Chess Principles

When playing chess there are unspoken rules that have been shown to win the majority of games when followed. 

In this forum we will go over theses unspoken rules of chess called chess principles as well as a few tips to help you on your chess journey.

1. Play for the center

The chess board has a 2x2 center consisting of e4,e5,d4,d5 this is called the center most openings of not all opening are playing to fight in the center this is because if you control the center, you can control how your opponent moves. 

The ways you can control the center is by playing e4,d4 as white and e5,d5 as black to put a pawn in the center and control the surrounding area.

2. develop

developing is getting all of your minor pieces (minor pieces are knight and bishop) out from there starting square. When you start a chess game you want to push a pawn on the center bring out your knights then decide where you want your bishop.

3. Castle as soon as possible

It is important to get the king out of the center because the longer the king stays in the center the more it can become a target for attacks. The way this is solved is by castling protecting the king behind three pawns and a rook next to it.

4. dont move the same pieces twice in the opening

When you move a piece more then once's in the opening you are wasting moves that you could of used to bring other minor pieces out.

5. dont bring the queen out early

when beginning you may be tempted to go for a quick and easy mate such as the scholar mate 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Qf3 Nc6 4.Qxf6# This idea does not work when you pass a certain level playing smart and keep your most powerful pieces from being attack.

Example of a queen coming out early gone wrong

6. Rooks belong in the center

The rooks should not be put in the center center like e4 e5 d4 d5 but rather the rooks should be put on e1 e8 d1 d8 this is because the rooks can support the pawns and when a file opens up the rooks have control over such file. 

Chess sayings

1. pigs on the 7th/2nd

When the game is nearing a close and you have two rooks able to enter the 7th or second rank you should put them there as this is the best spot for the rooks to be in an end game position.

2.battery and Alekhine's gun

A battery is when you have two rook or rook and queen lined up together on the same rank as well as a bishop and Queen lined up on a diagonal. Alekhine's gun is two rooks and a queen on the same file.

3. Pawn structure 

A pawn structure occurs when pawns are in a order that has been seen before in different types of games for example Scandinavian pawn structure Grunfeld pawn structure Cora Kann pawn structure queen's gambit accepted pawn structure.

4. Gambit

A chess Gambit is when a pawn or pieces is sacrificed to gain time spaces or development. These Gambits are used to make a game more interesting by causing a material imbalanced (this is when one side has more pieces then the other) that can either lead to the win or loss of the game. Gambits are very risky.

Examples of gambits the Danish gambit the Botez gambit(pls don't do this one lol) the Budapest Gambit Marshall Gambit Scotch Gambit Smith-Morra Gambit Albin countergambit Benko gambit Stafford Gambit Kings Gambit Vienna Gambit Evens Gambit Queens gambit ( my favorite) recommend you take a look at some of these Gambits some of them are excellent choices such as the scotch, Danish, Vienna, and queens gambit. Others are not so good the king's gambit and evens gambit.

5. check, and checkmate

A check is when the king is under attack from other pieces and has to move a checkmate is when a king cannot move and is under attack a checkmate ends the game. 

6. A Knight on the rim is dim

This saying is because when a Knight is on the side of the board it only controls 4 square half of what could control when it is in the center. There for the Knight is dim it is important to put the knights in the center so that they can use all of there power.

To end we will go over chess values one of the most important ideas to understand chess.

Each piece on the chess board has their own value that make them worth a certain amount. To start of with lowest to highest. 

The pawn has a total value of 1 

the Knight and Bishop both have a piece's value of 3 but it is considered that the bishop is slightly better than the knight. (This means try not to trade a bishop for a knight) This gives the bishop a 3 1/2 points and the Knight 3

The Rook has a total point of 5 the rook is a end game pieces and is to be saved for the very end of the game as it can deal the most damage when it is not being attacked by the bishop and knight.

The Queen has two total points depends on how you ask it is either 10 or 9 most agree 9 points.

The king depending on who you ask is worth 0 or infinite amount of points this is because the King is useless as it has to hide from being checkmated this is why some say 0. On the other hand the king is the whole game and without the king there is no game making it worth infinity.

answer theses question below in the comment. 

1.Trading a queen for two rooks is a good trade?

2. Trading a knight and bishop for a rook is a bad trade?

3. Trading a queen for a rook and 2 minor pieces is a good trade?