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.
from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit
Can you think three moves ahead in chess? It’s harder than it sounds, but you can learn to do it. Once you do this visualization excersize you will realize you can calculate much further than you ever knew you could, and you won’t settle for less, next time you play chess.
Steps
- Set out a chess board. Make sure you are using a set that has algebraic notation on it. Algebraic notation is a way for you to read the moves and then play them on the board for each side so you can follow a game and study what each side played, and analyze the moves. Across the bottom will be the letters from “a” to “h.” the letters will not be capitalized. There will be numbers going up the sides from “1″ to “8.” Each square has an address. The first square on the board is “a1.” To represent a move you start with the first letter of the piece, capitalized, then you write the square you moved it to. If two different pieces that start with the same letter can move to the same square then you include the square the piece originated from. Each piece starts with the first letter of its name, except the knight, which starts with a capital “N.” If it is a pawn then you just write the name of the square it moves to with no capital letter. Castling is written 0-0 for kingside castling and 0-0-0 for queenside. There is more to explain about how to read a chess game, but for now, just follow the directions to get to a certain position where the visual excersize will begin.
- Play the following moves, moving for each side. 1.e4 is a white move. 1…e5 is a black move. In a scoresheet it looks like this: 1. e4 e5. Next play 2.Bc4 Qf6. Next 3.Nf3 Qg6. 4. Nc3 Qxg2. When there is a small letter x it means capture. So the Queen has captured the pawn on g2. Now you begin the excersize, and though you will be calculating white’s move, you will be visualizing for both sides.
- First let’s analyze what has happened. The queen has taken a pawn. It’s not good to lose pieces or pawns willy-nilly, but it’s also not generally a good idea to move the same piece twice, nor to move the queen out first, as she is such a powerful piece that she becomes a target and can get trapped. Greed can also get you into trouble, especially if you go attacking before your pieces are developed. Also there is a saying, “Loose pieces fall off, meaning that pieces that are not protected can become targets of fancy tactics. So knowing these things, let’s see if you can find a way to punish black.
- Let’s calculate. Find five candidate moves. You will go down the branch of just one of them. This is what it means to calculate three moves ahead. You don’t just pick one move and follow it. You pick as many as you can, and then you analyze each one, finding the best possible moves for your opponent as you can, and seeing if you have a good response to it. There is a rule among strong chess players that says “Look at all checks and captures.” There is a move here that satisfies both. Look for a moment at the board and see if you can figure out what it is, and then go on to step 5. But first look for it.
- Did you you find Bxf7? That’s the one. So now comes the visualization part. Don’t touch the pieces. Do this in your mind. Visualize what the board is going to look like after you play Bxf7. See the piece there. While visualizing the piece there, ask what are all of black’s options for getting out of check. How many are there? That’s right, there are two. The king can capture the bishop on f7, or he can move to where the queen used to be, on d8. Visualize the king capturing the piece on f7. See in your mind the new position after these two moves have been made. Hold the image in your mind as clearly as you can. Now ask what white can do from here. What moves can white make in this new position where black’s king is on the f7 square. Name several possible moves, and look for one that check’s because you always want to look at all checks and captures first. See anything good? You could check by Ng5 but there is a problem with that. The queen is guarding that square and will capture. So how can you move the queen away. How about put the rook on the g-file. Visualize the Rook moving to g1. Now where can the queen go. Only one square. Now visualize the queen moving to h3. Now you can check with the knight. Notice anything else about Ng5? That’s right, it’s a fork. You win the queen. So you sacrificed the bishop to win the queen. Not bad. Do you see any better moves for the black queen? No. Probably just to take the rook on g1 to get as much as he can out of it. Can you reverse the order of these moves so he can’t do that? How about instead of Bxf7 first you do that second, after chasing the queen to h3. Now you can get the queen with a minimum of losses. Of course, you also may have tipped off your opponent to your plans by chasing his queen to the forking square.
- Now you have visualized three moves ahead for one move. In a real game you want to analyze more than one move. So you would go through this process for each of the moves that you are considering. Congratulations! You did it. Oh, and in case you wanted to see it, here’s the final position.
Things You’ll Need
- A chess board with algebraic notation
Related wikiHows
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Calculate Chess Tactics. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.
