Castle or develop a minor piece?

I learned to develop my minor pieces fast and gain control over the center and if done doing that - building up an attack. My problem is that my opponent simply does the same and manages to be a little bit faster doing that, sometimes even with black. I still struggle with finding a way to be faster than my opponent or create any sort of imbalance to work with. I often end up defending a lot, before - maybe - getting to attack myself, which isn't ideal, because I am an aggressive player.

I know a lot of opening theory and middlegame ideas but that doesn't help me much - sometimes players play openings I don't know much about and I have to decide:

1) Develop another minor piece first or castle first? How to know which one is more important at the moment?
2) Which side to castle to (if none is under attack) and which minor piece first? I usually start with the knights, but sometimes it seems that knight - bishop - knight - bishop would be more effective. I am a little bit confused.
3) What can I do to prevent my oponent from castling long and putting his rook on the (often open) d-file? Moves like a4/a5 often are a waste of time in the opening... Is it possible to be faster with a pawnstorm on the queenside than the kingside? How? There are a lot more pawns on the queenside - how should you attack? With pieces or pawns? In the sicilian you have the open c-file - but you don't have that open file in queenpawn games or do you?

Thanks for anyone who took the time to read this <3

hey send me a msg i can try to work w u

Just do what's needed at the moment.

Here are some ways that I think about the questions you asked:

1) Develop minor pieces prior to castling. Castling is primarily about king safety but it also helps to connect and develop rooks so it's not necessarily either/or.
2) King side castling is generally stronger. Queen side castling can be a better idea with sufficient queen side pawn protection and attacking options against opponent king side castling.
3) Weaken their queen side pawn structure with "tickle" checks, pins and other attacks designed to induce pawn advances. Queen side attacks and pawn storms are usually more natural when castling on your own king side.

Maybe you can post some of your games that you had this kind of problem so we can maybe pin point how it went wrong. Your opponent being faster than you no matter what doesn't make much sense. If both side play well, both side will share decent center have decent piece development and a safe king.

1) You can delay castling so long as you don't see any threats towards your king but it really depends on the pawn structure; If it's rigid and closed then there's no immediate need to castle, in fact it might be safer to delay it. If the pawn structure is fluid with potential breaks in the center, an attack might form faster than you anticipate with each forcing move preventing you from castling.

It's often the case that I develop my 3 minor pieces before castling. The bishop on the side that you are not castling can function fine from its starting position. Developing it early is usually a waste of tempo and it can become a target in many openings.

2) If there's no particular castling choice that the opening favours, it's really up to personal preference. If my opponent goes for a very passive setup in an e4-e5 game I might decide to castle Queen-side. King-side is the safer choice, you don't need to move your queen so you can do it faster and your king is further tucked away. If you enjoy opposite sides castling positions then go for it, but don't force it every game.

3) I don't think there's an answer to this. If your opponent wants to castle long they'll be able to do it. Castling long takes more moves so you can use this time to set up pawn breaks in the center or queen side. You can look to exploit the open diagonal to the king or target the exposed rook with your bishop.

Thank you all for your replies!

Is that summary correct?:

1) Castling fast is good because it forces your opponent to castle fast too (if he still wants to castle queenside he will need a little more time to do so which you can use to be the first one to attack)
2) Advance your pawns with tempo by attacking pieces on the way (here I would need more examples, because the only piece I know you can attack on the way is the Knight on c3)
3) Pins are a good way to reduce your opponents piece activity and provoke a pawn weakness (like a6) or help you to control the center and get more space and maybe use the center for your pawn storm aswell
4) You may castle before developing your last minor piece, because bishops are strong from their starting position too and are often targeted early in the game and use bishops in a more attacking way in general

@EdinburghCollective an example game was this one (I analysed it already, I'll just post it for you to know what I meant by my opponent was somehow faster than me in the center and attack me with f4 etc.) :

I realised my main mistake might have been to develop the bishops the wrong way. But on the other hand you said I didn't have to castle early in closed positions. The position was closed, but my opponent opened it very quickly. So maybe I should have castled earlier than I did in the game?

