King's Gambit
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
101 Chess Principles
Included are short pieces of chess wisdom or practice that I've either picked up from somewhere or formulated myself. I've tried to avoid useless wittisisms and trite generalisations. Every single principle could be demonstrated by a position or an example; perhaps this is a project for the future.
General principles:
1. When winning, play the move that maintains your advantage by removing your opponents chances.
2. When losing, play the move that confuses things and makes it difficult to calculate the correct line.
3. If a piece will be lost no matter what, do not move it. Instead make your opponent waste time capturing it.
4. Every move of your opponent's has a purpose. Try to figure out what it is.
5. When your opponent is enjoying more tension than you are, try to exchange pieces or play countering manoeuvres on the opposite wing.
6. Passive defense gets you nowhere. Proper defense must include active attempts at seizing the initiative.
7. Once you see a refutation to a line, confirm that the refutation is sound and then stop considering that line. Never play a line hoping your opponent might not notice the refutation, unless you are lost in either case and only then can the desperado trick be attempted.
8. Make it a policy to always guess correctly what move your opponent will play next. If your opponent makes an unexpected move, stop and think. You might have missed something important. Or even better, he might have missed something important.
9. Once initiated, a plan should be carried out to completion and only aborted if your opponent has found a devastating counterstrike. A faulty plan is better than playing aimlessly.
10.Learn to play in different styles and pick the right style depending on your opponent.
11.Forced moves are easy to play and let your opponent breath. But having to pick between several moves of which only one is correct can be a devastating mental exercise if prolonged.
12.Nobody ever won a game by checking his opponent's king to death. Check need only be delivered once to end the game.
13.Chaos on the chessboard is to the advantage of the better player. Order on the chessboard is to the advantage of the player who has the better position. If your opponent is a better player with a better position, resign.
14.A piece that is out of play is as good as off the board.
15.When evaluating moves, never discard candidate moves off-hand. Consider them and only after justifying yourself why a certain move is bad, forget about it and don't consider it again.
16.Never play a move just because you got tired of thinking. If you are are not sure a certain move is safe, don't play it.
17.There is no honor in getting mated.
Opening:
18. Control the center, but don't necessarily occupy it.
19. Quickly bring out all your pieces, but only bring them out to the squares that they are most active on. If this requires delaying their development for a while then so be it.
20.Keep your queen away from the action until the center has stabilized and some minor pieces have been traded off. She is a strong defender as well as an attacker.
21.The weak squares are f2 and f7. Almost any move that threatens these squares is good opening principle.
22.Consider gambiting a pawn for activity when playing White against a weaker opponent.
23.Resist the temptation to play wild gambits as Black. They are almost always unsound.
24.Play moves that force your opponent to defend and restrict his development.
25.Know the general principles of any opening you play regularly. Don't play openings you haven't studied.
26.If White opens 1.d4, then most of Black's plans will center on when to play c7-c5.
27.Know the most common traps of the popular openings. Know all the traps of your favorite openings. Then never play any of the traps.
28.Declining a gambit you're not familiar with is usually recommended. At least you're rarely worse off than you were before the gambit was offered.
29.Moving the same piece twice is not a loss of tempo if it forces your opponent to undevelop, move a piece to an inferior square or to give the tempo back.
Middlegame:
30.Never lock the pawns on the diagonal of your fianchettoed bishop. Conversely, if your opponent has fianchettoed his bishop then aim to lock his pawn on the diagonal, blocking the bishop out.
31.Disconnected rooks are weak; connected rooks are good; doubled rooks on an open file are lethal.
32.If your opponent has no weaknesses, they must be created. Look for loose pieces, weak pawns and open files/diagonals.
33.Avoid the temptation to grab pawns if that opens a file or a diagonal for your opponent to attack.
34.The later you castle, the more potentially dangerous it can be. Consider not castling at all if the queens have come off the board or if your opponent has open lines towards your castled king.