The horsefly is an annoying pest. If someone plays the Bird against you, meaning 1.f4, one way to annoy that bird is the Horsefly, 1. …Nh6. The plan is to play d5 to keep e4 out, so you can post the knight on f5. This is called an artificial outpost. Once you get the knight to f5 that’s the end of the plan for the horselfy. After that you’re on your own. But my advice is, you put a lot of work to get that knight to f5 so don’t let your opponent swat it away. It’s annoying there, and you should keep it there as long as you can.
It’s hard to even make them sound fun. Endgames. Endgames like an animal. No, it doesn’t sound fun. But here’s the position.
What is the best move here for black? When I put this position in Shredder it recommended b5, which was actually what I played. However, after the game a fellow 1700 thought it was a terrible move. After white doubles his rooks on the a-file, black can’t play Re6 to try and defend that pawn on a6. Do you see why?
Hint: not a needle but a pin. That’s right. It’s because of Rxb5, and if the pawn recaptures then black loses the rook on a8. But if black instead of Re6 plays Rec8, then he can go after the weak c-pawn. It is not always easy to know which pawns to let go of and which ones to try and keep. Here black can let go of the a pawn. Defending it makes the rooks passive, but going after the c-pawn weakens white’s pawns by separating them. Playing endgames like an animal means not being afraid of losing pawns. Be very afraid of passive rooks!
The most important thing is that chess should be fun. If it isn’t, why on earth would anyone play? It’s not a good way to make a living. Only a very small number of people can ever make any real money playing. It’s not good for the environment, doesn’t cure cancer, doesn’t create world peace, etc. So above all it better be fun. Enough of all this “chess is good for you, chess helps make you smarter, chess gets you a college scholarship. It can do these things, but so can a lot of other things like math and reading, so why not just do those if that’s the only reason for playing. 
Some of the images on the blog are broken as a result of moving to our new website. We will try to get them restored quickly.
The great thing about Greco games is that they are so short. This makes it a fun teaching tool for young kids. They are very tactical, and show early chess with almost no chess principles being followed on the part of his opponents. Because Greco is so quick to punish these bad moves, the games really illustrate the dangers of straying from opening principles like “control the center,” “don’t move a piece twice in the opening,” “develope the minor pieces before the major pieces.” These are usually the first things kids learn strategy-wise. Another great thing about looking at Greco games is that most B players, and even some of the A players miss the opportunities to punish bad play when they present themselves. Most masters never miss these tactics, but many players under 2000 would not see tactics as well as Greco from the 1600′s.
Here’s a really short game from this lizard!
White Greco: Black, No Name, Italy, 1620
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Qf6
3. Bc4 Qg6
4. 0-0 Qxe4
5. Bxf7 Qf4
6. Rxe5+
Is that Bishop on f7 a free piece for Black?
It is clear from this picture that the bishop isn’t free,
and No Name didn’t fall for this either.
5. …Ke7
6. Re1 Qf4
7. Rxe5+ Kd8
Perhaps Black didn’t see the mate on Re8 here.
But let’s see what happens if White takes the Bishop on f7.
7. …Kxf7
8. d4
Threatening the queen, which has nowhere to go except f6. Every other square is covered. Novice chess players have a hard time seeing all the squares. So let’s look each square in this position, and then you will see that the queen has only that one safe square.
It looks for the moment like g4 is a safe square for the queen but it’s not. It also takes a while to see instinctively when squares are covered in this way. G4 is not safe becasue there is a discovered check. The knight moves to g5 checking the king, and uncovers the attack on g4. The queen would then have to trade for the knighot on g5 (Rxg5) or just get captured. So as you can see, the only safe square is f6. But then after that there is a forced mate.
8. …Qf6
9. Ng5+ Kg6
10. Qd3+ Kh6
11. Ne6+ (This check is a discovered check. Can you discover where it’s coming from?)
It isn’t mate yet but it might as well be, because even if the queen blocks and gets captured, it’s still mate next move.
Another delightful game from the Gecco.
Savielly Tartakower visited the Bronx Zoo during the 1924 chess tournament in New York. He met an orangutan named Susan. He decided to ask her what move she recommended and it is said that she told him to play 1. b4. So that’s what he did. He played Maroczy and got a draw.
