Master Evaluating Positions!

Recommended Rating: Under 1800

Learning how to evaluate a position is an essential skill that every chess player must know. However, it may seem confusing or impossible to do so when there is so much going on in the position. In this lesson, I will teach you how to evaluate a position and show you several examples of taking exploiting the different type of advntages.

Evaluating a Position

There are 5 contributors to the evaluation of a position (Ranked from most to least important): 

1.  King Safety
2. Piece Activity
3. Material
4. Pawn Structure
5. Space Advantage

Each of these aspects can greatly affect the evaluation of a position. For example, you can have a massive material advantage but if your king is getting checkmated then it won’t matter. This is why King safety is the most important part of the position, if your king gets checkmated any other advantages do not matter. Similarly, I ranked piece activity over material because an advantage in piece activity can lead to attacks that will win material or checkmate the opponent (valuing king safety and piece activity over material is the basis of all sacrifices).

So, how do we compare each of these 5 aspects of a position? There is no simple equation that allows you to make perfect evaluations each time. It is a constant battle between each of these 5 positional aspects and learning how to compare and contrast each one will take years of practice (Even chess engines are not perfect at evaluating positions). With that in mind, let's take a look at some examples of each positional aspect and how it can affect the evaluation.

Material Advantage

Material advantage is the simplest and easiest to understand because of how intuitive it is. Even those who barely play chess can understand that you want to have more pieces than your opponent. However, each piece is not equally valued, trading the queen for a pawn would be a terrible mistake. This is why we have a point system to value each piece.

Pawn = 1 

Knight = 3

Bishop = 3.15-3.25

Rook = 5

Queen = 9

The one that has more points of material has a material advantage. However, there are some exceptions. For example 2 minor pieces, for a rook and pawn is not an equal trade. Even though they are both worth 6 points, the two minor pieces are better. Similarly, 3 minor pieces for a queen is not an equal trade. They are both worth 9 points, but the 3 minor pieces tend to be better. As a rule of thumb, it is better to have more pieces (pawns don’t count) rather than a single strong piece.

King Safety

King Safety is an easy concept to understand as you can show many concrete examples of tactics and maneuvers that take advantage of such a weakness. The line gets blurry when the king is weak but there is no way to exploit it immediately. When you see a weak king like that you may find it difficult to evaluate the position, but there are a few things to look for. 

1. Piece activity: Active pieces can put pressure on the king, without any active pieces there is no actual threats. Additionally, if your pieces are not active then your own king can be weak.
2. Dark square/light square weaknesses: usually when the pawn structure is on one color it creates a weak color complex. This can be a source for infiltrations and attacking the king in the future.
3. Escape squares: The king is usually much safer if it has a way to escape, for example in diagram 2, black’s king is exposed but it can quickly hide to g8 where there is no danger.

This is a position that was reached in the game, and it bears a lot of resemblance to the previous diagram, however, they have two completely different evaluations. The difference in evaluation can be surprising, but when it broken down it makes more sense.

In this position, Black's king is much weaker. This is due to the dark squared weaknesses produced by e6 (in Diagram 3 black had played d6 so there was no such weaknesses). Also, While white's king is in the center, it will quickly castle and obtain an equally safe king as in the previous example. Additionally, because of this e6 push, black will have a much more difficult time developing his light squared bishop and furthermore his queenside rook is stuck in the corner.

This is the only major change in diagram 3 and diagram 4, however, it is quite a major difference. The dark squared weaknesses and the slower development, greatly favor white who has easy development and no major weaknesses in his position.

This position is evaluated between 1.7-2.4 depending on the depth and engine, in human terms, white has a significant advantage.

Piece Activity

Piece Activity is an important part of the game. Without active pieces, you can’t attack or defend properly, and often active pieces can be decisive. As pieces get more active they increase in value, this is why in some cases a minor piece is worth more than a rook. So I have brought to you some cases of active pieces and how effective they can be. 

NOTE: Each game features some kind of active piece so I encourage you to look back and identify them.

Look at each of these pieces, black's knights are very active and dominate the position. Even though white has the bishop pair, the knights are far more valuable then the bishops. Additionally, black's rooks are developed on good squares white white's are not. Additionally, black's bishop controls the a6-f1 diagonal, which seems harmless but it allows Nd3, and disables Rf1 defending the f2 pawn.

Space Advantage

When you control more space your pieces have more maneuverability and your opponent’s has less. This creates a dynamic of having powerful pieces while your opponent does not. Obviously, this can become quite detrimental to your opponent if they do not defend correctly. I have compiled one game that shows how powerful a space advantage is. 

Pawn Structure

Pawn structure is a significant part of chess, it often forms the goals and plans of a position, it can create or control weak squares, and it can define where you want to place your pieces. For this reason, pawn structure can affect the evaluation of the position, and learning how to identify favorable pawn structures is a very important part of chess. The first game I will show you is a strong game I played, where I turned an IQP position into a slightly favorable pawn endgame. The second example is a game from my backward pawn lesson as I thought it was a good example of playing against a pawn structure. 

Recap

There are 5 different parts to evaluate a position: King safety, piece activity, material, space, and pawn structure. Each of these parts works together to form a full picture of the evaluation. When you play games try to evaluate the positions and consider each of these aspects when playing. Afterwards, compare it to the engine’s evaluation (Even better is to compare it to a strong player’s evaluation and discuss what made them think differently than you), this will allow you to understand different positional weaknesses and advantages. 

Thank you for reading!

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