Activating Your Pieces

Chess.com Team

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Get the most out of all of your pieces!

Have you ever struggled to get the most potential out of your bishop pair or find the right squares for your pieces? Then this is the course for you! Learning how to get your pieces activated and placed on their best outposts is a difficult skill to learn, but not with this lesson plan. By learning these ideas you will begin deploying your pieces more harmoniously and start racking up the wins!

Here is what you will learn:

How to use the bishop pair in open positions
Finding the right outposts for your knights
Windmill tactics and batteries for your heavy pieces
How to cash in on your superior pawn structures
Pigs on the 7th!

Breakthrough

Often the way to win a game is to promote a pawn. Since a new queen is so valuable, it's usually worth sacrificing a piece or two to promote a pawn if at all possible.

7 минути

6 Предизвикателства

Pawns in the Middlegame

In the middlegame, you can often tell where to attack based on where your pawns are pointing and where you have a majority. One option is to advance a majority and create a passed pawn in the endgame. If you have fewer pawns on part of the board, you can trade them to isolate the opponent's remaining pawn. This is called the minority attack.

7 минути

5 Предизвикателства

Blockading Pawns

Passed pawns can be deadly, so you need to keep them blockaded. Knights are great blockading pieces because they can jump over the pawn and remain active. If you let passed pawns advance too far, you will often have to sacrifice to stop them from promoting.

5 минути

5 Предизвикателства

Isolated and Hanging Pawns

Sharpen your attacking and defensive skills with these two essential pawn structures! Isolated pawns are easy to attack because other pawns can't defend them. Often an isolated pawn is the only pawn in the center, so that means that the side with the pawn can have good attacking chances in the middlegame. Hanging pawns are when there are two pawns together, with no pawns on either side, for instance on the d and c files. These pawns also provide good attacking chances, but can easily come under attack.

7 минути

6 Предизвикателства

Outposts

An outpost is a square for a piece that cannot be attacked by an opposing pawn. In particular it helps when that square is defended by one of your pawns and controls key squares in the opponent's position. Knights in particular are very powerful pieces to put in outposts.

6 минути

5 Предизвикателства

Using the Bishop Pair

Bishops are strong in open positions and particularly powerful when you have both of them. They can control both light and dark squares and play a role in both endgames and mating attacks. If your opponent has a bishop pair, look for a way to trade off one of those bishops.

8 минути

5 Предизвикателства

Bishops vs Knights

The bishop vs. knight rivalry is one of the greatest battles in chess. Bishops are fast and powerful in open positions when they won't be blocked. Knights can control both light and dark squares and thrive in closed positions.

8 минути

5 Предизвикателства

Batteries

Unlock the full potential of your long-range pieces by focusing them on the same lines. A battery is when two or more pieces work together or a rank, file or diagonal. Batteries frequently can help you win material or checkmate.

9 минути

5 Предизвикателства

Pigs on the 7th Rank

One of the most powerful batteries in chess is two rooks on the 7th rank. They're called pigs on the 7th because they can capture everything in their path. They frequently capture many pawns and possibly checkmate as well.

5 минути

6 Предизвикателства

Windmill

The windmill is a rare, but powerful tactic that occurs when you can repeat a discovered check multiple times, like the blades on windmill spinning around. You can use the discovered checks to capture multiple pieces, often resulting in a large material edge.

6 минути

5 Предизвикателства

Уроци

Activating Your Pieces

: Поемане на Контрол
: Разширени
: 10 Уроци
: 68 Минути
: 53 Предизвикателства
: Пуснат на December 27, 2018
: 400 909 Ученици