1. b4 e6
2. Bb2 Nf6
3. b5
Now the black Knight cannot go to c6, at least not right away. Pawn moves like b5 might not make sense to you unless you think about what you might be trying to stop your opponent from doing. These types of moves are called “cramping” moves. Black has to find some other way to develop his knight. One way might be to open the d7 square and put it there, or to try and trade off that pawn by playing a6 or c6. Chances are White would then play a4 to keep that annoying pawn on b5. In fact that’s exactly what happened in this game.
3. …d5 4. e3 Be7 5. f4 O-O 6. Bd3 a6 7. a4 axb5 8. axb5 Rxa1 9. Bxa1 and the game continued. Notice the knight is still not developed.
Nobody knows where Tartakower learned to talk to Orangutans.
To see the whole game go here:
http://blog.chess.com/Blunderprone/new-york-1924-tartakower-vs-maroczy-rnd-4
Back to the 3rd move in this game, (3.b5,) this pawn push is seen frequently in the Orangutan.
Here you can chase the knight off of c6. It looks like Black doesn’t have to lose the pawn though, or does he? See if you can find a way to win the pawn on e5.
At first it looks like black can block the diagonal and save the pawn by letting white trade the bishop for the knight. Plus it seems as if the black knight is aiming at the pawn on b5 too. But the move e3 not only pushes the knight off that diagonal, so that it is no longer blocking the pawn from capture, but it unleashes the light squared bishop so it is protecting the pawn on b5.
From the title, and the picture in the book (sorry kids, ya gotta buy it to see this one) you would think the Lemming was just a terrible opening. Well, it does look funny. It does look strange. And guess what! That’s the best part. It can make your opponent think you’re a lemming. And in reality, you’re really not. Because you’re going to bring that Knight to c7 after you play c6. It’s not that bad. Trust me (like a lemming should), and play Na6 like you’re ready to take a leap off the side of the board.
1. d4 Na6
2. e3 c6
So here’s the question. Will the doubled pawns on the a-file that will result from the capture by the bishop on a6 be worth white giving up the bishop pair? Because that’s what many lemmings do: “See capture, must capture.” Or, they might be thinking about the doubled pawns. While “see capture, must capture” is not a good strategy, the whole doubled pawns thing might not be such a bad idea. What’s so bad about doubled pawns you say?
3. Nxa6 ba
The problem with doubled pawns is they can’t protect each other, and they bump into each other when they move forward. These are also doubled isolated pawns, meaning not only can they not protect each other, but there are no other pawns to protect them either. So was this worth the bishop pair? If it were an endgame, and the only pieces on the board were the rooks and the queens I’d say yes, but this is the opening. That weakness on the a-file is there, but every opening has it’s weaknesses. You have to play to your strengths, and in this situation Black’s strength will be the bishop pair. Because Black had to recapture with the b-pawn he opened an obvious square to develop his light squared bishop. It would be silly not to go there and control the center with his bishop and take that long diagonal.
4. f4 Bb7
5. Nf3 Nf6
6. 0-0 g6
7. b3 Bg7
8. Bb2 0-0
This lemming figured “Oh well, I have a bishop in one corner, why not put one in the other?” In retrospect it might have been better to get the bishop to b6, notice how powerful the two bishops are together on those two diagonals. Plus, White has moved his pawn to f4, and so his king has less pawns around it. Maybe he could have played c5 to challenge the pawn on d4, and open up that kingside. But alas, this lemming just wanted symmetry. But that might not be so bad either.
This game will be the challenge between two philosophies. One chooses the bishop pair, saying it is best, the other claims the doubled pawns will be enough of a weakness. Shredder (the computer analysis) gives while a little less than a half pawn advantage after Bxa6. That’s a very slight advantage, and usually gives gambits a thumbs down anyway but then computers don’t think like animals, they think like computers. The game will be a battle of these two ideas. That’s how chess is. Each player asserts a philosophy and tries to defend it.
Isaac Martinez (White) Pet Short (Black)
1. f4 Nf6
2. Nf3 e6
3. Nc3 g5
4. fxg5 Ng4
5. h3 Bd6
So Black isn’t scared of losing the knight.
6. e5 Bg3
7. Kd2 Nf2
8. Qe1 Nxh1
9. Qxg3
Realizing he would lose his queen anyway, he took the bishop. If he moves his queen to d1, then after Nf2 the queen must move back to e1, and there is a discovered check. Pet got up shortly after this, stumbling over two chairs as he left the tournament room.
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