Analysing A Chess Position

Analysing a Chess Position

Have you ever wondered how these amazing GMs and IMs analyse positions. Well, this tutorial will show you a brilliant way to analyse a position and help you quickly find the best move. Not only that, we will also give examples to make sure you definitely know what you are doing.

When analysing a position there are 2 different sections. Tactical Factors and Positional Factors. Adding a total of 12 different factors to rank. There are also 4 different steps to decide to move. So lets get on with it:

Tactical Factors:

Loose Pieces - Are any pieces unprotected
Hanging Pieces - Do any pieces have pressure on them?
High Valued Pieces - Are high valued pieces on ranks and diagonals of other pieces.
Pinned Pieces - Are there any pinned pieces?

Positional Factors:

King Position - How safe is your king? Has it castled?
Centre - Is your centre strong enough?
Space - How much space do you have?
Pawn Structure - Are your pawns in a good structure?
Coordination - Are your pieces connected?
Open & Half Open Files: Second & Seventh Ranks - Do your rooks have the open files or 2nd or 7th ranks?
Strong & Weak Squares - Do you have any outposts? Are there any weak squares?
Pawn Breaks - Can you push any pawns to take advantage?
Initiative - Can you make your opponent do a forced move?

4 Step Move:

Opponents Idea - What is your opponent planning to do?
Harmful - Is it harmful to you?
Drawback - What is your opponents move’s / idea’s drawback?
Your Idea - Do you have any ideas?

With these we can analyse a position. So lets take an example:

In this game black played Nc5. And white needs to find a move. So we should get started.

Hanging Pieces:

White - e4 pawn

Black - c5 knight

Loose Pieces:

White - b2 & c4 pawn

Black - None

High Valued Pieces:

None

King Position:

White: Weak

Black: Castled but weak

Center: 

White: Extremely Strong

Black: Weak

Space:

White: More Space

Black: Tight and Cramped

Pawn Structure:

White: Strong

Black: Moderate

Coordination:

White: Good

Black: Very Good

Strong - Weak Squares:

f6, h6 and d4

Open / Half Open Files: Second / Seventh Ranks:

No Open / Half Open Files

Pawn Breaks:

White: h5 and b4

Black: b4, h6, c6 and f5

Initiative:

White: None

Black: None

So now that we have judged all of these factors we can tell who is winning. From all of these we can tell that that white is winning due to the fact that white has more space, a bishop pair and a strong centre. So now we can decide on our move:

Opponents Idea:

Make outpost on c5
Push f5 and attack on kingside

Harmful:

Not Yet

Drawback:

Allows white time to attack

Your Idea:

Trade Kingside Pawns
Push Kingside Pawns

With this we see that our best move is 15. h5. And in the game h5 was played.

The game continues: 15. h5 Qd7 16. hxg6 fxg6 17. Bg4 Qd8 18. Bxc5 dxc5

19. Qd2 Nc8?! 20. Qe3 c6? 21. Qh3 b5? 22. Qxh7+ Kf7 23. Be6+ Kf8?? 

Mate in 7 24. Qg8+ Ke7 25. Qxg7+ Kd6 26. f4 1-0