Each player may "castle" only once during a game and when conditions are met. Castling is one of the more
complicated moves in chess. It's the only time when a player can move more than one piece on a move. Castling is often a very important move because it allows you to place your King in a safe location and also allows the Rook to become more active.
How do you improve your performance? Do you study endgames a lot? Or are you an openings person? Some
of you might be pouring over grandmaster games, maybe of your favourite grandmasters? These are really good ways to improve your chess ability and improve your chess game performance too. But there are times, when even after thorough preparation, you drop a piece during a tournament play, or may have missed or overlooked a check and allowed your opponent a crucial advantage. This happens even to the best of us, Vishwanathan Anand for example, missed one such bishop move in his World championship opening game and lost a crucial point. But what if I say, there is a way to prevent this from happening to you?
In
Igor Khmelnitsky’s
Chess Exam and Training Guide
, he gives a procedure toward the end of the book for going over your own games. I’ve used it a couple of times, and I like it. As an adult player, trying to improve but with limited study time, I find this approach to be practical.
Here’s a summary of the procedure:
- Write brief notes, as soon as possible after the game, to capture your thought process.
- Store your games in a database. (I use ChessBase 8.)
- Identify critical moves that might have been strategically wrong, and record ideas that might have been better.
- Use a chess program’s “blunder check” to find tactical mistakes. (I use Fritz.)
- Play against a chess program to test out your new strategic ideas. (I haven’t had time to do this.)
- Review the opening phase. Find a stopping point between the 10th and 20th moves and summarize its outcome. Make a note of anything you’d like to do differently next time.
The following is instruction for some and refresher for others, read on…..
In chess the word "opening" has two common meanings: the first stage of a chess game and also the first sequence of moves.
A good opening will provide better protection of the King, control over an area of the board (particularly the center), greater mobility for pieces, and possibly opportunities to capture opposing pawns and pieces. Some are direct, while others are more subtle and indirect approaches toward these goals.
Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings (as initiated by White) or defenses (as created in reply by Black). A sequence of opening moves that is considered standard (often cataloged in a reference work such as the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings) is referred to as "the book moves", or simply "book". When a game begins to deviate from known opening theory, the players are said to be "out of book".
The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO) is a classification system for the opening moves in a game of chess. Instead of the traditional names for the openings, ECO is a unique coding system. There are five main categories, "A" to "E", each of which is divided into one hundred sub-categories.
There are two ways to win a chess game. One way is solid, steady,
and unspectacular. You gradually outplay your opponent, piling small advantage on top of small advantage. You win a little material advantage along the way, and finally score a win in the end game.
The other way is harder but much more satisfying. You activate your pieces early in the game, generating threats that push your opponent back to the wall. You blast through the pawns and pieces guarding his King with a brilliant sacrifice, crown your achievement with an amazing checkmate, seemingly conjured out of thin air.
Excerpt from
Chess Step by Step - by Frank Marshall and J.C.H. Macbeth
The intelligent reader may enquire: "
Why am I supposed to study Chess Strategy, while I have only a very slender knowledge of the Chess Openings?" The reply to this question is, that learning Chess is somewhat similar to learning a language. We all know that children acquire a certain vocabulary of their native
tongue before they begin to delve into the mysteries of grammar and syntax, and, as a matter of fact, a considerable proportion of people of all nationalities are content to go through life without troubling themselves to learn the laws and principles which govern their language. In Chess, knowledge of the moves and how to play under certain given conditions is equivalent to acquiring a vocabulary in a language, and the syntax may be said to be the study and analysis of the Openings, which we have therefore reserved for a later stage, by which time the student will be better equipped for the task of making himself conversant with the subtleties and beauties of the many and complex variations in the different Chess Openings.
- Do not move any pawns in the opening of a game but the King and Queen pawns.
- Do not move any piece twice in the opening, but put it at once on the right square.
- Bring out your knights before developing your bishops, especially the Queen's Bishop.
- Do not pin the adverse King Knight (ie. by Bg5) before your opponent has castled.
- Get your pieces out into the center quickly. The opening is a race to see who can get their pieces
out first while keeping at least a share of control of the center.
- This is the main point to remember; all the other rules are just footnotes to this one
- More detail on winning the race:
- Move pieces not pawns, and
- move them to their best squares in one move if you can, and also
- try to gain time if you can by aggressive moves.
- Move minor pieces out first, not your Q or RRs which can be attacked and lose time
- Get a firm foothold in the center and don't give it up
- Generally move Knights straightaway to f3/c3 or f6/c6
- Move your king to safety at the side by castling King's-side (which also gets your Rook into play)
- Complete your development before moving a piece twice or starting an attack
- Keep your queen safe
- Don't grab pawns or attack if you haven't completed development
- What to do if there is a lead in development:
- If you are ahead in development, start something going and open up lines for your better pieces
- If you are behind in development, don't start anything and keep things closed until you have caught up
"A knowledge of tactics is the foundation of positional play. This is a rule which has stood
its test in chess history and one which we cannot impress forcibly enough upon the young chess player. A beginner should avoid Queen's Gambit and French Defence and play open games instead! While he may not win as many games at first, he will in the long run be amply compensated by acquiring a thorough knowledge of the game" - RICHARD RETI
As a beginning to intermediate player, it is much more important to learn tactics than strategy. Choosing open games lead to games with more tactical play.
1. Control the center
All of your early moves should aim to take control over the center (the d4,e4,d5, and e5-squares) ... usually by develop a piece, preferably in a way that threatens something... perhaps an opponent's piece or to take firm control over the center.
These are a few steps believe can help with openings in chess.
- Identify the first unfamiliar position. (Out of book, in other words)
- Evaluate the results of the opening—as the game transitions into the middle game, how do both players stand? Are you happy with the results from the opening phase?
- Play over the opening moves and look for improvements. In particular, look for candidate moves that you didn’t really consider during the game. (This is because you tend to overlook good candidate moves.)
- Use ChessBase to run opening reports, find similar games, etc., to help confirm what you’d like to play next time, and to get ideas about piece development and middle game plans.
- Save the result into a ChessBase database devoted to that particular opening.
I saw an interesting article in Chess Life Online called
“Moving up the Ladder: A Class Player on Gaining 200 Rating Points” by Christian Glawe.
6 Points that really stood out for me -
- Study your own games with an instructor.
- Study openings based on pawn structures and plans instead of variations. For example, study the
Mastering the Chess Openings
series by Watson.
- When reviewing a particular opening line, use a games database to gather 50-100 GM games played in that variation. Play through them quickly. Make a note of the common ideas and motifs. Time: 30 minutes.
- Analyze every blitz game you play.
- 30-45 minutes of tactical training exercises every day. (The author prefers chesstempo.com.)
- Exercise to improve your stamina for those two-day weekend tournaments.
(From the Excellent web site, How to Play Chess:
http://www.chessdryad.com/education/magictheater/index.htm )
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| Recommended For Beginners in Chess |
- DON'T bring your KING out with your OPPONENT'S QUEEN on the board.
- The KING must be ACTIVE in the ENDING.
- IN SUPERIOR POSITIONS, to ATTACK the ENEMY KING, you must OPEN a file (or less often a diagonal) for your HEAVY PIECES (QUEEN and ROOKS).
