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Dabbling in chess
Posted:
Sep 19, 2024, 10:59 AM
Hi all. Havnt been around much. I pop in to check games of ned and mumix.
Was evicted few months back, finally settled in New place and finished most remodeling, including doing marble tiling etc. Anyhoo. Been dabbling in chess. I dont know any opening theory. I just know how pieces move. Have played a handful of games. Thought I'd share a few. And ask how I'm doing as beginner. The games I won by either they resign, or I got checkmate.
Re: Dabbling in chess
Posted:
Sep 19, 2024, 4:00 PM
My advice, as an "okay" chess player (USCF 1750): don't learn opening theory, instead just internalize the universal opening principles of control, development, and castling. Only much later can you appreciate when it's okay to break them.
1) Control the center (typically with at least one supported pawn in the d4-d5-e4-e5 region)
2) Develop your knights/bishops to an "active" square. This is by far the most difficult principle to understand. In the simplest sense, this means get them off the back rank. Usually active means occupying or looking toward the center. But a full understanding of this requires having a middlegame plan, which is outside the scope of this tutorial.
3) Bring the king to a safe square, almost always by castling kingside. Too many games have been lost by leaving the king in the middle of the board for one move too many. Once the king is forced to move, he loses the right to castle, and he risks the embarrassment of an early checkmate, suffocated by his own forces.
Additional, less iron-clad principles:
-Don't bring the queen or rooks out too early. They are easy targets for your opponent's pawns and minor pieces, and are likely to just get pushed around at best, or trapped at worst.
-Don't move the same piece twice. This wastes time that could be better spent achieving the goals of 1-3.
-Move pieces, not pawns. Other than pushing the d- and e-pawns to clear paths for your pieces and control the center, you should minimize pawn moves in the opening--they also waste time, and one of the goals of the opening is to finish developing before your opponent, so you can start attacking while they're still setting up their attack.
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Analyze your games and see how well you adhered to these opening principles, and how you think your opening moves affected the trajectory of the game.
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
Posts:
2,237
Registered:
Mar 4, 2007
From:
San Francisco
Age:
45 Home page
Re: Dabbling in chess
Posted:
Sep 19, 2024, 4:09 PM
Hey thanks karl. That was helpful. Especially about rooks and queen. That's interesting. I've seen, pawns to center is popular. And knights move before bishops usually. For defending center pawns or to help them capture. Not moving same piece twice is interesting. I'm willing to bet there are exceptions to that. I've been finding the game very interesting.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: Dabbling in chess
Posted:
Sep 19, 2024, 4:14 PM
Two of the most common beginner mistakes are bringing the queen out early and not castling.
Knights before bishops is also a good principle--the general idea is that the knight has fewer active squares to choose from than the bishop, so you should wait until your opponent has revealed their plans before deciding where to place your bishops. This principle is violated all the time, however, and one of the most mindless, toothless openings you can play is e4, Nf3, Nc3, Bc4, 0-0. The knight on c3 isn't really doing anything and blocks the c-pawn, which is often useful in supporting a d4 push later on.
And there are millions of exceptions to the "don't move the same piece twice" rule. But most of them are captured if you add "unless it is attacked by a piece of lesser value." And remember, you can consider the opening over once you've controlled the center, developed your minor pieces and castled, so at that point you're free to move a piece for the second time, if you have a good reason.
This rule can also be clarified by "don't put a piece on a square where you will be forced to move it a second time, especially if this forcing move is a useful move for your opponent." An example of this is playing Bb5 too early, allowing your opponent to play c6 and kick your bishop out.
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