35.Keep your queen mobile, don't block her lines with your own pieces. Failure to do so often means the queen gets shut out of play or worse, trapped.
36.Enemy pawns are the scourge of the advanced piece. To a pinned piece, they are poison.
37.An enemy rook on the same file as your king/queen spells trouble.
38.Trade away your opponents active pieces, leave the inactive pieces alone.
39.If you are ahead in material, the objective must be to win by converting to a won endgame or a mating attack. Not to win even more material at the risk of counterplay.
40.Pawns in front of a castled king must only move under dire circumstances.
41.A strong attack against the enemy king is worth about 2 pawns. A mating attack against the enemy king is worth a queen, both rooks and all the minor pieces you can afford to give and still deliver mate.
42.The queen can rarely move in safety. She is always subject to attack from other pieces and pawns.
43.Anyone who gets mated on the back-rank truly deserves it. This is the most elementary mating pattern and must be acknowledged at all times when calculating tactical variations.
44.If a pawn is attacked, instead of moving a piece to protect it consider moves that create a threat or win time. Foolish opponents will often capture the pawn and leave you with good chances.
45.Not all pieces belong on one side of the board. When attacking, use as many pieces as you can but leave one or two behind as defense.
46.An attack with three or more pieces usually succeeds; two pieces sometimes; one never.
47.Defense without help from pawns is almost never successful.
48.At the end of complicated lines, look for simple moves.
49.What doesn't work now might work later on. If there is tension in the position to your advantage, aim to maintain that tension.
Endgame:
50.In a rook and pawns endgame, keep your rook active at all times.
51.In endgames without queens, always centralize your king and make him active.
52.In endgames with queens, protect your king with your own pawns but beware of cheap mates.
53.Learn the concept of opposition in king and pawn endings.
54.If your opponent has passed pawns, try to create your own on the opposite side.
55.A king alone can never stop connected passed pawns.
56.Know the square-rule by heart.
57.Trade off weak pawns; place your strong pawns in chains.
58.A bishop and rook pawn against a lone king only win if the bishop is the same colour as the queening square.
59.The purpose of every endgame should be to promote a pawn or prevent the opponent from doing same.
60.Once the pawns are locked, both players must stay mindful of the possibility of stalemate at all times.
61.The king would be the best piece in the endgame if not for the unfortunate possibility of check and mate.
62.A lone rook stands no chance against a pair of bishops.
63.The three winning factors to rook-and-pawn endgame are: active rook, active king and good pawn structure.
64.Know the Lucena position by heart.
65.Study of the KBNvK endgame will teach you about piece coordination as well as mating patterns.
Tactics:
66.Many combinations start with pinning a piece.
67.Any sacrifice that makes the enemy king more vulnerable must be considered.
68.Never capture back blindly. There might be a strong zwischenzug to be played. Likewise, to recapture with the wrong piece can bring disaster.
69.The best moves are those that create two or three threats at the same time. A threat of mate combined with another threat is usually lethal.
70.Do not execute a threat while your opponent can counter it - wait for him to overlook something before springing the trap or force him to react defensively to your threat.
71.Beware of unprotected pieces.
72.Discovered attacks are the most devastating weapon on the chessboard. Learn to spot them.
73.Resolve pins quickly.
74.Learn to recognize and implement different kinds of mating patterns.
75.Pieces don't leave the board before they are captured - beware of "take back" moves winning material.
76.The best response to one of your pieces being attacked is often to attack an enemy piece in turn.
77.Pinned pieces neither attack nor defend anything.
78.Sacrifices are like playing slot machines. You put in a quarter and sometimes a fortune falls into your hands. A good sacrifice, even if it doesn't lead to mate, will usually allow you to regain the sacrificed material in a better position.
79.Pawn forks are the most overlooked and embarrassing tactic out there.
80.A sacrifice on f2, f7, h7 or h2 must never be overlooked.
