Trading Pieces, Part 2: Evaluating Trades

    Hello! My name is Zach Kasiurak. I am a National Master living in Columbus, OH rated 2273 USCF and 2198 FIDE. I am seriously pursuing my chess career and looking to improve rapidly as a player and coach.

  I have created my blog to provide insight into ideas or themes I have discorvered in my own games, games of my students, or in games of strong players. I hope to convey my personal struggles as well as successes in my own studies, my tournaments, and the coaching scenes. 

Part 1: http://www.chess.com/blog/zkman/trading-pieces-part-1-forced-or-fantastic

Trading Pieces

  In part 1, we overviewed a key concept of trading that is often overlooked. The concept of Forced or Fantastic demonstrates how crucial each trade and, in turn, each tempo can be in a chess game. Trades are not to be taken lightly!

   Now, we will delve into another common misconception regarding trading and how to adjust to a better thought process. Trading a good piece for a bad piece is, of course, a very important concept in chess. However, this is not the entire story.

   We will now look at the game Fischer-Petrosian, 1971. Fischer, a brilliant tactician and attacking player, often is overlooked for his deep positional understanding.

   White has an advantage for numerous reasons:

•    Better placed pieces
•    Easily targetable weaknesses
•    No clear weaknesses of his own