Question - how to start learning to make midgame plays after a typical opening?

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Avatar of Jenkster

I have a few openings that happen nearly every game, but around 10+ moves things start to stray to strategy that I have to come up with on the fly as I have not studied midgame or anything of that sort. I understand basic chess strategy but I am wondering if anyone has any pointers or resources for structuring a longer attack that may be more involved than a two move attack? Thanks in advance happy.png

Avatar of ChessMasteryOfficial

Study common pawn structures (isolated queen's pawn, doubled pawns, pawn chains) and the typical plans associated with them.

Avatar of MariasWhiteKnight

I dont have a full list for possible plans, but some of the most typical questions are probably:

- Are you yourself under attack ? Do you move the attacked piece away, do you defend it, do you block the attack, or you answer with an equal or greater thread ?

- Are there tactical opportunities available ? Like, has the opponent blundered ?

- How safe is the opponent king ? Can one amass pieces towards the king, to prepare for an attack ?

- What weaknesses does the opponent have ? Can you maybe force new such weaknesses, or make them worse ? Can you accumulate attacks on these weaknesses ?

- Can you improve the positions of your pieces ? Are there great outposts for your knights ? Are there good diagonals for your bishops ? Are there open files for your rooks ? How can you make sure such positions arent challenged by the opponent ?

- Do you have bad pieces that you can trade for good pieces of the opponent ?

Avatar of tygxc

Study annotated grandmaster games.

Avatar of Asnitte

After the end of my opening knowledge, what I usually do is :
- Move pieces to better squares (with thinking about the activity of pieces and strategy)
- I look at the position and think about how I can attack afterwards. (only when I'm safe)
- I check if my opponent has a tactical chance to attack me, and if so, I block it.
- I try to control the situation, not passively deal with my opponent's movements.

If you have a main opening, look at master games or stats to see which ideas work best. It will help you understand that opening further, and make it easy to find a right strategy.

Avatar of MariasWhiteKnight

A really good video about how to play the middlegame is by the way this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Uea1_jnVo

Its from a CM (candidate master), so "only" Elo 2200, which actually means he has more "connection" and is easier to understand for us regular chessplayers, and he picked a really good example position and really typical moves to explain the concepts.