Come on Markster, they write whole books about each and every one of your questions. I'm not blowing you off, it's just too broad a series of questions. Lucky you though, chess.com has study plans designed to inspire inquisitive minds like yours. I think you can learn a lot even if all the resources listed aren't available to you. Best of luck.
http://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory
Just play the game and think. If you lose look at what moves caused you to lose. For example, somtimes a pawn move will weaken a square or diagonal and that causes issues in the position latter.
I was planning to post a similar question in a new thread, just a little more focused. My intended question was "Does there exist a list of all the significant advantages and disadvantages in a chess game, disregarding position-specific heuristics?" It's an important question because I'm starting to realize that one of the goals of the middlegame, and what some people call "plans," and what some authors call "accumulating small advantages" is what I've been calling "mini-plans," which are simple, short-range plans that create a known but slight advantage/disadvantage. Such a list would probably answer two very common questions I often see posted: "What do I do next, after I castle and develop?" or "What plan should I follow?"
Yesterday I came across an old library book and posted an excerpt from it in another thread since it looked like Horowitz had compiled exactly such a list. Here it is (forgive the messed up formatting of the 2 columns):
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(p. 8)
POSITIONAL POINT COUNT TABLE
Plus Points
Control of the center Rook(s) on the seventh rank
Pawn on fourth v. pawn on third Passed pawn
Mobile pawn wing Outside passed pawn
Strong outpost station Protected passed pawn
Superior development Advanced pawn
Greater space Qualitative pawn majority
Bishop-pair Advanced chain
Bishop v. knight Advanced salient
Half-open file Better king position
Control of useful open file Offside pawn majority
Minus Points
WEAK PAWNS
Backward pawn Hanging pawns
Doubled pawn Hanging phalanx
Isolated pawn Crippled majority wing
WEAK SQUARES
"Weak-squared complex" King held in center
Holes Cramped position
Compromised king-side Bad bishop
Horowitz, I. A., and Geoffrey Mott-Smith. 1960. Point Count Chess: An Accurate Guide to Winning Chess. New York: Simon and Schuster.
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My belief is that a beginning player could use a list like this to methodically check for weaknesses, mistakes, and potential plans at every point in the game. I suspect that such a *general* list is finite and quite limited, probably not much longer than Horowitz's list, and that anything beyond that is either too subtle to be something to be concerned about, or is specific to a particular position or opening. That's partly why openings are so important: it isn't just that they allow you to stay alive and place your pieces correctly, but they also (should) tell you more information about which positions, plans, tactics, advantages/disadvantages, endgames, etc. are more likely to occur (and therefore to consider) for each given opening.
So, in answer to your question, I'd recommend you just go through Horowitz's list and look to see which of those might apply to each position, then use those as the foundation of mini-plans for guiding your moves. For example, ask: "Can I double his pawns, maybe by playing BxN?" "CanI reduce his mobility, maybe reduce the mobility of his bishop by P-R3?" "Can I get an outpost somewhere, maybe my knight at e5?" "Can I seize a file, maybe the c-file with my rooks and queen?"
(So, to hijack your thread...) Can anybody think of any additional general positional considerations to add to this list that are worthy of inclusion, or is Horowitz's list complete?
Hey everyone
I'm an intermediate playing high school chess, and I just quickly wanted to ask if the more experienced players could give me some general guidelines for middle game play especially. What should I look for? When should I push pawns? When should I exchange? Stuff like that. Any help would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance!! :D