The Basic Principles of Chess For Beginners

Hello, fellow chess enthusiasts, are you struggling a bit with winning games or improving at chess? Well then you came to the right blog, the blog of basic principles for beginners to improve at chess!

Opening Principles:

1. Control the center: Always try to take ahold of the center, it develops your pieces well and gives more scopes for your pieces. It also gives your opponents more limited space to work with. Take control of the center with either e4 or d5 for white, e5 and d4 as black.

Examples:

It seems e4e5 is better than d4d5 since e4e5 opens up the bishop and queens diagonal, while d4d5 only opens the bishops diagonal. Try playing e4e5 in a game, and then play d4d5, and compare your e4e5 game to d4d5 game. 
If you play better with e4e5 than d4d5, then great! Better with d4d5, nice. But they were only one game each so play 2 more with e4e5, and 2 more with d4d5 to see which opening you’re actually more better at.

2. Develop your pieces: Bring out your knights first before the bishops, as knights can take 2 center squares, and they can be protections for the pawn in the early game. After you get out your knights, bring out your bishops to give them more scope and control more squares.

3. King safety: Try to castle as early as you can, and it’s better when your king is behind pawns. Your king will be less prone to attacks and would have multiple pieces guarding it.

4. Connect your rooks: Once your minor pieces are developed, and you’ve castled, clear the back rank by moving pieces out of there and let your rooks see each other. Together, they protect each other and they work to conquer open files.

5. Avoid moving too many pawns: Moving too many pawns in the early game and not bringing out your minor pieces sounds like a recipe for disaster, since they can create weaknesses. They don’t develop pieces for you and won’t have much squares to control. 
6. Don’t bring your queen out too early: If you bring your queen out too early, then they can use their minor pieces to attack your queen, which forces your queen to move to safety while they develop their pieces. It can cost you tempo, aka time.

Mid Game Principles:

7. Maximize your piece activity: You want your pieces to be active and taking up squares, put your pieces on squares where they get a chance to take more squares and have a greater impact on the game. Your bishops should have the most scope as possible, so they could be sniping at something. Your knights on squares were one wrong move and they’re dead. Your queen on a square where she is feared, and your rooks controlling important files where they’re scrambling to find a good move. 


This way, your king can be chilling and already driving off into the sunset. 
8. Coordinate your pieces: Make sure your pieces are working together rather than independently. If the work together, they can make an overwhelming attack on the opponents pieces, such as getting multiple pieces to attack a piece so they’re forced to try to protect it and then you trade off pieces and you should end up with more material.

9. Exchange your less active pieces for their more active pieces: Have a bishop in a bad spot with barely any scope? Try trading it for their active bishop/knight! Now, exchanging pieces isn’t always a good idea since you could blunder mate or put yourself in an even worse position.

10. Limit your opponent’s best pieces: Try to block off squares that could be detrimental for your pieces. Queen in a good spot? Try to attack it to make them force it to retreat into a safe square. Same for other pieces, try to attack it to maybe make it retreat and make them lose tempo.

Endgame Principles:

11. Push passed pawns: If you don’t know what a passed pawn is, it’s a pawn with no pawns in front of it. Pushing passed pawns make them one step closer to promotion. They are really important in end game to checkmate.

12. Trade material strategically: Trade off pieces wisely, try to simplify it to move towards a winning position. Simplifying the game can make it easier for you to get advantages and see tactics. 

We made it to the end of the blog for basic principles! Hope my blog helped you improve in your chess journey. Happy chessing