How to Improve your Chess II; The openings
How to Improve your Chess II; The openings
By BoboTheFlyingSheep67
Hi everyone! This is my second post on the openings and we will be covering some general opening principles and themes. Here we will also be analyzing some common mistakes in the opening. Hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!
The opening is the beginning and first phase of the game. In the opening, you should establish an advantage, which later, you can capitalize on. To establish an advantage, here are some general principles you should follow
Principle #1 - Develop your pieces
I cannot stress it enough how important this principle is. In the initial starting position, the pieces obstruct each other and prevent development of their own army. If you don't develop your pieces, you cannot start an attack (What's there to attack with?) neither can you defend against your opponent's attack (Again, what's there to defend with?). Generally, you should start by developing your pawns, and then your minor pieces, and then your rook and finally your queen. Development is a process analogous to the advance at the beginning of a war. Both armies seek to reach the middle to, if possible, penetrate into enemy territory. As like in an army, you are not fully deployed if only one unit is developed, rather, we must spend time developing every piece.
Principle #2 - Control the centre
This is another incredibly important opening principle. In chess, the "centre" is the small quadrant of 4 squares in the middle of the board (e4-e5-d4-d5). It is important to control the centre, because from the centre, your pieces can cover more squares than they can anywhere else on the board, making them more powerful! By controlling these key squares, your pieces become stronger than your opponent's, which could help you create an attack or have some sort of positional advantage.
Principle #3 - Get your King to safety
Once you have mobilized your pieces, try to get your king to safety as soon as possible. Whether that means castling short or castling long, your King's safety is the #1 priority. Once both your pieces and your opponent's are developed, a King in the centre become vulnerable to a potential attack from your opponent's developed units. By getting your King to safety, you don't need to worry about it as much and can focus on creating an attack yourself.
Case Study; When your opponent isn't following opening principles -
(Game notes by Aron Nimzowitsch)
In this game, Black was clearly not developing his pieces, controlling the centre, or getting his king to safety. Instead, he wasted time with his queen grabbing pawns and completely neglected development and control of the centre. In summary, if you do NOT follow these opening principles, you will most likely get defeated quickly.
Case Study #2; The pawnless advance -
(Notes by Aron Nimzowitsch; Mein System)
Another common mistake is for players to develop without the aid of their pawns. Their reasoning goes "pieces are more powerful than pawns, so why not develop them first and start to attack?" Unfortunately, this approach is not correct. Observe the following game
In conclusion, A pawn move must not be regarded as a developing move, but should be seen as a aid to development. If it were possible to develop pieces without moving the pawns, that approach would be the right one. This is because a pawn is not an powerful piece at all in comparison to knight or bishops. But, as we observed from the game above, a pawnless approach is not possible, since your opponent's pawns will push back your pieces by (As Nimzowitsch puts it) their "inherent lust to expand"
In conclusion, when you play an unfamiliar opening, you should try to follow the above principles and use your pawns effectively. That being said, I hope you have learned a lot from this article. Thanks for reading!
