HOW TO START A CHESS GAME

We're witnessing a significant surge of adults diving into the world of chess, fueled by "The Queen's Gambit," numerous chess-related content on social media, and the overall self-improvement trend. However, these beginners face a problem they can't tackle alone: How to effectively start learning chess?

In the following lines, we'll explain the fundamental principles that so-called Adult Improvers should adopt and apply in their game. A chess game consists of three phases:

1. Opening
2. Middlegame
3. Endgame

This is akin to the structure students encounter in language and literature classes: introduction, development, and conclusion.

Chess piece placement

The introduction to a chess game is the opening. The initial part of the game is extensively studied at the master level and boasts a plethora of variants and sub-variants. Often, openings have intriguing names that immediately catch the attention of newcomers to the chess world. It must be acknowledged that names like Caro-Kann, King's Indian Defense, or Meran Variation sound thrilling and challenging.

Inexperienced players get carried away with traps and tricks in the opening, believing that they will launch them to unforeseen heights in their rating. Unfortunately, after experiencing defeats due to their lack of knowledge and experience, they struggle to understand why they can't win and crush opponents as promised by various chess YouTubers and Tik Tokers.

For a beginner, mastering the principles in the initial phase of the game is far more important than pompous opening variants.

Firstly, let's learn about piece values. Chess pieces are divided into:

Pawn

Minor pieces (Knights and Bishops)

Queen, Rook and king

One must understand their relative values: a Pawn is worth one point, Knights and Bishops are valued at three each, Rooks at five, and the Queen at ten points. The King isn't assigned a value in this manner, as it cannot be captured. Beginners should memorize these values to effectively manage their pieces and avoid losing material unnecessarily.

At the start of the game, it's crucial to develop our pieces quickly, mobilizing our forces. A chess game resembles a military conflict. The general who takes control of the battlefield, strategic positions, and fortifications, and develops their forces faster, will defeat the indecisive opponent who hasn't grasped where to deploy their units, thus sending small, ineffective groups of soldiers against a superior enemy.

In the opening, we have three tasks:

• Develop minor pieces to natural squares, which are squares near the central squares d4, d5, e4, and e5, starting with Knights, followed by Bishops, ideally bringing one Knight out before introducing Bishops into play.
• Castle the King, either on the kingside or queenside and
• Connect the Rooks, usually achieved by developing the Queen.

There are also things to avoid in the opening stage of the game:

• Early queen moves, as it's our strongest piece and opponents will develop their pieces attacking it, causing us to waste time evading threats instead of mobilizing other pieces, thus lagging in development.
• Moving the same piece multiple times before other pieces are developed and the three aforementioned tasks are completed.
• Unnecessary pawn moves to the edges of the board, as they don't contribute to development. Generally, in the opening, we move pawns to facilitate the development of our pieces.
• Delaying castling is very risky, as leaving the King in the center of the board can easily lead to checkmate or significant material losses.

Of course, all these principles are general, and in specific situations, one may need to deviate from them. However, for beginners, consistently following them will prevent serious troubles in the initial stage of chess battles.

Let those who have recently started chess carefully examine two annotated games included in this article. In the first, we see the mistake of prematurely playing the Queen in an attempt to deliver the so-called Scholar's Mate, and how an experienced opponent uses it to seize the initiative, while in the second, the great Paul Morphy demonstrates how playing principled opening moves leads to a tremendous positional advantage.

I'll cover the study of the middlegame and endgame in future blogs, but for now, let it be said that in the middlegame, we differentiate between strategic and tactical positions, which require different treatment. Tactical positions involve significant tension between multiple pieces, requiring us to search for forcing move sequences, while strategic positions lack such tension, allowing us time for deeper planning, identifying weaknesses in the opponent's position, attacking them, and improving the positions of our inactive pieces.

Endgames are a whole different story. While they may lack flashy combinations, they demand a lot of chess knowledge, planning, and thinking in patterns.

But let's agree, dear reader, that you will diligently learn the principles from this article and consistently apply them in all your games. If they bring you success, let me know in the comments on this text.