Strategy

So you're one of those Sokolsky/Grob players huh?

ostrich321--

I've looked at a few of your games.  You are badly in need of the basic principles.  My solution is buying two books:  1. "Chess The Easy Way" by Reuben Fine (It is written in descriptive notation.  Learn it.  Many great books have never been brought up-to-date with algabraic).  2.  "A First Book Of Morphy" I don't remember who wrote it.  These books will give you the background you need.  If you like challenge me to a game (rated or not) and I'll try and help you get better.

I agree. I am a relative novice to the game of chess. Most of my moves are based on two things: safety, and immediate consequence or reward. At the moment, I am incapable of thinking in the long run.

This is an interesting ideas. Usually I stabilize my wings in a chess match and then work my way into attacking the opponent who usually attempts to secure the center by the following method.

If you're white here, you are allowing black to gain center control. And his ability to move in his knights. Black is in a much more fluid position I think.

But Black is vulnerable on the wings of his formation. That is his weakness that white can easily exploit in this situation.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Ostrich321, I sent a game challenge, unrated, with the "takeback" option on.  We can play a game and I'll give some advice.

Basic chess theory is that the center of the board is more important than the edges.  Early in the game most players will try to occupy and control the center.

For an example of why the center is important, take an empty board, and put a knight on one of the 4 center squares.  You'll see that it can move to 8 different places.  Now, move that night to, oh, say D1.  (Any edge of the board near the middle.  From an edge, it can reach 4 squares.  Now put it in a corner, and it can only reach 2 squares.  Similarly, from the middle of the board, a knight can get to any general area of the board quickly.  From a corner, it takes several moves to get to any of the 4 squares on the far corner.

A bishop is similar.  Put a bishop in the corner of an empty board, and it can move to 7 squares, all on the one diaganol.  Put it on a center square, and it can reach everthing on that diaganol, plus 6 additional sqaures on the diaganol running the other direction.

There are some players (mostly more advanced players) who will *not* try to occupy and control the center, but will allow their opponent to do so, while attacking the center from the edges.  That's sort of what you are doing with the bishops.  (That thing you are doing, where you move the knight pawn up one and post the bishop in it's place, is called a Fiancheto.)  I would recommend saving the hypermodern stuff for later, after you've learned basic theory.

One of the things that happens when you advance those knight pawns is that you create weaknesses in your pawn structure.  For instance, having made those moves on both sides, as white, you can no longer control the a3 or h3 squares with a pawn.  For now, your bishops control those squares, but if they can either chase the bishop off, or force a trade so your bishop is no longer there, then those are weak squares, hard for you to defend.  An enemy queen, bishop, or knight there is hard to dislodge, and he's right in your face.

And normally, you'll want to castle to one side of the other.  Having a pawn weakness close to your king after castling can hurt.

Most players will advance at least one of their center pawns (king pawn or queen pawn) on the first move.  It helps control the center, and gives some room to get one of the bishops out, as well as the queen.  After that, developing knights and the bishop which can already get out are high priority.  By the time you've done that, you can castle, or you can almost castle.  Castling early usually brings your king to a more secure location, as well as helping bring the rook towards the center where you can bring it into the game soon.

Usually, you want to develop knights and bishops early, castle, then develop rooks and queens. 

Try not to move any given piece more than one time.  When you are ready to attack, you will need several pieces - you can't usually attack successfully using only one piece, and pieces on their starting positions can't usually help.  So instead of moving one piece 3 times, move 3 pieces 1 time each so that all of them are out on the battlefield.

Castle early.  The game is about the king, so you want your king protected, and castling helps with that (plus helps develop the rook.)

And, as many have suggested, you should read some books. Right now, you are playing like someone who has never had a lesson other than, perhaps, how the basic pieces move.  Reading one or two books would make a huge difference.  Check your local library, perhaps.

Simply looking at other peoples games (I'd recommend games between mid-level players at this point) will help, as you'll see how more experienced players tend to develop.

Mostly, though, I'd say that you need to keep playing, and keep asking questions here.  If you keep playing and asking questions,  even without looking at a book, you will get better.

lol, just the answer to this question would not solve your problems of becoming better you know!

"Fight viciously for the center and if you win start a brutal attack. But not until you win a good share of the center. Of course at a certain point the center is almost worthless so just fighting for the center will win you plenty of games."

This, for example, is a decent hint but that's all it is, a hint. You need to have hundreds, maybe thousands of them stored in your mind yet you still have to think for yourself because a vague hint like this can hardly apply to everything. What you need is a nice strategy book. There's already good recomendations here.

I tend to think black is slightly better in that type of position but maybe it's just my bias talking. Black has a nice center, and of course since white has pressure on it it can probably be broken down a little, but right now action in the center like for example c4 followed by cxd5 would make black's two pawn center go away but it makes black's pieces more active, and plus he doesn't have to even allow that, he has many options of what to do with his center. Then again, c4 and cxd5 is like the reversed dragon in the english, but it's probably not good to be committed to a fianchetto (meaning b3 and bb2) like that. On the other hand if black makes an error, a central attack could become much more effective, but with good play I would think black could maintain some kind of edge.

But I know what your point is, the classic two pawn center is not automatically crushing, and here it's not that mobile so white should be fine. Many weak players would try to crush with black's position but his position is actually quite delicate and requires careful, thoughtful play to make sure white doesn't have a favorable attack on black's center. Then once black is developed and his center consolidated, he still has to figure out what to do next. I do think white is fine here (after all, he's still following the principle of controlling the center!), but I think black is a little bit better.

man! that so sounds like me. but i think i'll make my own thread on strategy.

(think i should? this one seems old)

If you're interesting in strategy pick up a book like Pachman's "Modern Chess Strategy" or less detailed Seriwan's "Winning Chess: Strategies"

Beginners don't know the language of chess, so they improvise and come up with ideas like the OP "I like to open by stabilizing my flanks" which is gibberish.  Other beginners fill their ideas of chess with psychology like "he played this to test my reaction" or tricks "It's best to look for forks"

It's only natural to try and conceptualize verbally what's going on during a game, but none of the above are actual strategies or worse, may have nothing to do with chess.  A thread on "strategies" is too broad, like I said it's better to get a book and do some learning.  In a thread only the most general ideas can be explored.

Thank you everyone for suggesting. Although I may not become the next chess master, I am, like everyone else, anxious to improve. I am open to different overall strategies and am anxious to move past the impulsive move phase. I would also like to be able to revise strategies in a relatively short period because a lot of my strategies are based on what I think my opponent will do (or not do).

Thanks again!