The game was OTB and went like this:

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. d3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7
5. Nf3 d6 6. Be2 h6 7. Bh4 Be6 8. d4 exd4
9. Nxd4 Nxd4 10. Qxd4 O-O 11. O-O-O

(I am only better because of a tactic I missed (Nxe4) but otherwise white is clearly better from a positional strategic perspective. I wanted to castle long too, but it would have meant that my queen stays on the d-file and I wouldn't have been safe there like white - so I had to castle kingside - I developed everything - still I considered my development to be a lot slower than whites)

@OnlyBetterNoBlitz "The position was closed, but my opponent opened it very quickly. So maybe I should have castled earlier than I did in the game?"

As I've mentioned the terms "rigid" and "fluid" in my earlier post, the pawn structure in that game is not rigid, both players have the option to break with d4 or d5. So it's closed at the moment but can be opened.

7...Be6 is a nice example to what I've said about that bishop. When white plays d4 it comes with a fork threat with d5 because there's a bishop on e6. Not that it really matters since you're taking the pawn either way.

And "I am only better because of a tactic" is usually how one player is better. Your pieces were better placed in that position it's up to you to find the tactic that converts it. When you played Be7, you've placed your bishop on a passive square I would have gone with Bc5 or Bb4. But since you did that you should be looking at the Knight jumps every move to do a discovered attack on the opponent's bishop.

Also if your opponent plays an early Bg5 like that feel confident to play h6, g5 to kick it out. Since you haven't castled yet you can comfortably expand with those pawns. You'll also have the potential g4 push ready on the Knight.

Also looking at the game on Opening Explorer, on Lichess black always have better win rates in the positions that happened in the game. So that's a sign you've played better than your opponent in the opening. Missing tactics happens to us all, you'll see it the next time.

You are a strong player, you'll figure it out

"My problem is that my opponent simply does the same and manages to be a little bit faster doing that, sometimes even with black."
- If your opponent is faster than you though he is playing black, then this is a sign you lose tempi. The most obvious tempo losses are unneeded pawn moves and unneeded captures.

"I know a lot of opening theory and middlegame ideas but that doesn't help me much - sometimes players play openings I don't know much about and I have to decide"
- Opening theory is ballast - Nimzovich

"1) Develop another minor piece first or castle first? How to know which one is more important at the moment?"
- Castling is a very powerful move: brings the king to safety and connects the rooks so that they can come into action. Castling is a priority, but requires two pieces to develop first, which requires at least one pawn move to open the diagonal for the bishop and to secure the square of the knight.

"2) Which side to castle to (if none is under attack) and which minor piece first? I usually start with the knights, but sometimes it seems that knight - bishop - knight - bishop would be more effective. I am a little bit confused."
- Castling King's side is nearly always better: does not need a premature queen move and the king is safer on the g-file than on the c-file. Knights before bishops is clear: the knights usually go to their natural squares, while it is more difficult to find the right square for a bishop. A bishop has some influence from its starting square, a knight does not. As O-O is such a strong move, the natural order is pawn, king's knight, king's bishop, O-O and only then queen's knight, queen's bishop, rooks, queen.

"3) What can I do to prevent my oponent from castling long and putting his rook on the (often open) d-file? Moves like a4/a5 often are a waste of time in the opening... Is it possible to be faster with a pawnstorm on the queenside than the kingside? How? There are a lot more pawns on the queenside - how should you attack? With pieces or pawns? In the sicilian you have the open c-file - but you don't have that open file in queenpawn games or do you?"
- You do not have to prevent an opponent from castling long. If he does castle long rejoice and launch an attack with pawns. He will have to lose another tempo to bring his king to the b-file, so as to protect his a-pawn, so as to secure it from an attack along the c-file or along the diagonal.

