No queen too early. The queen is so powerful that if you move her out early she'll be threatened to get smashed and you'll need to move her again. For example, in this position, the queen gets hit by the knight, and then it gets hit again by another knight. You move the queen multiple times and let your opponent develop their pieces.
This is dumb. Don't do that. Don't move the same piece twice in the opening. If you move the same piece twice, what the hell chu doing with your life?
Develop quick, control the scene, Don't waste your turns, be bold and mean. Anyways, if you move a piece twice, you're not developing quickly enough. Unless you're Hikaru Nakamura, stick to this principle. Develop quickly.
Develop or die, said some grandmaster probably. This principle means you should get your bishops, knights and queen off the back rank, as well as castle to connect your rooks as soon as possible. When you do, your king is super safe, and your pieces are ready to smash the opponent's king.
Avoid double pawns. Double pawns happen when two pawns of the same color are on the same file. When this occurs, the pawns can't defend each other, and are very prone to attack. It's generally a good idea to avoid double pawns, and even though people have attempted to make the legendary tripled pawns, things usually don't end well for them. Avoid isolated pawns.
Isolated pawns are pawns that have no pawns nearby to protect it. These kinds of pawns are very easy to kill, and usually big targets for your opponent. A strategy to get rid of isolated pawns is to sacrifice it to ruin your opponent's pawn structure and then capture them back later. Endgame king is valuable. The king is pretty much a loser in the opening, however, in the endgame it becomes a god, and you should bring it out as soon as possible.
In this position, white is completely winning, because white's king is much more active and will very soon capture these three black pawns. Castle before move 10. While you can technically wait till move 69 to castle and deliver a castle checkmate. Check here in castles.
Wait, I've never even seen this game, what? Don't try that at home. You'll most likely get f***ed and be delivered home in an ambulance. Just castle early and get checkmated like Magnus. No.
Rooks go behind past pawns. If you have a past pawn, put a rook behind it. This makes sure that the pawn is protected while the rook remains active and can do other things.
I'm not sure I can take them all. Don't worry, bro. I got your back. Bishops open, knights closed.
Bishops are better in open positions because they can control squares and attack from afar. When they're in closed positions, however, they become pretty useless because they're blocked by their own pawns. Knights are the opposite.
They move slowly like snails in open positions. However, in closed positions, they can hop around and go to places no other pieces can. Backward pawns. Backward pawns are pawns that are left undefended because its brothers have been pushed forward, or captured.
Similar to isolated pawns, this kind of pawn usually becomes a target for your opponent. Avoid moving pawns in front of castled king. Pawns are there to protect your king. If you push pawns in front of your king at the wrong time, your king will get smashed by your opponent's pieces.
Always play en passant when given the chance. En passant is not just a chess move, it's a way of life. In this chess match, Bobby was faced with an important decision.
Should he checkmate his opponent, or play en passant? Being an absolute king, Bobby chose en passant. And with that, he sacrificed the game.
Don't trade bishops for knights. As a rule of thumb, bishops are usually better than knights because they are long-range pieces, and can sometimes unexpectedly f**k your opponent from afar. In this position, even though you can trade your bishop for the knight, creating double pawns for your opponent, you probably shouldn't.
Knights before bishops. It is generally better to move knights first because you can pretty much bet money that the knights will go here or here. Bishops, however, have a lot more options, so you should wait and decide later.
Knights are the best blockaders of pawns. Knights are really good with blocking pawns. This is because the knight naturally controls the defending squares of that pawn, so it's harder for other pawns to support it.
In this situation, for example, black can't push b5. because it'll get captured. Don't play hope chess. Hope chess is when you play chess and you hope your opponent will make the move you want or somehow screw up. Don't do that.
Instead, you should always imagine that your opponent will always play the best move and plan accordingly. I hope he doesn't see me. Connect rooks.
Rooks are stronger as a pair. Connecting rooks means removing any pieces that stand between them so that they see each other. For example, in this position, the queen can move out of the way so the rooks protect each other.
