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What is chess? According to the Oxford dictionary “a board game for two players, the object of which is to put the opponent’s king under a direct attack, leading to checkmate”.
In other words chess is a board game in which the main idea is to destroy your opponents army and finally to checkmate the king. If you are completely new to chess I recommend reading Basic Chess Rules: Easy Guide to Learn Chess article first.What makes chess so unique from the rest of the board games is the fact that there are almost infinite number of positions that can arise.
Here is a list of 7 mistakes most commonly seen on the amateur level.
Many chess players just do not realize why they keep losing these games. The answer is simple.
These players keep making the same mistakes over and over again, in every single game they play.
How many games could have been won by avoiding these simple mistakes most people make? Take a look at the list and you will avoid these blunders!
ELO is the most popular rating system which is used to calculate chess strength of players in FIDE, USCF and the majority of chess federations and online chess websites (like ICC or Yahoo! chess). The higher ELO rating is the stronger a player is. In ELO system, a player moves from one class to another (say from class C to class B) for every 200 points earned. If the difference between ELO ratings of two players is 200 points, the strongest player will win about 75% of games. If the difference between ratings is 400 points, the stronger player will win about 95% of games. If the difference is 600 points the stronger side will most likely win 99.999% of all games. Let’s say somebody with 1400 ELO plays somebody with 2000 ELO. The second one will win all games. Well, except for those drawn in case of tornado or fire…
Are you just beginning to play chess and want to know why do you keep loosing these games to a player who is not even good? I will give you couple of vital suggestions and tips that will dramatically improve your chess playing strength.
Let’s go over the most important concepts. The first stage of the complex game of chess called the opening. In the opening it is very important to develop chess pieces. That’s what the opening is made for, to mobilize your chess army. Bishops should be placed on open diagonals, knights in the center and rooks on the open files. If you place chess pieces in this special order you make the task of your opponent to checkmate you a lot harder than if your pieces are poorly developed. There are also more opportunities to launch an attack and crush your opponent if pieces are placed effectively. It is also a very good idea to castle as early as possible since the pawns and rook are excellent guards for your king. It is a lot harder to checkmate castled king, remember that. The second stage of chess is called middle game.
Q. Which of the central squares are more important – d4, d5, e4 or e5? As a point of reference, let’s say the player is playing White. Can you explain why?
A. That depends if you playing so-called light squared game or dark squared game – which basically means what squares you are trying to dominate. So, if you place pawns on d4 & e5 – light squares (increasing the value for light squred bishop) become more important since black squares are being occupied by pawns.
A lot of people are asking the same question over and over again, how to improve in chess? So, I have decided to write this whole thing once and for all.
First of all, it is important to know at what level you are playing now. It would really depend on what to study and how to improve from the player’s current (estimated) rating — chess level by ELO.
Here is a chart that gives an idea of what should players work on at different levels of their chess career.
Here are some essential chess tricks and tips that will help you understand the game of chess better:
- In the opening look for a pawn move first, then for a knight move, then for a bishop move, then for a rook move (or castle), and finally for a queen move.
- Do not move the same piece move then once in the opening if you do not have a very good reason for it (such as material gains).
- Do not accept many pawn sacrifices during the opening, especially playing black. Otherwise, you can get a couple of extra pawns, but also get checkmated quickly because of your underdeveloped pieces. Remember, the main purpose of “opening” is to develop pieces quickly and efficiently.
The main idea of pretty much any chess opening is to develop pieces as quickly and effectively as possible. Here are some basic principles for white which can be applied to most opening situations in the world.
How it all begins…
Chess is very old and wise game which was invented in India about 2000 years ago. In the very beginning, only Indian kings played this game. Instead of going to war two Indian shahs (kings) just set down with the chess board between them and decided whose land is whose and who is stronger. This way they saved their armies and lives of thousands of innocent people. The game of chess was called the game of kings.
The rules were almost identical to the modern chess. Queen was able to move only one square in each direction. There was no “castle” and “en passant”.
