Chess Masters: Most Important Principles
Since my very first steps in chess, I came across a very important lesson: the chess principles, or general laws of chess, must be respected.
Everyone around me, from club players to chess Grandmasters was stressing the importance of following them, so I took their word for it.
Now, after so many years of playing chess, this is the first concept that I present my students. Before showing you how strong players use these ideas in their games and how they punish their opponents for not respecting them, we’ll introduce you to the general chess principles and their history.
Chess players have been aware of the importance of occupying the center for a long time. Players of the 16th and 17th centuries were striving for a quick control of the center, but their idea was to quickly open their pieces and start attacking the king at any cost. The pawns were not important in their view and, because of this, they were sacrificed in the players’ quest for the king. This formula sometimes worked, but many times the player would lose because of the material disadvantage.
It was Philidor who saw the importance of the pawns and developed the theory of the pawn centre and pawn chains which, if used correctly, could help win space and activate the pieces. The next important step in the chess laws history was the solution given by Paul Morphy. His strategies implied controlling the center with the pawns and rapidly centralize the pieces, pointing out the importance of tempo. The center became the focal point of the game, although this was combined with plans involving attacking the opponent’s king.
The next to develop these ideas were the first World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz and Mikhail Tchigorin. We could say that Steinitz was the one to establish the chess principles as we know them today. He stressed out the importance of weak and strong squares, positional advantages such as better pawn structure, the use of open files, the bishop pair, superiority of pieces, piece mobility and many others. He also showed the importance of a well-founded attack, which should only be started when having at least one positional advantage.
To sum up, the 6 most important chess principles are:
1- Quickly develop your pieces, while controlling the center at the same time; 2- Take advantage of the weak points and positional disadvantages in your opponent’s position. Examples of positional disadvantages could be: pawn weaknesses such as doubled pawns or isolated pawn, weaknesses in your opponent’s castle (bad pawn structure), weak squares such as the ones in front of the isolated pawn, etc. Fight for other small advantages such as better piece mobility and cooperation, control of the existing open files, bishop pair, etc; 3- Try to accumulate small advantages. In the end, they will result in a considerable superiority; 4- Once you have gained an advantage, it is time to start the attack against your opponent. Otherwise, you might end up wasting your advantage; 5- While you should avoid losing tempi, bear in mind that in closed positions this is not so critical; 6- If the central pawns don’t exist on the board anymore, replace them with piece pressure.
We hope you have enjoyed this article and remember, whenever your opponent breaks any these concepts we have listed here, look for a punishment. It is very likely that the position has hidden resources just waiting to be found.
Good luck!
If you want to improve your chess level, you need to have a clear study plan. If you aim for a dramatic improvement at chess you need to work on all of the elements of the game in a systematic way: •tactics •positional play •attacking skills •endgame technique •classical games analysis •psychological preparation •and much more
By the way, I invite you every Friday 7pm at Jack in the Box in front of HEB, we are having local tournaments, classes, tips, and of course, lots of fun.
For more information: SirDuncan (956) 372-5230
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