The Ultimate Guide To Learning Chess: How To Become A Chess Player With Little Time: Minimum Effort, Maximum Gains by Bradley Feeney

Author:Bradley Feeney [Feeney, Bradley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-03-23T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4 – Design Your Strategy

Chess is a game of strategy. Before you can make your own, it is imperative that you understand the basic strategy in the game of chess. Keep these in mind when playing. And the basic chess strategy involves the following.

Protect your king at all cost.

As you have learned in the previous chapter, your king is an invaluable piece. When you lose it, you will lose the game. Always keep this in mind.

You win a chess game by capturing the other player's king. So your opponent's goal is to capture yours as well. In which case, you have to think of two objectives at the same time. Capture the other king while protecting yours. You can achieve these objectives by using your pieces to capture the other player's pieces while avoiding capture from the opponent's pieces.

It is in your best interest to move your king in a safe place. Moving it to the corner of the board is safer. If you have an opportunity for castling, you must use it. Avoid being consumed with the idea of checkmating the other player's king. That will not matter of your king is captured first.

Protect your king by building a fortress around it. Set up a defensive wall around the king using your other pieces.

Avoid giving your pieces away.

There are times when you may have to sacrifice a piece to protect your more important ones but you should not give your less important pieces away so easily.

Each piece has an important role to play in protecting the others especially your king. Remember that you cannot force a checkmate without enough pieces. Each piece is valuable but if you must know there is a relative value for each of them too.

A pawn is equivalent to one while a knight and a bishop is equivalent to three each. The rook amounts to 5 and the queen is worth 9 while the king is invaluable. These relative values do not matter at the end of the game however they should help you determine and set your priorities straight. You can use it as reference when making your decisions about a move, an exchange or a capture.

Keep the center in control.

By controlling the center of the board, you have more options for moving your pieces. It is then important that you get your pawns and other pieces to that side of the board. Otherwise, you will have a tougher time finding good spaces to settle your pieces.

Keep in mind that your knight has two options for moving from the corner of the board. It has however, eight options for moving when positioned in a central square. When you dominate the center of the board early on, your pieces have more mobility. It is way better than having your pieces stuck on the sides of the board. If that happens, you will be forced to sacrifice most of them.

The goal to control the center is the reason why a lot of players choose to move their middle pawns first.

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