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.