Archive for the ‘Chess Openings’ Category

Chess Openings for Better Chess Games

The chess opening sequence of movements is a group of moves that are initially done in the chess game. Many chess players recognized that initial sequence in the opening and are more commonly referred to as “openings”. They have been given different names such as the Ruy Lopez, Sicilian Defence, Queen’s Gambit, and many more. These openings are classified in those reference works like Encyclopaedia of the Chess openings.

There are literally hundreds of chess openings variations and widely differentiate in characters. There are silent types positional chess play like the Reti Opening, to a very aggressive battle-like type of chess play like the Latvian Gambit. In most cases of opening moves, the very exact progression to be considered the best for the both players has been proven to work out in thirty to thirty five moves and so. More experienced as well as professional chess players spent their career years in studying, developing, and experimenting opening lines. It is because, the opening theories seems to be endless and continues to evolve in a more sophisticated way.

Some of the most fundamental objectives of the opening moves are the control of the center squares, the king safety, as well as the pawn structure. These three are among the goals of the openings and are given much thought if chess players want to establish a better control and advantages of the game.

It is very important to develop, place, position strongly the key chess pieces where they can be use in full capacity. In this way, you can have the best favorable advantages in conquering your opponent’s chess pieces and win the game. Before attacking, it is very important to first establish strong defensive positions just like when you are going into a real battle. You must be able to plan well your movements and anticipate the opponents’ strategy.

Developing your chess pieces to occupy the central squares of the chess board is very important. In this way, the chess pieces can have better range of attacks. They can fully maneuver on the board effectively and attack more freely, thus you can have a better chance of gaining advantages in capturing most of the chess pieces of your opponent up to cornering his King and winning the game.

The king’s safety must always be your top priority. When your King is captured then you are finished. You lose the game immediately.
Remember the main goal of chess game is to capture and checkmate the opponent’s king so if your king is vulnerable to attacks and not secured, you will definitely lose the game and be depressed in this most basic thing as well.

A very well considered and well planned opening in a chess game can give you a strong army that will not be vulnerable to attacks of the opponent. That can give you so much satisfaction in every chess games that you will play. You can also give your opponent the opportunity to learn from you and not be bored when playing against you.

Common Chess Openings Principle

For new players of the chess game, learning numerous attacks, defenses, chess strategies, tactics, and variations of chess opening moves seem to be an impossible task. Learning many of those available opening lines is not only unnecessary for starters but can also be counter productive.

Instead of memorizing every chess openings you will encounter, you should learn first the basic principles of chess openings. These opening principles not only gives you a nice general guidelines on how to play the opening game of a chess but can also help you to create a more sensed opening advances.

The first chess opening principle is to control the center of the board game. The center, most particularly the squares of e4, d4, d5, and e5 are the most essential area of the chess board. The control of the center allows your chess pieces more mobility as well as a much easier access to any part of the board. The attacks in the center area prove to be the most effective also. These factors can often turn the opening game into a real fierce battle for the central control between the two opposing sides.

In the opening phase, keeping the king safe is very crucial so you need to keep that in mind. The weakened position of the king can directly lead to quick loses, or sometimes force us to sacrifice other chess piece just to keep our king from being targeted and checkmated. Just the same, when the opposing King looks vulnerable to you, it is very important to grab that opportunity before the opposing king can move into a more secured position. More often, these kinds of weaknesses can even result into quick checkmates.

The king’s safety is so essential that it is usually advisable to perform the castling early. A castled king is much safer that the king placed in the middle board. Moreover, castling avoid quick checkmates that are very annoying for beginner chess players. It is difficult to attack castled king.

Developing your chess pieces by bringing out the key chess pieces at the first rank is also advisable. It is very important to be able to develop your chess pieces quickly because the player who attained the quickest time to develop has better advantages because they can have a much better chances to attack and battle first. However adapting your movements with the movements of your opponent is vital too. While developing your own strategic plan, you should also be aware of what you opponent is planning so you can counter attack his or her play.

The freedom of the chess pieces to move is also related to development. In the opening game, it is very important to also allow the chess pieces to be able to move freely into the game. When the center pawns are blocked, it creates such difficulties in the proper development of the chess pieces. The chess pieces which are blocked and are not developed are just the same as the chess pieces in their initial position.

White Chess Openings for Intermediates

Once a chess player level up or move from a beginner’s level to an intermediate skill level, its chess strategies absolutely changes. Beginners in chess games strive to checkmate the opponent’s king as early as possible in just a few movements. They struggle to be able to catch their opponent off guard to gain a quick win.

In the more advances chess stage, we alter to a board position strategy and the progressive reduction of the opposing player’s force. We can attain this by putting in the standard point value of the individual chess piece.

The queen’s value is worth 10 points, the rooks are 5 points each, the bishops and the knights are worth three points each, and the pawns are one point each. Sometimes, these values vary such as the worth of the bishops and knights are only two and one half points but it does not matter. The powerful worth of the queen does speak for itself. The two point’s difference between the rooks and the bishops/knights is solely based on the ability of the rooks in combination with the king itself to affect the checkmate. The king when paired with the knights or bishops can not checkmate the opposing player’s king.

The aim of this white opening is to achieve position on the board as well as to win two points from the black. This is to trade a white knight from the opposing black’s rook. Let us begin a game by playing this basic strategy of the white that gives us the opportunity to focus on the white position only.

First, move the king’s pawn to king’s pawn four. Then in the next turn, move the king’s bishop four to the queen’s bishop four residing on the red diagonal. Next, move the king’s knight to the king’s bishop three. You can see now that this knight’s move could have been to the king’s rook five however, this move could expose the knight to be attack by the black queen’s bishop that is also in the red diagonal. Then, move the queen’s pawn to the queen’s pawn two so that your queen’s bishop can be able to protect the king’s knight after your next movement. Next, move your knight at king’s bishop three to the king’s knight five. At this point, black would have the same number of movements however, based on the variation of sequence, the white knight moves next to the king’s bishop seven. Your white knight cannot be taken because it is protected by your bishop positioned at the queen’s bishop four. Black of course would never sacrifice his or her queen so the white knight can be moved to the king’s rook eight, capturing the black king’s rook. After your turn, the black moves back the queen away from harm.

Let us assume that the black will stop and pull out to capture the invading white knight. At this point, when you captured the black’s rook, the white gained a two advantage point. Often times, the white knight that captured the black rook can also capture a black pawn when it is captured in return by the black which could hit a three point swing in the favor of the white.

White has been able to eliminate the possibility of the black to castle. Of course, this white sequence can vary based on the black’s response to each and every move of the white. However, this sequence can be an excellent opening strategy to gain advantage with point values.