How To Evaluate In Chess

Every chess player dreams of being a Grandmaster at one point in their lifetime. Well, I have a concrete and elaborate secret that can propel you to be one. That is learning the art of evaluation.

In chess, Evaluation is the assessment of a particular position at a given time in the game before deciding on what move to make. A position can either be winning, losing or a drawish one. In this article, we are going to instil in you some knowledge of how, when and why to evaluate a position, so hang on.

Importance of Evaluation In Chess

Evaluation is one of the most fundamental aspects a serious chess player must consider in every game. It is safe to say that you can never win a game of chess without evaluating a given position in chess unless you are playing with beginners in the game.

Below are some of the importance of proper evaluation.

a) Helps you make Informed decisions: Suppose you are trying to sacrifice your bishop at F7 to accelerate an attack on your opponent's king.

Before evaluation, you might think that it is safe or unsafe to sacrifice but after making an evaluation you will clear out those suspicions and find out whether or not it is safe to make that sacrifice.

b)Increases your probability of Winning: What happens when you make better decisions in your game? Simple, you get more chances of outshining your opponent at every point in time hence improving the probability of winning.

c)Expands your thinking capacity: Whenever you compare different perspectives of a position, you will see many ways of thinking out of the box. In the long run, the way you look at a position changes for the best.

d)Evaluation is the cornerstone of learning: In the process of evaluating you come across many different tactics that are possible. After analysing many other similar positions these tactics become etched in your brain forever...this is learning.

e)Helps you Identify your Strengths and Weaknesses: Every chess player has their strengths and weaknesses and during evaluation, you can come across an idea that never crossed your mind.

After doing so you get to learn more from your weaknesses while strengthening your good side.

What to Consider Before Evaluating a Position

Every position is distinct from any other. Some theoretically studied positions are known all over chess history but considering that at one point you will drift out of theory, it's important to know what to look for while evaluating a position.

Here are six things to consider before making your move

1.Your King's Safety 
This is the most cardinal thing to consider because in chess you are in the game only when your king is not dead. There is no point in attacking your opponent when you are at the risk of being attacked.

 2. Effect of Change to the Position
What happens when you move a bishop from a diagonal? It ceases to control that particular diagonal; this implies that anything that was being defended by that bishop can no longer be defended by it. This is what is termed the effect of change on a position.                

In the picture above White played RB7+ forgetting that the rook was defending the other rook on A3.After KC6 white was forced to part ways with one of his rooks by just forgetting to evaluate what will happen after moving his rook. 

3. Piece positioning
The positioning of each piece at a particular time is very important as it forms the basis of the effect of change at a position. Knowing piece positions also enables you to be vigilant, you will be able to know when your opponent has potential threats or not. 

4. Move Flexibility
As much as you want to create an attack on your opponent's king you should ensure the flexibility of that move. Here are some guidelines to follow
  a) Ensure the piece has a square to return to if attacked
   b)Whether the piece hinders the development of other pieces
   c))Whether the piece will be a target or not

5. Move efficiency
It is a rule in chess that you should never make a move without having a reason for it.If that's true, then whenever you make a move ensure that it serves a purpose somewhere. This idea will greatly improve your game since you will not create targets for your opponents to take advantage of and also enlighten you on how to look out when your opponent does the same to you. 

6. Ability of your opponent to Counter 

It is one thing to give your opponent a target to exploit and another to provoke your opponent to create some weaknesses in their camp. Unless you have a concrete plan, make sure that your opponent cannot take advantage of any move you make.

How to Evaluate a Position
Since you are neither Stockfish nor alpha zero you have to know what to do when evaluating a position and here are some ways to do that:

1. Prepare your Mind
Imagine seeing a position and negatively preempting it to be a losing position. You won't be able to evaluate the position objectively since you're clouding your judgement. It is vital to be positive in every position to increase your chances of success in the game of chess.

2. Study the Position
This is the basic stage where you are required to collect all the details of a position wholly and form some analytics based on whatever you see. You are required to think objectively here since any slight imprecision can lead to a false evaluation of a position.

3. Eliminate the Unnecessary Options
After studying a certain position, you have to come up with the good and not-so-good moves that are present in the position. It is also up to you to choose the moves that suit your strategy and style of play while leaving the unfavourable ones.

4. Narrow down Your Options
You have eliminated the unnecessary moves, what now? The next step is easy, just narrow down your options by further eliminating some of the worse options from your list. At the very end, you have to settle down to one move since chess only accepts one move per player.

6. Double Check your Moves
In chess, it goes without saying that blind moves are easily punished. If you don't check whether your opponent can counter your move, you will always be disappointed by chess and its intricacies.

If you keep in mind all these ideologies stated in this article, there is no doubt that your game of chess will improve immensely.

However, always remember to be flexible at all times so that you can see everything that comes at you from numerous angles. For instance, while it is advisable not to rush your moves during Classical games, the same does not apply in  Blitz and bullet games.

I wish you well as you thread your way to being a Grandmaster.