81.Tactics that leave your opponent with multiple possible replies usually don't work. If you have two good moves, choose the one which leaves your opponent with fewer options.
Positional play:
82.Every pawn move must be carefully evaluated to see if it creates weak squares.
83.Always act to stop your opponent's pieces from arriving at outpost squares before they get there.
84.Knights run out of squares to go to easily. Use bishops and pawns to contain your opponent's knights.
85.A protected knight sitting in your opponent's king position is lethal. Not only is there a threat of forks, the mental effort of calculating the threats every move is highly depleting.
86.If you are missing one bishop, place your pawns on squares of the same color as the missing bishop.
87.If your opponent has no good moves, make sure he stays that way.
88.Weak pawns should be traded off.
89.If you have little space on one side, expand on the other side.
90.A pawn on the 6th or 7th rank is never to be taken lightly.
91.In the early middlegame, a pawn structure is only as good as the pawn breaks available in it.
Psychology:
92.If your position is worse, but you have found a good move, make the move and offer your opponent a draw. He might misjudge and accept.
93.If you believe the position is drawn and consider offering a draw, beware of the move before the draw offer. Letting your mind slip away from the game is a dangerous thing. The move might be a huge blunder.
94.If you are worse off, admit it to yourself. Having the right mindset is important in defending.
95.When you are attacking, calm down and take a critical look at your position. Your opponent still has resources left.
96.Learn to shut out everything else to help concentrate on analyzing.
97.Play all your moves with confidence. If you missed something, so will probably your opponent.
98.Don't be afraid to lose.
99.Irregular openings can be tried occasionally for shock value. The psychological edge is sometimes enough to compensate for theoretical weaknesses.
100.If you find yourself turned off by chess, take a moderately long break and concentrate on other things. You will find a fresh perspective.
101.If all else seems to fail, try the craziest move you can find. Not only will you have fun trying to hussle your opponent, you will gain a reputation for being a creative player.
Included are short pieces of chess wisdom or practice that I've either picked up from somewhere or formulated myself. I've tried to avoid useless wittisisms and trite generalisations. Every single principle could be demonstrated by a position or an example; perhaps this is a project for the future.
General principles:
1. When winning, play the move that maintains your advantage by removing your opponents chances.
2. When losing, play the move that confuses things and makes it difficult to calculate the correct line.
3. If a piece will be lost no matter what, do not move it. Instead make your opponent waste time capturing it.
4. Every move of your opponent's has a purpose. Try to figure out what it is.
5. When your opponent is enjoying more tension than you are, try to exchange pieces or play countering manoeuvres on the opposite wing.
6. Passive defense gets you nowhere. Proper defense must include active attempts at seizing the initiative.
7. Once you see a refutation to a line, confirm that the refutation is sound and then stop considering that line. Never play a line hoping your opponent might not notice the refutation, unless you are lost in either case and only then can the desperado trick be attempted.
8. Make it a policy to always guess correctly what move your opponent will play next. If your opponent makes an unexpected move, stop and think. You might have missed something important. Or even better, he might have missed something important.
9. Once initiated, a plan should be carried out to completion and only aborted if your opponent has found a devastating counterstrike. A faulty plan is better than playing aimlessly.
10.Learn to play in different styles and pick the right style depending on your opponent.
11.Forced moves are easy to play and let your opponent breath. But having to pick between several moves of which only one is correct can be a devastating mental exercise if prolonged.
12.Nobody ever won a game by checking his opponent's king to death. Check need only be delivered once to end the game.
13.Chaos on the chessboard is to the advantage of the better player. Order on the chessboard is to the advantage of the player who has the better position. If your opponent is a better player with a better position, resign.
14.A piece that is out of play is as good as off the board.
15.When evaluating moves, never discard candidate moves off-hand. Consider them and only after justifying yourself why a certain move is bad, forget about it and don't consider it again.
