The Big 5 of Beginning Chess Theory
(Practice = Lots of Slow Games)
1. Safety - The Science of Piece Safety is Tactics – If you lose all your pieces or don’t see that you can win your opponent’s, the rest does not matter too much
2. Activity – If you are not using your pieces, they are not much good to you.
3. Time Management – If you are not taking your time to think about what you have learned and to practice a good thinking process, you will rarely figure out the best move.
4. Thought Process – If you don’t develop a healthy thought process, how can you play a mental game like chess? Play “Real Chess”
5. General Principles – These tell you what to do in most chess situations, like “Develop ALL your pieces in the opening”
The Most Important Chess Guidelines
1. If you see a good move, look for a better one – you are trying to find the best one.
2. Play “Real Chess” – don’t be surprised by your opponent’s move.
3. In tactical situations, look for both player’s checks, captures, and threats (the most forcing moves) in that order.
4. Pace yourself to use almost all your time every game – to do otherwise would not be giving your best.
5. Play as many slow games as you can against all levels of competition with the goal of learning from each game.
6. Make sure each piece is as active as possible, usually activating the least active pieces unless there is a forced tactic where you can win material or must defend; e.g. in the opening move every piece once before you move any piece twice.
7. When you are way ahead, think defense first, but do not play defensively! Play simple and trade; keep your pieces active and don’t play too fast or too slow.
8. When way behind, you have nothing to lose, so play aggressively!
9. In the endgame, put your king where the action is; it’s fighting value is about 4+ pawns!
10. Always try your best – if you have a bad game, keep trying and something might happen – or just resign and play again.
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