Strategy

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…

“Pawns … are the soul of chess.” — Francois Danican PHILIDOR “The most important feature of the chess position is the activity of the pieces. This is absolutely fundamental in all phases of the game (opening, middlegame and especially endgame). The primary constraint on a piece’s activity is the Pawn structure.” — Michael STEAN The…

“Now I have the pawn and the compensation.” –Roman Dzindzichashvili Material refers to the pieces and pawns on the board. Usually, if you have extra material, you have good chances to win We have a rough rule to work out who is ahead in material: a Knight or Bishop is worth about 3 Pawns; a…

Two pawns of the same side on the same file They are not easy to move and cannot easily be both protected, so, one or both may be a weakness (Fischer-Petrosian, Debbage-Lane, Matison-Nimzowitsch, Jepps-Regis) However, if the capturing pawn moves towards the centre, as it should, there maybe compensating advantages of central control, a half-open…

“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…

A Bad Bishop is a Bishop hampered by its own pawns. If it’s your only piece, or one of a few pieces remaining, it can lose you the game (Bernstein-Mieses) If your position overall is good, you can tolerate a poor Bishop in the mix. Several defences ask Black to put up with a bad…

When two pieces queue up on a file or diagonal, they more than double their power. When two Rooks join forces on a file or rank, we call them doubled. (Nilsson-Boehm, Marshall-Capablanca) You can even triple major pieces on a file. (Alekhin-Nimzowitsch, Karpov-Kasparov) A Queen and a Bishop can combine to form a powerful battery…

“Mecking does not understand the significance of weak and strong squares. I have played him three times. In 1969 he lost to me owing to the weakness of his light squares. A year later he presented me with all the dark squares and again suffered defeat. And in the San Antonio tournament of 1972, Grandmaster…