Opening Principles:
1. Control the center squares – d4-e4-d5-e5
2. Develop your minor pieces toward the center – piece activity is the key
3. Castle
4. Connect your rooks
Tactics...tactics...tactics...
Pre Move Checklist:
1. Make sure all your pieces are safe.
2. Look for forcing move: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) this will force you look at, and see the entire board.
3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponent’s pieces from your side of the board.
4. If your opponent doesn’t have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece.
5. After each move by your opponent, ask yourself: "What is my opponent trying to do?"
Hi,
So far, I have only been playing games for fun and solving chess puzzles (for almost two years now). When it comes to tactics, strategies or openings, I did watch lessons online, but there was no order to them (literally random videos ranging from some basics to advanced stuff).
However, lately I became really serious about learning chess and not just playing it for fun. So now I want to do it right. I'd like first to redo the basics (since I never covered them properly), before advancing to some more complicated stuff.
What books would you recommend I read in chronological order?
Is there any good video playlist on Youtube would you recommend?
Thanks to anyone who took their time to read/answer
ps: I'm currently in summer break from college, so I can spend 8+ hours a day learning since I have nothing else to do. How should I split my time? (meaning how much time a day should I allocate to practicing games, or to studying tactics or strategies for example).