How to play Chess Middlegames?

Intro:

Hello fellow blog readers! Chess is a fun game, but it is also requires a lot of struggle to master. And one of the hardest stages of a chess game is the Middlegame. This is because most of the players know that they have to develop their pieces in the opening and castle. But after that, they don't know what to do. So, in this blog, we are going to learn about four important aspects of playing chess middlegames. Of course there are many more important concepts on middlegames but I cannot cover everything in one blog.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Avoiding Blunders 

2. Looking for Tactics

3. The Principle of the Least Actice Piece

4. Making a Plan

5. Knowing Basic Middlegame Principles

So without furthur ado, let's get started.

Details:

Avoiding Bunders

First of all we gotta stop blundering. Blunders are very common in the ameture level. If you avoid blunders, you are already ahead of most of your opponents. Now the truth is, blunders can't be completely avoided, by minimized. Even the world champion made blunders. This concept is very important for your middlegames.

Here is an example to illustrate this concept.

Diagram 1

It is white to move and here white should just play something like Nh5 intending Qg7#. However, white instead played the shocking blunder, Qxg5?? simply hanging a full queen. White probably thought that it sets up Qh8+ not realizing that that he just played the botez gambit.

To prevent such mistakes, we need to do a so called blunder check or anti-blunder check. To do a blunder check, start by checking your king, your pieces, opponent's king, and your opponent's pieces, in that order. In simple words, start by visually playing the move you want play (in your head) and check if our king is in danger, and then check if you have left any of your pieces hanging, then check if you can win a piece or checkmate your opponent. Also don't forget about counter-play.

So, for this position my king is not completely safe but I have a faster attack on their king. Now did I hang any piece? Yes, the Queen is hanging because black's queen can take it. So now I know this is a blunder and I shouldn't play it.

Now this would prevent simple one-move blunders but sometimes we make moves that are tactically blundering a piece or sort. Like for example the following. 

In this position black played Qe5?? wanting to trade queens, but it is a big blunder, because after Bf4!, the sweety is gone. So, we can prevent tactical mistakes if we train our tactics thoroughly. To train tactics, you need to solve puzzles and train your visualization skills. Now we are going to talk more about Tactics in our next section but first I want you to solve the puzzle below 👇.

Drill 1

Diagram 3

Black just played Ne4?? here. Try to find the winning move for white here, punishing black's tactical blunder. Then tell yourself how black could have prevented this blunder.

Looking for Tactics

As the saying goes...

Chess is 99% tactics.

And these tactics are mostly common in the middlegames (especially, if it has come out of an aggressive/sharp opening or gambit such as the King's Gambit). Tactics are mainly about patter recognization and thus you need to train your puzzles frequently in order for your brain to reconzine those similar tactical patters on a real game. Let's look at the example below which demonstrates a tactical sequence. 

Diagram 4

It is white to play and win here and only if you know the tactical pattern of 'pin' you would know that the bishop is pinned to the rook and potentially also the king if the bishop goes to f4.

Now once you have identified what is going on in the position, you need to calculate the different lines and figure out the best one. You know that I had previously made a blog where I discussed my way of calculating positions. So let's look at different candidate moves possible here, one by one, based on what we have learned in that blog.

We don't have any Checks here but we do have a capture– 1. Rxe5. And the attacking moves we have are 1. f4, 1. Bb2, and 1. Bf4. I'm ignoring 1. Ba3 and 1. Bg5 because they are just one-move threats and can easily defended against, and they don't have to do anything with the pin.

1. f4

It may seem like this move Puts Pressure on the Pinned Piece (PP on the PP) but black can actually move the bishop away to f6 or d6 as well as defending the rook. Moreover, they have another move with 1...Bd4+ and since this is a check, we don't have time for taking the rook.

Diagram 5

1. Bb2

Same as 1. f4, it seems like PP on the PP, but again black can move their bishop to f6.

Diagram 6

1. Bf4

It is better than the previous moves. It wins a rook for a bishop (2 material points)!

Diagram 7

But we should select it as our solution yet because of the rule–

When you see a good move, look for a better one.

~Emuel Lasker 

That being said, we still have one move left to check on, and that is...

1. Rxe5

If we take the bishop, sacrificing the rook, and after they take with 1...Rxe5 we can now follow it up with 2. Bf4! and next we are going to win the rook, thus getting a rook and bishop for a rook (3 points), and therefore winning the game.

Diagram 8

And that my friends was the solution. 

Drill 2

Diagram 9

It is white to move and this tactical pattern might be a bit harder to solve but if you do know the pattern, it is very easy.

Principle of the Least Active Piece

In the previous two sections of this blog, we discussed about avoiding blunders and always looking for tactics. But let's say neither you nor your opponent is making any blunder and there are no tactics, then? Well in that case you need to follow the Principle of the Least Active Piece (LAP). This Principle states that you need to find your weakest / most underdeveloped piece, and improve it's position. The position below 👇 illustrates this concept.

Diagram 10

It is white to move and our least active piece(s) on the board is the rook on h8 and the knight on g3. We ideally wanna develop both of the pieces but we can't currently do anything for developing the rook, but we can play Ne2 to reroute our knight to e4. Black does want that to happen so black trades on e2. Now after white took back, black played Qc7 and now we get to develop our final piece– the rook, with Re1. 

Diagram 11

Though white didn't achieve anything big, the position did become a bit better and more comfortable to play. So that was the LAP principle.

Drill 3

Diagram 11

It is white to move. What is the Least Active Piece here and how can you make it active?

Making a Plan

Everything we discussed earlier were the main things you should know to play middlegames. Now we are going to learn about making solid plans in the middlegame. And this section is more important if you already follow the concepts presented in the blog previously.

