CHESS FOUNDATIONS: 10 CHESS PRINCIPLES EVERY PLAYER MUST KNOW

Hey there, Allen here! Hope you are doing great. Today we are gonna look at the ten chess principles that every player must know. I run an email newsletter/ magazine asdmagazine.substack.com on chess. It covers all the latest chess content and courses. Consider subscribing to my chess magazine and share this post to your friends and colleagues. Follow me on twitter ***Allen***where I'll post some interesting chess content. Also, I've thought of starting another email newsletter wherein I'll be posting all the current chess news on a daily basis. I'm still in dilemma, but I'll confirm it to you guys once I start it. Without further ado let’s get into the article!

1. Know when to trade bishops and knights

Bishops thrive in open positions whereas knights are better in closed positions. Know what is a good and bad bishop. Bishops that are locked inside the pawn chain or have no specific targets are said to bad bishops. The light-squared bishop on c8 in the French defense is a bad bishop. Why? Because most often the pawn on e6 hinders the development of the bishop to a useful diagonal.

So if you have a bad bishop, try trading it. If you have a good bishop, never trade it. Also trading bishops just doesn’t end there. You have to look your pawns’ color complex with your bishop’s. It is almost always good to trade a bishop for the knight in closed positions, because in closed positions the bishops stare at a pawn chain whereas the knights can hop around, it can be bothersome.

Incase of open positions, the bishops are clearly better than the knights. Bishops have a greater range of motion compared to knights. In open positions, bishops control a lot of squares. They simply dominate the knights in open positions, so it is wise to trade off a knight for a bishop in open positions.

2. Identify weak squares and exploit them

A square which cannot be controlled by opponent’s pawns are known as weak squares. Identifying those squares is simple, check if a square can be controlled by any of the opponent’s pawns. If they can’t, then it’s said to be a weak square.

Most often there is a good possibility that there is a backward pawn. If they don’t, then try for an outpost. Trust me, having an outpost in one of the central squares is one of the most uncomfortable positions to play. Also, know to identify useful and useless weak squares. If you cannot make good use of it, then there is no point in focusing on them.

3. Know the relative value of pieces

This point is very important when it comes to attacking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about blindly blundering pieces in the name of sacrificing. When you are attacking, it is important to eliminate the defending pieces. In those situations, the value of those pieces tend to be higher than one of your attacking pieces. This isn’t necessarily true every time, but can be applicable sometimes.

I have used one of my games as an example to illustrate this point. You can have a look at it if you want to (MY GAME). Also, sometimes a knight outpost can be worth a rook. And it’s wise to trade it off for a rook. But it all depends on the position, it comes with practice and experience.

4. Rook belong on open or semi-open files

Rooks are very similar to bishops. Bishops move in diagonal and rooks move vertically and horizontally. So if a rook is locked behind pawns, it’s more or less waste. I think it doesn’t need a genius to understand this. In open files, rooks can cover a lot of squares. They can switch roles between defensive and attacking.

I think the above position is a good example of why rooks belong in open or semi-open files. Also note that in middlegames, be careful when you move your rook to opponent’s territory. For example in the above position, Rd7 in the above position can get your rook locked with Nd5.

5. Knights are the best blockaders

You all know that bishops and knights have the least value next to pawns. So, only knights and bishops can act as good blockaders compared to other pieces like rooks and queen as they can get kicked very easily. And if you didn’t know what a blockader is... a blockader is a piece which stops / prevents the movement of pawns. The problem with bishops is that they can only move in diagonals and in the same colors. So if a bishop is challenged by the same colored bishop, then it has to be traded off. But knights on the other hand have better mobility as a defender compared to bishops which is why they are considered to be the best blockaders.

6. Opposite colored bishop endings are drawish

This is fairly simple and straight forward. In an opposite colored bishop ending, all you have to do is to put all your pawns in the same color as your bishop and defend them. Your opponent can never attack the pawns if it’s defended by the bishops.

But, this is not the case every time as there can be cases where the bishop is stuck in an awkward position and is unable to defend it’s pawns. Even if you are down a pawn or two, there are cases where it’s defendable, but not every time.

This one is definitely not a draw. Also, keep in mind that if the pawn was on a-file instead of h-file, it will end in a draw because of wrong color bishop ending.

7. Two pawns on the sixth rank will beat a rook

Usually in endgames, if two connected pawns manage to reach the sixth rank, then it can beat a rook. I’ll repeat... “two connected pawns” and not disconnected pawns. Keep this in mind. Also, this is only applicable if the king is too far from the pawns. If the king can assist the rook, then it is not possible. Also, it doesn’t matter whose turn it is, if they manage to make to the sixth rank, they can’t be stopped by a rook.

8. Try to trade the fianchettoed king bishop

This is very important because, most often black tries to conserve the bishop somehow as it acts as a good defender and a good attacking piece. The best way to trade it off is to launch a queen-bishop battery and challenge the bishop before the rook moves. Once that bishop is eliminated, all you have to do is to coordinate your queen and rook on the corner file.

Let’s take sicilian dragon for example, white should trade his dark-squared bishop with black’s bishop, place his queen along the c1-h6 diagonal and chug his h-pawn to free the h-file for the rook. Black most often tries to keep his bishop alive with Re8 and Bh8.

9. Wrong colored bishop results in a draw

If you have a corner pawn and a bishop which is opposite to the color of the square of promotion, you are not gonna win if the opponent’s king makes it to the corner. It’s because you cannot force the king out of the corner without checking it. This will come very handy if your opponent is up multiple pawns in a bishop ending. Note that this is applicable only for corner pawns. If it were any other pawn, then you can get your opponent into zugzwang with a waiting move.

In the above game, if black didn’t know this concept, he would have lost the game. Also note that the bishops are on the same color, so you cannot control the movement of the pawns as you will be challenged by opponent’s bishop. It is absolutely necessary to know this concept in this particular position. Before I go ahead and give you the solution, I want you guys to try and solve this on your own. Remember, bishop on the wrong color+rook pawn is a draw.

Could you do it on your own? If you could, great! Here black played 1..Ra1+, 2. Rf1 Rxf1+, 3. Kxf1 Bh3!! and it’s a draw. If white takes, black runs his king to h8. If white doesn’t black takes the pawn of g2 and still runs his king to h8. I guess you realize the importance of knowing this.

10. Deal an attack with counter-attack

Have you ever encountered a KID game in your life. I mean “King’s Indian Defense”. Incase you are not familiar with this, it is an opening response of black for 1.d4. Black tries to attack the kingside and white tries to attack the queenside in the meanwhile. When you attack on one side (keep in mind that you can attack only one side at a time), you compromise the safety of the other sides and try to finish off the game before your opponent starts to counter-attack on the other side. I’m not telling you to completely abandon the side you are getting attacked. You are supposed to defend it sometimes. What I’m telling you is to prepare your arsenal to attack on the other side once you have defended successfully. That is exactly what happens in the KID. Either black crashes through in the kingside or white wins enough material on the queenside. Also, it’s ok to get greedy sometimes. Material is one of the ways to compensate and neutralize an attack.

Before I conclude this article, I’ve got a nice puzzle for you. Not too hard, but not easy as well. You just have to identify the pattern.
White to play and win.

Leave your answers down in the comments section. If you like to get puzzles like these, let me know and I’ll try to post them on a daily basis.

That’s all there is for today guys. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure to like this post and subscribe to my chess magazine. I will see you in my next article.

Signing of— Allen.