It only truly starts... truly starts, in your heart. When you really believe. On a sunny spring day when the flowers bloom... the middle game starts. When it's love at first sight and your heart is pounding, the middle game starts. When the world learns to love and we have no more need for guns, that's when the middlegame starts.
No no wafflle, you silly romantic fool!
The middle game truly starts on move 12.
doh!
But what if the game ends on move 12?
I'm usually more interested in when the next round starts anyway.
But what if the game ends on move 12?
Ah! That's that rarest of all things: a middle ending.
Jacked on comment #2?
A new Thread Jacking Record for 2013!
But what if the game ends on move 12?
Think of it as a Mike Tyson fight when he was at the top of his game.
Soon as you got your .... in the seat the fight was over.
Now does it matter how many punches either fighter had in the fight?
Same for this 12 move game.
When you developed all of your pieces, and your rooks are connected.
But since the concept of a "middle game" is a convention anyway, it might be better not to divide the game up into such arbitrary compartments (or at least not be quite so concerned about them).
If you have no clue....
Then for sure it is when your opponent is attacking on your side of the board. But by that time you may be deep in the Middle Game.
But since the concept of a "middle game" is a convention anyway, it might be better not to divide the game up into such arbitrary compartments (or at least not be quite so concerned about them).
Yep. This the best answer. No sense in asking a detailed definition for something we artificially injected into the game.
My personal definition, which I wont bother typing, has the possibility of the game going from opening, the middle game, back to opening. The people who mention development, castling, and connecting rooks are confusing the goals of the opening with the essence of the opening phase. Even in GM games the middle game can begin before casting / minor piece development / connected rooks.
Yup! As soon as 2 Gun fighters start shooting the shoot out has started. Anything before that is ..... Aim / point and the Middle Game starts.
I can't define it for you, but I know it when I see it!
(some judge's remark in a pornography case that seems to fit here)
Opening ends once you are out of your opening preparation. So you might already be in the middle game, while your opponent is still in the opening. Even though you are both looking at the same board.
Opening ends once you are out of your opening preparation. So you might already be in the middle game, while your opponent is still in the opening. Even though you are both looking at the same board.
And against Ulf Andersson he may already be playing the endgame while you're still working through the middle game even though you're both looking at the same board!
The opening is usually said to end when you have connected your rooks. So your idea accords with received wisdom.
Some say it is when all your pieces are developed or when the first "line of battle" is marked, but I think it is when your heavy pieces get clear communications with each other.
What do you think?