That being said, there are six steps you can follow to come up with a good plan. The diagram below 👇 will be our example.

Diagram 12

Step 1: List the Priorities

There are 6 key elements you need to think about, in the position.

1. Checkmates/Hanging Pieces: There isn't any checkmate possibilities or hanging pieces in the position we have.
2. King Safety: Both the kings are castled and currently safe. But we can consider stuff like Bxh6 opening up the kingside for an attack.
3. Awkward/Restricted Pieces: Awkward pieces refer to piece that are pinned or restricted in movement in some way. Now there isn't any restricted piece here.
4. Weak Pawns: There isn't any weak pawns at the moment. 
5. Weak Squares: No weak squares either. 
6. Piece Imbalances: Piece Imbalances means which side has more pieces on a particular side of the board. I would say there is no piece imbalance either.

Now the example I selected turns out not to have many of these key elements, but I guess it is because it is the early middlegame. So what we can possibly do, is make such elements appear on the board. Currently the position is not that open, but we need to open position to attack. So we can possibly push the central pawns to break open the centre opening the position and maybe creating weaknesses for us to capitalize on.

Now that we have some idea floating around in our head, we can move on to Step 2, which is...

Step 2: Ask "Should I Attack or Defend?"

This is a very important question you gotta ask yourself. In this case we are pretty sure we would want to attack but the position isn't suitable for it. So again we can open the position up.

But if we were the one having weaknesses and our opponent is attacking us, we should be defending. In that case, we should have brought more pieces to the defence, tried to exchange pieces, block lines, and so on. 

That being said, we should be on the offensive side here.

Step 3: Ask "Should I make a Short-term or Long-term plan?"

We can answer this question based on one main factor– the type of position it is. So for tactical and sharp positions, we don't have enough time to do a Long-term plan e.g. we can't maneuver our piece to make it active because we will get smacked in our face quicker than our plan being completed. We need a short-term plan in that case But if it is a closed or positional type of position, we have time for our maneuvering, and Long-term plans are. suitable.

Now this position is not much tactical yet but I think I prefer a Short-term plan here, which is breaking the centre with a move like 1. d4. 

Step 4: Ask "Is the plan I'm making easy to stop?"

If your plan is easy to stop, then I guess it is not the best plan.

Now we were thinking of 1. d4 here and if black trades we are pretty happy becausenow we have more space. However, an alternative idea can be the f4 push which should not only open up the centre, but also we will possibly be able to lift the rook. I personally like this plan a bit better as I think it gives us more attacking chances. However, we can't play it right now because of our knight, so our plan can be 1. Nh2 moving the knight away followed by 2. f4. 

Diagram 13

And it seems like this is a good plan. We will just follow the rest of the steps to be sure about our plan.

Step 5: Ask "Can I achieve multiple plans at the same time?"

Now this step really is applicable if you have two or more of those key elements we discussed in Step 1. This step basically states that if there is a move that solves multiple of those problems, it is often a good move. In this case, we don't have to worry much about this step.

Step 6: Check for specific tactics

As we already discussed, tactics are very important in chess. In Diagram 13, we saw the idea of that rook sacrifice. Thus we are sure of our tactics.

And guess what, the solution is correct!

Bonus tip!

Don't be selfish. Think for both the sides or you may possibly blunder.

Drill 4

Diagram 14

Find the right plan for white in the above 👆 position.

Knowing Basic Middlegame Principles

Whatever we have already discussed in this blog are the main concepts to be aware of if you want to play a solid middlegame. However, there are some more concepts that are also "main" and very important. I didn't cover literally everything out there you should know because I just can't fit in everything in one blog. So if you want me to make this a series of blogs for middlegames, please comment below.

Now here are some very short descriptions of some of those other concepts I didn't cover–

• To take is a mistake.

It states that trading pieces or pawns unnecessarily is generally not good because it often helps your opponent to develop.

• Bishops are better in open positions, while knights are better in closed positions.

Bishops are long-ranged pieces and they are the strongest in the open position, but not knights because they are short-ranged pieces that cannot travel from on side of the board to another in one move. However, they dominate closed position because the bishop's are blocked of but the knights can jump over pieces.

• Avoid weaknesses, capitalize on your opponent's weaknesses and if they don't have any, create one.

Weaknesses can refer to a pawn that is not protected by its companions, or a square not controlled by any pawn. Make sure you don't have any weak point in your territory as it is something that will ruin your endgames. Also make sure to take advantage of your opponent's weakness if they have one. And if they don't, do pawns breaks or something to create one.

• Trade your weak pieces for your opponent's strong pieces.

We have talked about that LAP principle, right? But if you cannot develop your least active piece, try to trade it for one of your opponent's strong piece.

• If you have an enemy piece in your half of the board, you gotta neutralize it.

The rule states that if there is a piece of your opponent that in your half of the board, it is probably something that can cause problems for you in the future. So, it is advisable to trade it off like a wise man.

• Offense is the best defence. 

This rule states that you should always look for counter-play, while you're defending. You should look for moves that attack your opponent and doesn't give them time to attack you.

• When you see a good move, look for a better one.

This is a very simple rule, but a very important one as well. It states that just because you think a move is good doesn't mean you should play it. You need to scan the board for even better moves. This rule isn't only for the middlegame, but for all of the three stages of the game. It is a universal rule.

In conclusion, avoid blunders, spot tactics, develop you least active piece, make solid plans but without blunders by following the 6 steps.

Outro:

I really hope you enjoyed the blog along with the four drills, if you have any questions please write it down in the comments, and if you want me to make more blogs on middlegames, again please comment below.

Thank you!

Signing off,

@Utkarsho