Ways to start the war in chess
The three parts of the game in chess are opening game, middle game and the end game. The first six or seven moves form the first part of the game called opening game. Then the middle game starts in which the real battle begins. Each player starts attacking their opponent so that to reduces the power of the opponent. Final six steps form the end game in which any one of the king will get into the checkmate. In all the three above said parts, starting chess strategy plays a vital role which lays the foundation for the game. Such an opening part should be played with the best strategy to make the strong structure in the board. The following guidelines will be helpful to make the powerful strategy in the game:
- You must stop moving the pawns two steps initially and this will help you to have a few more leisure moves. Also you can play without any hazard attacks from your opponent. This strategy will be more helpful for you to make the defective stance in the board so that you can be able to handle any attack stance made by your opponent.
- You should not lose any powerful pieces in the game early since this lose will make you to feel very tough situation in later part.
- You should not attempt any premature attacks in the early part of the game. This will make to lose early pieces and sometimes it will make to get into the checkmate very soon.
- You should notice the weakest part of the opponent’s side. This will help you to attempt the attack on your opponent,
The number of steps in the opening part of the game may be only about six but these six steps will reflect in all the remaining part of the game.
Essential tips for improving chess skills
The game of chess is a challenge to the mind and an exercise to the brain. The only sport that not only provides you the much-needed relaxation, fun and excitement, but also exercises your brain and nurtures your character is the noble game of chess, rightly referred to as King of Games.
Chess is one of the most ancient games, said to have been first played in the 6th Century A.D. Even after 15 centuries, the game is still popular among the people, and with the advent of the computer and the Internet, the game started reaching the masses and more and more people are fascinated by this game and are becoming addicts to the new buzzword in chess world, Online Chess. Learning the simple game of chess and trying to practice the game by playing chess online is the easiest way to grow up the ladder of expertise in this game.
It is no doubt true that as you play more games, you are likely to gain expertise in the game. It is not the quantity or the number of games that determine your level of expertise, but the lessons you learned in the process of playing those games.
It is but impossible for any chess player, in his early days, to start winning the game. He is more likely to stumble at every point and will invariably commit mistakes. If you make a mistake, then you are bound to pay for the mistake with a loss. As such, it is but natural that you will end up hearing the golden word of “checkmate” from the opponent, and will not be getting enough opportunity to say that golden word to your opponent.
How to change the scenario and start saying the golden word? One obvious way is to play more games, not just to hear more times the golden word of “checkmate”, but to learn from the mistakes and try not to make the same mistake again and again. If you lose a game of chess, and fail to learn any new lesson from the loss, then it is as good as not playing the game at all in the first instance.
In other words, one should not feel ashamed or else feel afraid of losing games in his early days. But he should be ashamed of himself if he does not learn from the mistakes that he did during the game which ultimately led to the loss of the game.
The most important tip for improving the chess skills is to learn from the mistakes and avoid repeating the same mistake again and again.
Another tip worth considering for a player in his early days, is to try to select an expert player to play against. Losing against an experienced player will give you a solace and at the same time help you eliminate the mistakes quickly, as the experienced player can spot your mistakes quickly and take advantage of those mistakes. A mistake will be a mistake only if it is found out. If the opponent does not take advantage of your mistake, you will not be able to realize that you made a mistake in the first instance. So, if you play against an experienced player, the probability of your mistakes being highlighted is more and the chances for learning from such mistakes is immense.
Popular Chess Opening for a Perfect Endgame
Chess has always been comparable to our life. There are a lot of things that we can do and act upon promptly in life. Just like in chess, there are series of variations on different situations. Among these openings, you can from these. But what are the most popular chess openings and most likely to be used all the times? Here is some of it.
The most common among these is the open game wherein the counter-attack of the king’s pawn is derived from the movement of the white. The most common thing that might happen here is when the white moves e4, the black executes to e5.
Along this opening branched out others too. One of which, and also the most popular, is the Ruy Lopez or the Spanish game. This is considered as one of the oldest of all openings in chess. It has been even advocated with so much time to be written in books alone. So if one intends to use this, one should be really knowledgeable beforehand he/she uses it. The pieces involved here are not mainly pawns but as well as knights and bishop. These two are the combatants in this kind of opening.
On the other hand, one must consider opening styles with regards to the color. If one is using the black one, he/she might anticipate avoiding the open game. How to this? One can embark on using the Caro-Kann which is also the same as using the French defense but with a slight difference for the former doesn’t have the counter defense that of the former. However, one might expect that there is no such thing as “bad bishop.” Others might even consider it surrendering at times but it’s quite reliable. In line with this kind of defense, one can also use the French Defense which is a result by a closed game. Unlike the Caro-Kann, the French defense produces a “bad bishop.” Of course, in this kind of defense, the black will be favored. Further, it’s a defense that is very difficult to break and at times disappoints open game specialists.
