Chess

Notes about chess fundamentals

created: 2020-06-18 · modified: 2020-11-14

Chess Fundamentals

Undefended pieces

Number of attackers

Coordination

Three primary objectives in opening

Occupy the center
Develop minor pieces
Get king to safety

Typical mistakes

Blocking pieces: early pawn moves in the opening can block in minor pieces, preventing them from effectively developing. This should be avoid if possible.
Overextension: early moves of minor pieces into the opponent’s half of the board should be taken with caution

Pawn play

Look for a well-timed pawn break: pawn breaks can open up the board
- “No pawn break, no plan.”

Trades

Early developement

General rules

Prefer king-side development to queen-side development
Prefer moving knights before bishops
Light and dark square bishops:

Other notes

Because Experts think at a higher level (i.e. they “don’t see bad moves”, or think in terms of larger strategical blocks), it can be helpful to focus less on the individual pieces and what they can do, and more on large scale impacts and how squares, ranks/files, and colors of the board change.
One of the hardest things in chess (in general) as noted by Daniel Naroditsky is using tactical maneuvers to achieve positional advantages. Not only do you need to be able to identify and execute the tactics, but you need to recognize how they can enable a positional advantage.

More tactics

f7/f2 attacks

The weakest squares on the board are the two squares f2 and f7, protected only by the king at the start of the game. Targeting these squares in the opening into the middlegame can be effective and tricky.

Discovered attacks

A discovered attack occurs when moving a piece reveals an hidden attack by another piece. This attack could be threatening to win material or to force a specific line of play. Discovered checks are a good way of doing this as it forces the opponent to respond to the check and can often yield an advantage when set up correctly.

Double check

A double check occurs when two pieces simultaneously check the king. The opponent must move the king in this situation, as both threats cannot be dealt with in any other single move.

Fork

A piece is pinned when it is blocking the opponent’s attack on a more value piece behind it. The pinned piece cannot be moved without losing the piece behind it, and thus may be forced to stay on its square until the pin is removed. An absolute pin occurs when a piece is pinned to the king, making it illegal to move the pinned piece away. A skewer is the opposite of pin in a sense.

Skewer

A skewer occurs when a valuable piece is attacked and forced away, enabling the opponent to attack a less valuable piece behind it. In a sense this is the opposite of a pin, as the more valuable piece is in front of a less valuable one (as opposed to the other way around).

Openings

From white

King’s gambit
Queen’s gambit
Spanish Game (Ruy Lopez): 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5
English

From black

Sicilian defense
French defense
Sandinavian
Slav

Opening tree (is this even remotely useful)

e4
- King’s pawn
- e5
  - Nf3
    - Nc6
      - Bb5
        
        Ruy Lopez (Spanish game): Main idea is to push e4, attack opponent’s central response with Nf3, and pin the knight on b5 with the bishop. The opponent will want to move the pawn on d7, and in doing so keeps the knight on c6 set.
        
        a6
        
        Bxc6
        
        dxc6
        
        Ruy Lopez, Exchange variation: the bishop is exchanged for the knight, resulting in a double pawn structure for black.
        
        Ba4
        
        Ruy Lopez, Columbus Variation: bishop retreats from the attacking pawn, maintains the pin on the knight as established in the main line
        
        b5
        
        Bb3
        
        Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense, Caro Variation: white continues to move the light-squared bishop to safety as black pushes the b pawn. The bishop settles on a key diagonal at b3, with the possibility of moving a3, Ba3 in the future if black continues to push pawns. Continuation: Nf6, O-O. Here the black knight eyes the e4 pawn, but should it be taken white can respond by moving their queen or rook to the e file, attacking the knight. If the knight moves away from the attack, the white knight can attack the black pawn on e5. If black then takes back, the queen/rook can take with check.
      - Bc4
        
        Italian Game: main idea with Bc4 is attacking the weak f7 square for black.
        
        Bc5
        
        Giuoco Piano: black mirrors the central bishop move, pressuring f2.
        
        d4
        
        Italian Game: Rosentreter Gambit: making a gambit of the d pawn, stuffing it in the center of the board. After black takes with Bxd4, Nxd4, Nxd4, Be3 to defend the central knight.
        
        b4
        
        Italian Game: Evans Gambit: making a gambit of the b pawn. After Bxb4, c3, Ba5, d4 to break open the center with support from that c3 pawn.
        
        Nf6
        
        Italian Game: Two Knights Defense
        
        Ng5
        
        Italian Game: Two Knights Defense, Knight Attack
        
        d5
        
        exd5
        
        Nxd5
        
        Nxf7
        
        Fried Liver Attack: forks the queen and rook, requiring the king takes back on f7. Standard line contiues with Qf3, Ke6. With king moving elsewhere, the knight on d5 is hung and white can take. Then Nc5, Nb4 (as a common response by black), a3, and white is fine if Nc2 forking the king and rook; rook is sacrificed for pulling the black knight away from the center action.
- c5
  - Sicilian defense
- e6
  - French defense
  - d4
    - d5
      - Nc3
        
        French Defense: Paulsen Variation: extremely common line after the early French defense moves
      - e5
        
        French Defense: Advance Variation
d4
- Queen’s pawn
- d5
  - Queen’s pawn game
  - c4
    - Queen’s gambit
    - c6
      - Slav Defense
    - e6
      - Queen’s Gambit Declined
- Nf6
  - Indian Game
  - c4: takes larger share of the center, allowing Nc3 later
    - e6: opens up King-side bishop
      - Nc3
        
        c5
        
        d5
        
        exd5
        
        cxd5
        
        d6
        
        Ng3
        
        a6
        
        a4
        
        g6
        
        Nd2
        
        Indian Game: Normal variation: continues along this line
        
        Bb4
        
        Nimzo-Indian Defense
      - Nf3
        
        b6
        
        Queen’s Indian Defense
    - g6: prepares king-side fianchetto
      - Nc3
        
        Bg7
        
        King’s Indian Defense
    - c6
      - Slav Indian
  - Kf3

London system