Pieces: Development and Activation
Ever since we have started playing chess, we have been told to 'develop our pieces' and 'keep them where they will be happy and useful'. But why and where exactly should we place our pieces?
Lets see that in this blog. 
Before we go into complications, first, lets see what development actually means.
what does development actually mean?
In chess, development is when you bring your pieces out of their neutral positions and make them control squares near or in the center. So, development is like commanding your army to slowly advance from their positions toward the opponent's army.
The center and why it is important
Now that we know what development is, why and where do we develop our pieces?
to understand this, first we need to understand what the center is.
Firstly, there are 4 'central' squares: e4, e5, d4 and d5.
Ok, so the center consists of 4 squares, but why is it important?
lets see 👇
in the above picture, 3 knights are shown. As you can see, knight no 1 (the knight on e5) can go to (or controls) a whopping 8 squares. knight no 2 (the knight on c1) is on the side of the board and controls only half the amount of squares that are controlled by knight no 1. knight no 3 (the knight on h1) is on the corner of the board and thus controls only a quarter of the amount of squares controlled by knight no 1.
As you can see, knight no 1 is the strongest because he is in the center of the board, whereas knight no 3 is the weakest because he is on one corner of the board. The same rules apply to every piece except the king.
Now that we have learnt why the center is important, lets talk about activation.
What is activation?
activation is when you bring a piece to a square that-
- improves your position
- attacks or threatens to attack your opponent
- is better then the previous square
Now that we have an idea of what activation is, lets answer a question that may have come to some of you guys:
Activation vs Development: What is the difference?
Development and activation are very similar, but not the same. Development is when you move a piece from its normal position, while activation is moving a piece to a better square than its last one.
Now that this doubt is cleared, lets answer another doubt:
What are 'good' and 'bad' pieces?
A good piece means that the piece is a piece that is properly developed, activated or both. It is a piece that has either moderate or supreme power over your opponent or the pieces around it.
A bad piece is an underdeveloped or improperly developed piece. It is pretty useless and is trapped or prevented from moving by either the opponent's pieces or his own pieces.
lets see an example
as you can see, black's bishop is useless and doesn't have anything to do. it is a bad bishop. White's bishop on the other hand, is much more active as it protects one of white's pawns and attacks one of black's pawns.
Some real life games that use this tactic
1: Karina vs Zeinab: Karina Szczepkowska Shows Us How To Crush The Dutch Defense - YouTube
(I am not mentioning both the player's surnames because they are both long and complicated (and hard to type)).
2. Levon Aronian vs Hikaru Nakamura: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ot_l1EB2dc
3. Magnus Carlsen vs Anish Giri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Co9eoTp5Tk
The end
And this is the end of this blog. You can suggest where I should improve in the comments. Hope you have enjoyed this blog , and Happy new year 2021! Hope this year is better than 2020!
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