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What is a good Chess Strategy?

• • 1. Develop your pieces (pieces are: Knights, Bishops, Rooks and the Queen, not pawns) as fast as possible. “Time is important” – 1 Tempi is 1 Move

• • 2. Castle as soon as possible! Develop your kingside knight and bishop quickly, then castle!

• • 3. Don’t push too many edge pawns as this cost development time and slows down your piece development. Just push the center pawn and get your pieces out to control the center squares.

• • 4. Don’t attack with your queen right away. This is dumb. The queen just gets chased around by your opponents pieces and he develops his pieces at the same time at your cost. You soon will be in a lost position as he will have all his pieces out and you got only your queen out. Ridiculous! Do you want to win with your queen against the whole army of your opponent’s pieces. Think again! Only beginners do this.

• • 5. Don’t trade pieces when this action develops your opponents piece. Don’t improve the position of your opponent. Simple logic!

• • 6. Keep the two bishops if you can. Don’t trade bishop for knight for no reason. The bishops are more flexible in open and semi-open positions, and this is mostly the case. When the position gets closed then get rid of the bishops and trade your bishop for a knight.

• • 7. Never take a move back and never allow that your opponent takes a move back or this behavior will end in endless discussions. “You have taken a move back before when you blundered your rook, now I want to take this move back!” It is against the rules to take moves back. When you touch a piece you have to move it.
    When you have blundered your queen then resign and start a new game but don’t take the move back. Chess requires mental discipline, if you have no discipline and not the right attitude then play some other game but not chess.

• • 8. Always check your opponents last move!! If you think only about yourself then you will run into all sorts of traps. Forks, checks and hidden threats of all kinds. Chess is not only about you. It is a form of communication between two players. Rise your level of awareness and study the potential of your opponents last move carefully.

• • 9. Specialize in some opening systems as you can’t know them all. Become an expert in some good and solid openings. Don’t learn dubious opening systems. What a waste of time! It takes years to master some openings. Just look what grandmasters play and do likewise! Top Grandmasters don’t play dubious chess openings.

• • 10. Watch out for pawn moves of your opponent! Every pawn move of your opponent creates a weak square in which you might be able to place your knight or other pieces! This creates outposts for you. Senseless pawn moves have ruined many games! The pawns can become weak and attackable too if you push them froward prematurely!

• • 11. Double pawns are not always bad! If they control vital squares in the center then they are good. Everything is relative in chess. It takes a master to judge the position correctly!

• • 12. EVERYTHING IN CHESS IS ONLY ABOUT SQUARES! Watch every square and don’t look at the pieces only. What squares do these pieces control? Only that matters! If you want to control the best squares then obviously don’t place your pieces badly at the edge of the board but in the middle of the board. Don’t place your bishops and rooks behind pawns forever (just temporarily if necessary), they need open lines and diagonals to point into the opponents camp