MIDDLEGAME TIPS: tip085
To summarise: anxiety, haste, vagueness, confusion and simple-mindedness are the enemies of good moves.
Rules are meant to be broken (or, at least, checked to see if they apply in the actual position in front of you!)
(Hort) 4. Begin the game with a centre pawn, and develop the minor pieces so that they influence the centre.
All the World Chess Champions are men, so here’s one from the other half of humanity, and a fine Appendix to the list of guys that ever joined the ‘Vera Menchik Club’. Judit Polgar was strongest woman chess player ever. She never became World Champion, and was never interested in becoming World Women’s World Chess…
“It is not a move, even the best move, that you must seek, but a realisable plan.” –Eugene ZNOSKO-BOROVSKY Any position where you are cramped, blockaded and/or uncoordinated means you can’t do much. Your position lacks potential. This is an advanced idea: if you’re still at the stage where you are blundering pieces, potential isn’t…
Any attack on the Queen’s-side would count, of course, but we normally expect the target to be the Queen’s-side itself, and not a King that has castled on that wing. The usual ingredients for an attack are required: more space, better mobility, and/or a bigger gang. (Janowsky-Capablanca, Capablanca-Alekhin) The minority attack is an example of…
Not exchanges in general: The Exchange. The Exchange is when a Bishop or Knight is swapped for a Rook. By normal chess accounting, that’s a swap of 3 pawns for 5, so one player has lost the Exchange, we say, and is then an Exchange behind in material. Losing the Exchange is enough to lose…