What openings do you do? Different openings have different goals. You need to work out your advantage, and you opponent's advantage, and work with it.
What happens after the first 10 moves?
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Feb 27, 2012
0
#3
paulgottlieb wrote:
Picking a plan is certainly one of the most challenging things that a developing chess player has to learn. In fact, picking the right plan remains a challenge no matter how strong you get!
It's important to remember that the position dictates which plans are reasonable and which are not. You can't simply impose your own desires on the position, you need to understand what the position calls for, and what plans are likely to be successful. If you have access to a game database, it can be very useful to look at master games played in the same openings you use, and to see how strong played handle the resulting positions. If you play over a bunch of games in the same opening, you will see the same strategic patterns and ideas occurring over and over. If you make the effort to try and understand what's going on, you will learn a lot. At times, you won't be able to understand why grandmasters pick one move or plan over another, but just trying to figure it out will make you stronger. And if you get stuck, there are some very good players on Chess.com to help you out.
I would also recommend two books of master games that you might find useful. They're a little advanced for yor current level, but if you want to make the effort, I'm sure you will get a lot out of them. They are: "Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking" by Neal McDonald, and "50 Essential Chess Lessons" by Steve Giddins. In both books the authors try to make grandmaster chess accessable to the average player, and I think both authors do a really good job of explaining the ideas behind the moves.
Thank you. That's really helpful
Harrisons wrote:
I've been playing for about a year. I'm stuck at around 1200. I've got my openings more or less sorted, but don't really know what to do after the first 10 or 12 moves. Win or lose seems to depend on tactical chance. I don't have any strategies. Can anyone point me in the direction of some good strategies for the middle game. Many thanks.
The goal of the opening is to get you to a playable middlegame. Start studying middle and endgame techniques.
Feb 27, 2012
0
#5
In the middle game, most of the exchanges happen.
You need to use pins, forks, and skewers. The diagrams below explain what they are.
In this diagram, black puts a pin on the knight as moving the knight allows a more valuable piece to be took.
I've been playing for about a year. I'm stuck at around 1200. I've got my openings more or less sorted, but don't really know what to do after the first 10 or 12 moves. Win or lose seems to depend on tactical chance. I don't have any strategies. Can anyone point me in the direction of some good strategies for the middle game. Many thanks.