"1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. d3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7
5. Nf3 d6 6. Be2 h6 7. Bh4 Be6 8. d4 exd4
9. Nxd4 Nxd4 10. Qxd4 O-O 11. O-O-O
(I am only better because of a tactic I missed (Nxe4) but otherwise white is clearly better from a positional strategic perspective. I wanted to castle long too, but it would have meant that my queen stays on the d-file and I wouldn't have been safe there like white - so I had to castle kingside - I developed everything - still I considered my development to be a lot slower than whites)"
- 11 O-O-O is a mistake because of 11...Nxe4. White had to play 11 Rd1, when 11...Nxe4 does not work, it only works because of the knight fork 11 O-O-O Nxe4 12 Bxe7 Nxc3 13 Bxd8 Nxe2+, i.e. the insecure white king after 11 O-O-O.
4...Be7 is a bit passive: 4...Bb4 is more active. Even after 11 Rd1 the game is equal.

"My problem is that my opponent simply does the same and manages to be a little bit faster doing that, sometimes even with black. I still struggle with finding a way to be faster than my opponent or create any sort of imbalance to work with. I often end up defending a lot, before - maybe - getting to attack myself, which isn't ideal, because I am an aggressive player."

One thing to keep in mind is that the starting position is close to equal if you want an attack and a lead in development then either your opponent has to make a mistake or you have to give them something in return (e.g. sacrifice a pawn to get ahead in development or castle on opposite sides of the board so you both get an attack). True for both colours but especially so for black. Sounds like an obvious point but it's one I'm still working on internalising myself as it's very easy to get focused on your own ideas and then to neglect those of your opponent. For instance defending is part of the game, and you can't expect to always be the agressor without making big sacrifices.

"1) Develop another minor piece first or castle first? How to know which one is more important at the moment?"

Since you'll typically want to do both, this is a subtle move order question. They typically come down to preserving options for yourself and/or reducing options for your opponent. So the questions I'd ask would be "do I know which square I want my piece on?", "do I know where I want to castle?", "will developing my piece force my opponent to play a particular way?"

"2) Which side to castle to (if none is under attack) and which minor piece first?2) Which side to castle to (if none is under attack) and which minor piece first?"

Far and away the most important consideration is which side your king is safest on. The only other thing I'd mention is whether same side or opposite side castling is better. Opposite side castling typically leads to games where both sides attack and the winner is whoever checkmates their opponent first. Same side castling is typically slower and more positional. So if for instance you are a pawn up you typically want to castle on the same side as your opponent because the pawn might not matter much if the game is decided by mating attacks. Again though, king safety trumps these considerations.

"3) What can I do to prevent my oponent from castling long and putting his rook on the (often open) d-file?"

If the d-file is open claim the d-file with a rook, then they'll need a passively placed piece on d6 or d7 to castle long (or d2 or d3 if they're white).

Some comments on your game:

1. e4 e5
2. Nc3 Nc6 this is fine but Nf6 is better imo at least if you want to be aggressive as it puts more pressure on the centre, gets closer to castling and preserves the option of playing c6. To see the value of this the most common next continuations are 3. f4 d5! and 3. Bc4 Nxe4!?.
3. d3 Nf6
4. Bg5 Be7 a bit passive Bb4 prevents the knight from coming to d5 when there's nothing to fear from the pin. Bxf6 Qxf6 helps your development, and whenever you want you can force the bishop away with h6 and g5 and then castle queenside. Bg5 was innacurate from white since you're perfectly happy pushing your kingside pawns when you can still castle queenside.
5. Nf3 d6
6. Be2 h6!
7. Bh4 Be6? a very subtle slight mistake because this is a good square for the bishop strategically but tactically it allows white to gain time in the centre. Only way to avoid this is to see white's reply. 7... g5! 8. Bg3 g4 9. Nd2 and now Be6 with the advantage.
8. d4! exd4 (forced)
9. Nxd4 Nxd4 (a sad move to have to play since it centralises white's undeveloped queen but otherwise Nxe6 gets the biship pair.
10. Qxd4 0-0
Although there are a couple of of minor improvements you could have made earlier, you should be very happy to get a position like this out of the opening as black. Your pieces are nicely developed, you have decent central control and your king position is safe. The position is equal which is a good result as black.