16.Never play a move just because you got tired of thinking. If you are are not sure a certain move is safe, don't play it.
17.There is no honor in getting mated.
Opening:
18. Control the center, but don't necessarily occupy it.
19. Quickly bring out all your pieces, but only bring them out to the squares that they are most active on. If this requires delaying their development for a while then so be it.
20.Keep your queen away from the action until the center has stabilized and some minor pieces have been traded off. She is a strong defender as well as an attacker.
21.The weak squares are f2 and f7. Almost any move that threatens these squares is good opening principle.
22.Consider gambiting a pawn for activity when playing White against a weaker opponent.
23.Resist the temptation to play wild gambits as Black. They are almost always unsound.
24.Play moves that force your opponent to defend and restrict his development.
25.Know the general principles of any opening you play regularly. Don't play openings you haven't studied.
26.If White opens 1.d4, then most of Black's plans will center on when to play c7-c5.
27.Know the most common traps of the popular openings. Know all the traps of your favorite openings. Then never play any of the traps.
28.Declining a gambit you're not familiar with is usually recommended. At least you're rarely worse off than you were before the gambit was offered.
29.Moving the same piece twice is not a loss of tempo if it forces your opponent to undevelop, move a piece to an inferior square or to give the tempo back.
Middlegame:
30.Never lock the pawns on the diagonal of your fianchettoed bishop. Conversely, if your opponent has fianchettoed his bishop then aim to lock his pawn on the diagonal, blocking the bishop out.
31.Disconnected rooks are weak; connected rooks are good; doubled rooks on an open file are lethal.
32.If your opponent has no weaknesses, they must be created. Look for loose pieces, weak pawns and open files/diagonals.
33.Avoid the temptation to grab pawns if that opens a file or a diagonal for your opponent to attack.
34.The later you castle, the more potentially dangerous it can be. Consider not castling at all if the queens have come off the board or if your opponent has open lines towards your castled king.
35.Keep your queen mobile, don't block her lines with your own pieces. Failure to do so often means the queen gets shut out of play or worse, trapped.
36.Enemy pawns are the scourge of the advanced piece. To a pinned piece, they are poison.
37.An enemy rook on the same file as your king/queen spells trouble.
38.Trade away your opponents active pieces, leave the inactive pieces alone.
39.If you are ahead in material, the objective must be to win by converting to a won endgame or a mating attack. Not to win even more material at the risk of counterplay.
40.Pawns in front of a castled king must only move under dire circumstances.
41.A strong attack against the enemy king is worth about 2 pawns. A mating attack against the enemy king is worth a queen, both rooks and all the minor pieces you can afford to give and still deliver mate.
42.The queen can rarely move in safety. She is always subject to attack from other pieces and pawns.
43.Anyone who gets mated on the back-rank truly deserves it. This is the most elementary mating pattern and must be acknowledged at all times when calculating tactical variations.
44.If a pawn is attacked, instead of moving a piece to protect it consider moves that create a threat or win time. Foolish opponents will often capture the pawn and leave you with good chances.
45.Not all pieces belong on one side of the board. When attacking, use as many pieces as you can but leave one or two behind as defense.
46.An attack with three or more pieces usually succeeds; two pieces sometimes; one never.
47.Defense without help from pawns is almost never successful.
48.At the end of complicated lines, look for simple moves.
49.What doesn't work now might work later on. If there is tension in the position to your advantage, aim to maintain that tension.
Endgame:
50.In a rook and pawns endgame, keep your rook active at all times.
51.In endgames without queens, always centralize your king and make him active.
52.In endgames with queens, protect your king with your own pawns but beware of cheap mates.
53.Learn the concept of opposition in king and pawn endings.
54.If your opponent has passed pawns, try to create your own on the opposite side.
55.A king alone can never stop connected passed pawns.
56.Know the square-rule by heart.
57.Trade off weak pawns; place your strong pawns in chains.
