If you want to improve your chess strategies then you must learn these techniques. I will show you all the strategies which are required in order to play competitive chess.

When we talk about chess strategy, we can not forget the name of the Wilhelm Steinitz. He made a huge contribution to chess. His theory did cover our today’s topic which is a chess strategy. He said that ‘ a player should make a plan to reach a certain position where he must have the advantage.’ This is the summary of his theory about strategy.

Now we know that we should play chess according to plan and we should not play chess move by move. So our next logical question will be, How to create a plan in chess? The answer to this question is These days we have much content on planing like we can get any opening and its plans easily. A lot of chess material is available on the internet.

Let’s focus on our topic. There are some elements of strategies. which are modified by the test of time and some by Wilhelm Steinitz. So, in conclusion, we have 7 elements of strategy.

These elements are:

Safety of the King. Development of the pieces. The centre. Pawn Structure. Strong and weak squares. Bishop pair. Open lines and diagonals.

So you must remember these elements, and you must play the game with these elements. If you know these elements by heart and apply in your game then you will have an advantage above your opponent.

Ok, enough theory has been written on chess strategies, let’s move to practical chess strategies.

Chess Strategies in the opening

As you know that you can not win in chess without opening preparation. So we should know the strategy of a chess opening.

In the opening, the very first thing we should take care of is The Center. Because if you have the control at center then you can move your pieces easily whether you are attacking the king or attacking the flank. You must know the power of the center by heart.

What is the center of the chessboard?

We learn from the beginning that centred four squares are the centre of the board. but holding these four squares are not enough to win the game. You should try to control as many central squares as you can. Here is an example of the central squares.

Here you will see what do I mean. This is the center you should control in your chess game. If you can obtain this kind of the centre I can guarantee that you will have many victories in your hand. So here is a helping guide for the centre:⇒ https://www.chessonly.com/how-to-play-pawn-center/.

Here is a one-game which illustrates the idea of controlling the centre and expanding it.

[Event "Carlsbad"] [Site "?"] [Date "1911.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Leonhardt, Paul Saladin"] [Black "Bern, Ivar"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C53"] [PlyCount "83"] [EventDate "1911.??.??"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 d6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb6 7. Nc3 Nf6 8. O-O O-O 9. Bb3 Bg4 10. Be3 h6 11. Qd3 Re8 12. Nd2 Qe7 13. Rae1 Rad8 14. a3 Qf8 15. f4 Bc8 16. h3 Kh8 17. g4 Ne7 18. Kh1 d5 19. e5 Nh7 20. f5 f6 21. e6 c6 22. Bf4 Ng8 23. Na4 Ba5 24. Bc2 Qe7 25. Qg3 b5 26. Nc5 Bb6 27. b4 Nf8 28. a4 a5 29. Ndb3 bxa4 30. Nxa5 Bxc5 31. Nxc6 Bxd4 32. Nxe7 Rxe7 33. Bc7 Be5 34. Rxe5 Rxc7 35. Rxd5 Bb7 36. Qxc7 Bxd5+ 37. Kg1 Re8 38. Bxa4 Re7 39. Qb8 Nh7 40. Rd1 Rb7 41. Qxb7 Bxb7 42. Rd8 1-0 You must activate JavaScript to enhance chess game visualization.

Development of the pieces

The 2nd important thing in the opening is the faster development of your pieces. This is like in the war situation. If you reach the border faster then your enemy then you can control more suitable space and you will have the benefit to attack first because your pieces came first. The same thing happens in chess, you have to develop your pieces faster and get space in the center first and then exploit it. Here one question arises,

How to develop our chess pieces faster?

If you can push your central pawns in the opening, I mean e and d pawn then you can develop your knights and bishop faster. Rooks are the powerful pieces which we often don’t use, then you can place your both rooks on the open files or behind your central pawns e4 and d4.

One more tip to improve your openings is that you should not move pawns in the opening unless it helps to develop your pieces, like e4 and d4.

Here is the summary or the points you can remember about the development of the pieces.

Strategical points to remember

Only move your pawns if they develop your pieces in the opening or if it helps to develop. You should develop your knights and bishop faster in the opening. The main direction of your pieces must be The Center. You should develop your pieces in order to control the centre. Do not move your develop pieces twice in the opening unless it gives your big advantage. Don’t grab pawns if you are behind in development. [Helping Guide: https://www.chessonly.com/punishment-for-pawn-grabbers/ Don’t bring your queen early if you are not castled yet. Prevent your opponent’s development ( Develop your pieces in a way that your opponent can’t develop, Opening preparation).

You will see Morphy sacrificed the piece according to strategy, The point to remember is that when you have an advantage of development you should open the position. And that is the reason why Morphy sacrificed his piece. Let’s watch one of Morphy’s game to illustrate these ideas.

[Event "Paris"] [Site "?"] [Date "1858.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Morphy, P."] [Black "Consultants"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C41"] [PlyCount "33"] [EventDate "1858.??.??"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Bg4 4. dxe5 Bxf3 5. Qxf3 dxe5 6. Bc4 Nf6 7. Qb3 Qe7 8. Nc3 c6 9. Bg5 b5 10. Nxb5 cxb5 11. Bxb5+ Nbd7 12. O-O-O Rd8 13. Rxd7 Rxd7 14. Rd1 Qe6 15. Bxd7+ Nxd7 16. Qb8+ Nxb8 17. Rd8# 1-0 You must activate JavaScript to enhance chess game visualization.

Safety of the King

This is our last and first important aspect of chess strategies. As you know the king is only the piece which you have to protect in the whole game. And what we learned in the above section that you must develop your pieces and castle. because if your king stays in the center then you will lose the game for sure.

There are two spaces for king safety, one is to castle short and the 2nd is castling long. If you love to play attacking and aggressive chess game, then I suggest you castle long. And if you want to play safe, positional chess just like Karpov and Capablanca, then castle short.

I would like to suggest that you should castle where your opponent castles if you want to play safe, like castling short side.

And one last tip is that you should not move the pawns where you are going to castle, because pawns never come back.

Conclusion of Chess Strategies

So I hope you learned all the chess strategies which I mentioned above. These chess strategies are very rich, and if you want to improve your chess then you must learn these strategies or ideas.

When you play your next game, you must use at least one of the strategy. Thank you and Good Luck.

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