Two minor pieces are better than a rook and pawn. If we count the material both a rook and pawn and two minor pieces are six points of material. However, trading two minor pieces for a rook and pawn usually is a bad idea because two minor pieces can control more squares and coordinate to deliver stronger attacks. In this position for example, trading causes white to lose one point of advantage. Three minor pieces are better than a queen.
In the same way three minor pieces can usually be more useful than a single queen even though they are equally worth nine points. Capture toward the center with pawns. When given the opportunity to take a piece or a pawn with your own pawn, you should always look to take towards the center if possible.
For example, in this position, white has the option to take black's bishop with either pawn, and the better option is to take it with the a-pawn because that move builds stronger attacks towards the center, and it also opens the file for the rook. Control the center. The center is the most OP area of a chess game.
If you control the center, it'll be very hard for your opponent to do sh**. So use your knights, bishops and pawns to control your center when you can, and thank me later. Don't open the center if your king is still there. If your king is still in the center, it is not a good idea to trade or play moves that would allow your opponent to open the center and attack your king. In this position, black hasn't castled yet, and a move like d5 wouldn't be good because after a trade, white gains a half-opened file that can be a potential danger to the king.
Two connected pawns on 6th rank beat rook. If you have two connected pawns on the 6th There's not much that a rook can do to save the game. A common strategy is to sacrifice one pawn to let the other pawn promote.
Opposite colored bishop pieces are dangerous in the middle game. In this position, black is up a knight. However, because the two bishops are of opposite colors, this bishop is attacking squares that the other bishop can never defend, and checkmate is unstoppable. If black has a dark square bishop, it would have been a totally different story.
Opposite colored bishops drawish in the endgame. In the endgame, opposite colored bishops are very drawish. Believe it or not, these two positions are both theoretically draws.
Rooks on open files. There are three types of files. Closed, semi-opened, and opened.
Rooks are pretty miserable when they're on closed files. In this position, all the files are closed, so white can make no progress, and it is a dead draw. But if white has one less pawn, this file becomes semi-opened, and black is f***ed. Attack base of pawn chain. A pawn chain is a few connected pawns which control a lot of space together.
In this position, all of these pawns are protected, except for the one at the base. Once that pawn is gone, the other pawns can be captured one by one. When a head trade pieces but not pawns. In this example you're up a rook for a knight.
This is a pretty big deal. You can simply use your rook to scoop up all black pawns and winning is inevitable. If you trade all pawns though, even Magnus Carlsen can't win this position, because it is a freaking theoretical draw. unless the opponent has a seizure.
When down trade pawns but not pieces. Similarly to the last principle, if you are black, trading all of your pawns is what you want to do, because that is how you will increase your chances to get a draw from a lost position. Knights on the rim are grim. When a knight is on the rim it can only see two squares.
However, when it's in the middle, it controls eight squares in total. So to keep your knights happy and productive, don't put it on the rim. If the position is cramped trade pieces, in a cramped position such as this one, Your pieces don't have any space to do sh**, so the best thing you can do is simplify the position by trading pieces. When you see a good move look for a better move.
When you find a good move and think you are Hikaru, always stop for a second and look for a better move that will make you look like Magnus Carlsen. In this position, a rookie would take the rook and feel pretty good about himself. Hikaru would immediately realize that knight to e6 is an immediate KO.
However, only Magnus Carlsen would know that an impassant move is available, and take advantage. Doubled rooks on open files are powerful. If you line up two rooks one behind the other on an open file, that file can become a big problem for the opponent as they can't easily get it back.
Rooks are strong on 7th or 2nd rank. If you can get your rooks to the 7th rank for white and the 2nd rank for black, your opponent will be in deep s**t. This is where most of the pawns are so you can just take them one by one.
There is also a lot of nasty checkmate potential when your rooks are lining up like this. Deal with an attack on the flank with an attack on the center. In this position black is attempting to launch an attack on the right flank because the white king is castled.
What white can do is to strike back in the center, because the black king is not yet castled, and things will look really bad for black really fast. Know the right time to ignore principles. And of course, if you want to be a good chess player, there will be times when these principles will have to be ignored in order to make the best move in the situation. Have fun, and bad luck.