Chess for Beginners by Royal Jeffrey

Author:Royal, Jeffrey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

Tactics for Midgame Success

Now we’re at the fun part of the chapter, where we’re going to learn the difference between strategy and tactics. Exciting stuff, huh? A strategy is a long-term plan to get from the beginning of the game through the endgame with your pieces and your pride intact. Tactics are the moves and micro-strategies you are going to use to employ your game plan. There are some key moves and principles you can use to apply your tactics and fulfill your strategy, so let’s go over them now. The first is all about control. We have talked about how crucial it is to control the spaces around your pieces, but we are talking about territory in this instance.

If your chessboard were actually a battlefield, you would be doing everything you can to take as much territory as possible, right? When playing chess, you need to control the center of the board early and for as long as you can. This means setting up your pawns to go marching, getting your bishops and your knights in position to move into and out of offensive and defensive positions at will, and having your rooks ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. The more space and territory you can control, the closer you will be to victory.

Of course, it’s never expected that anyone will get through an entire chess game without losing material to capture. It’s important to remember that quality trumps quantity when it comes to the midgame. We mentioned briefly earlier that it’s never a good idea to lose a developed piece to an undeveloped piece, and that’s especially true in the middle portion of the game. If you were getting across the center of the board and headed towards attacking your opponent’s back ranks, don’t let your bishop fall victim to a lagging pawn. If you are taking a defensive stance around your own king, try not to lose a knight to a pawn that wandered just far enough to be a threat.

It is okay, however, to take part in an equal exchange, as a pawn exchange. This is a normal part of almost every chess game. It’s exactly what it sounds like, a pawn for a pawn, so what’s the point? A pawn exchange takes material off the board for both sides and makes it possible to move the major pieces around a bit more freely. This benefits everyone in the long run because it creates space on the board, speeds the game up a little bit, and doesn’t really cause much short- or long-term distress for either player. This is why we have so many pawns on the chessboard; they are allowed to be sacrificed for the greater good.

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