What tips you off primarily are the pawns the bishops. If your opponent has, lets say, some pawns locked on the light squares, and no dark square bishop (while you still have your dark square bishop) you may be able to play off his dark square weakness in that area.
Lets say now that nearly all his pawns are on light squares and he has no dark square bishop to challenge yours, then you could expand this idea to the entire board.
Forgot the author, but he said this confused him as a kid too, because if you had a light square weakness, why not simply move your pieces to dark squares? But it's a question of mobility really, if your opponent can infiltrate as he pleases into your camp along the dark squares, then from these posts he will attack your light squares!
Maintaining activity / mobility is a big deal in chess, and if one player loses control of half the squares in an area / on the board, then you can imagine how strategies could be based around this.
. Oh well, maybe he'll come back and post something :p
Hello,
I'm reading The Art of Planning in Chess and I came across something that's been confusing me for awhile.
Why would a side decide to go after one colored square. The game I'm going through talks negatively about white not recognizing that black's plan is to attack the black squares. Looking at it, I'll be damned if I can see his plan either. None of this is even close to one of the kings.
So, my question is, why would a person decide very early in the game to focus on one color or the other, and throughout the game, what are the benefits of focusing on that color. The whole focus on a particular color just really confuses me.
Thanks for any advice.