58.A bishop and rook pawn against a lone king only win if the bishop is the same colour as the queening square.
59.The purpose of every endgame should be to promote a pawn or prevent the opponent from doing same.
60.Once the pawns are locked, both players must stay mindful of the possibility of stalemate at all times.
61.The king would be the best piece in the endgame if not for the unfortunate possibility of check and mate.
62.A lone rook stands no chance against a pair of bishops.
63.The three winning factors to rook-and-pawn endgame are: active rook, active king and good pawn structure.
64.Know the Lucena position by heart.
65.Study of the KBNvK endgame will teach you about piece coordination as well as mating patterns.
Tactics:
66.Many combinations start with pinning a piece.
67.Any sacrifice that makes the enemy king more vulnerable must be considered.
68.Never capture back blindly. There might be a strong zwischenzug to be played. Likewise, to recapture with the wrong piece can bring disaster.
69.The best moves are those that create two or three threats at the same time. A threat of mate combined with another threat is usually lethal.
70.Do not execute a threat while your opponent can counter it - wait for him to overlook something before springing the trap or force him to react defensively to your threat.
71.Beware of unprotected pieces.
72.Discovered attacks are the most devastating weapon on the chessboard. Learn to spot them.
73.Resolve pins quickly.
74.Learn to recognize and implement different kinds of mating patterns.
75.Pieces don't leave the board before they are captured - beware of "take back" moves winning material.
76.The best response to one of your pieces being attacked is often to attack an enemy piece in turn.
77.Pinned pieces neither attack nor defend anything.
78.Sacrifices are like playing slot machines. You put in a quarter and sometimes a fortune falls into your hands. A good sacrifice, even if it doesn't lead to mate, will usually allow you to regain the sacrificed material in a better position.
79.Pawn forks are the most overlooked and embarrassing tactic out there.
80.A sacrifice on f2, f7, h7 or h2 must never be overlooked.
81.Tactics that leave your opponent with multiple possible replies usually don't work. If you have two good moves, choose the one which leaves your opponent with fewer options.
Positional play:
82.Every pawn move must be carefully evaluated to see if it creates weak squares.
83.Always act to stop your opponent's pieces from arriving at outpost squares before they get there.
84.Knights run out of squares to go to easily. Use bishops and pawns to contain your opponent's knights.
85.A protected knight sitting in your opponent's king position is lethal. Not only is there a threat of forks, the mental effort of calculating the threats every move is highly depleting.
86.If you are missing one bishop, place your pawns on squares of the same color as the missing bishop.
87.If your opponent has no good moves, make sure he stays that way.
88.Weak pawns should be traded off.
89.If you have little space on one side, expand on the other side.
90.A pawn on the 6th or 7th rank is never to be taken lightly.
91.In the early middlegame, a pawn structure is only as good as the pawn breaks available in it.
Psychology:
92.If your position is worse, but you have found a good move, make the move and offer your opponent a draw. He might misjudge and accept.
93.If you believe the position is drawn and consider offering a draw, beware of the move before the draw offer. Letting your mind slip away from the game is a dangerous thing. The move might be a huge blunder.
94.If you are worse off, admit it to yourself. Having the right mindset is important in defending.
95.When you are attacking, calm down and take a critical look at your position. Your opponent still has resources left.
96.Learn to shut out everything else to help concentrate on analyzing.
97.Play all your moves with confidence. If you missed something, so will probably your opponent.
98.Don't be afraid to lose.
99.Irregular openings can be tried occasionally for shock value. The psychological edge is sometimes enough to compensate for theoretical weaknesses.
100.If you find yourself turned off by chess, take a moderately long break and concentrate on other things. You will find a fresh perspective.
101.If all else seems to fail, try the craziest move you can find. Not only will you have fun trying to hussle your opponent, you will gain a reputation for being a creative player.
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Serious chess. Serious fun!