Moving on for the benefit of the white, there are also openings that would be advantageous. The burden here lies in the Queen for she needs to gambit herself. With such act, the opponent may or may not accept. But at times this serves to be very useful if black accepts the gambit. Another defense that would benefit the white would be the Indian defense which includes Kings Indian defense, Queen’s Indian, and Nimzo-Indian. This defense main purpose is to control the center indirectly with the use of earlier pieces and at the end the pawn.
So with openings presented, all you need to do is choose the move that you are going to make. Just be very careful in choosing. Just like in life, wrong decisions made will be sorry in the end.
Best chess strategies
In chess one cannot name any strategy as the best or the worst as it may work differently in different kinds of situations. But one can term a strategy as an advanced one depending upon level of out of the box thinking used to create the strategy.
Lasker – Bauer combination is considered one of the advanced strategy for the same reason. This strategy was first played by Emanuel lasker in a game between him and johann bauer in Amsterdam .1889.It is famous for the tactic used by lasker to sacrifice both of his bishops to open up the pawn cover made by bauer around the king. Lasker used his bishop to force bauer to give up his queen to save himself from checkmate. This forking of two bishops denies the compensation for the bauer’s queen thereby giving lasker decisive material advantage which he uses to eventually to win the game. Strategies similar have been used on numerous occasions over the decades like in games between Nimzovich-Tarrasch, St Petersburg 1914; Miles-Browne, Lucerne 1982; and Polgar-Karpov, 7th Essent 2003.
Even though naming a strategy as the best is very difficult in the deceptive game of chess, this Lasker – Bauer combination is considered to be one of the best chess strategies of all time by many chess players. Another strategy that is ranked as one of the best is Boden’s mate which is a checkmating pattern characterized by two bishops on criss-crossing diagonals with possible flight squares of the king being on the range of friendly pieces. In this situation most often the king has castled queenside and is mated on another square. This strategy was developed by Samuel boden who played this game in Schulder-Boden, London 1853.
These two chess strategies when implemented properly can deliver a killer blow to the opponent.
Chess openings – Basic principles that need to be kept in mind
In an earlier article – The need for chess openings in a chess game – we found that a white player who normally makes the first move in the game, is left with as many as 20 alternatives to choose which of the pieces should he move first. Similarly, the black player responding to the white’s initial move has equally 20 alternatives to choose from for making a move. Can you recall what those 20 alternatives are?
You might know that the pawn in its first move can jump two squares if it wants to. But there is no compulsion or rule that it should move only two squares in the first instance. The pawn at a2 can move either to a3 or to a4 in its first move. Subsequently it has to move only square forward. So, every white pawn in the second rank and every black pawn in the seventh rank has two choices. There are eight pawns per player and so the alternatives turn out to be sixteen. Each player is provided with two knights, one at the king side and the other at the queenside. Knight is the only piece that can hop over another square even if the latter is occupied by a piece. The white knights can move to either a3 or c3 and f3 or h3. So the total alternatives to choose from totals twenty.
Let us get back to basic aspects of the game once again. The chessboard comprising 64 squares has eight rows and eight columns. The rows are called as the ranks and are given the numbers 1 to 8. The columns are referred to as files and are denoted by alphabets “a” to “h”. The ranks 1 to 4 become one-half of the board and the other four ranks – 5 to 8 become another half of the board. Technically the ranks 1 to 4 in which the first two ranks are occupied by the White pieces is referred to “White territory” and the ranks 5 to 8 in which the black pieces occupy the seventh and the eighth ranks are said to be “black’s territory”.
The opening moves should be planned such that the territory is well guarded and at the same time, opportunities for looking at and exploiting the weakness of the opponent’s territory are explored.
With this point in mind, one should approach the chess openings. Controlling the squares in one’s own territory effectively and also trying to gain control over opponent’s squares should be one of the guiding principles in chess openings.
Some important aspects that need to be kept in mind, especially in chess openings, include:
1.Making effective use of the pawns – Pawns are the only pieces that have the capability of getting promotions – in other words pawn moves should be minimum.
2.Bringing the major pieces in to active play – especially the bishops that can take control over the diagonals and the Knights having unique way of moving around
3.Effective control over the central squares – The most important aspect in the game of chess is to have effective control over the central squares – especially the squares of e4, e5, d4 and d5.
4.Resort to castling to make the rook more active
5.Same piece should not be moved more than once in the early stages.
It is for this point that most of the openings revolve around the e4 square and the d4 square on the part of white and the e5 square and the d5 square on the part of black pieces.
