Inspired by a comment on another post, thought it might be nice to aggregate lemmy’s chess wisdom when it comes to general rules.
Could be related to the chess itself (e.g. rooks belong behind passed pawns) or more general (e.g. in classical think about concrete variations on your move, and plans on your opponent’s).
None of these are ever hard and fast, but are often useful if you’re at a loose end in a position.
A couple I’ve found helpful:
- the bishop pair together is generally worth about 7 pawns, rather than 6. Useful when evaluating exchange sacs quickly in blitz
- in closed positions, your play is generally in the direction the pawn chain is pointing for you (so in the French, black’s play is on the queenside and white’s on the kingside
- in a closed position, plans generally revolve around engineering a pawn break. Look for them and check each. No pawn breaks; no plan
- when in doubt, push the a/h pawn
Any more for any more?
Developing your pieces and contesting the centre instead of capturing pawns in the opening will always give you a playable position. Sometimes a pawn is actually free, but in general you can focus on development without being worse off. Get it wrong and that extra pawn might make the rest of the game an uphill battle.
I like this one. I mean, I’m a filthy little pawn grabber who will throw away any positional advantage in favour of clinging grimly to cold hard material, but I do aspire to this level of restraint.
If you are unsure what to do, playing a move that leaves you with more protected pieces is a solid option.
Queen goes on her own color. :P
Bad bishop vs good bishop - generally the bishop that matches the color of your own fixed pawns is the bad one. Trading it tends to be for the better.
Never play F3 (or as black, F6), Finegold-ism.
Knight on the rim is dim - try not to leave your knights on the edge of the board. Or, more generally, the more squares any piece has available, the better.
Basic questions to ask yourself after each opponent move - “what is that piece doing? What is it no longer doing?” - heard this from a ChessNetwork video. It’s obvious but framing it that way can force you to think through it methodically each time.
When you’ve pinned a piece - don’t take it if you can help it. Instead, prefer to put more pressure on it by adding attackers.
If you see a good move, look for a better one.
The F6 one was s golden rule in my chess club, the 8x9 club, an imaginary chess club.
Castle
Build diagonal lines of pawns
Take her white-squared bishop and defend bpack squares with pawns , or vice versa. Renders her remaining bishop useless.
if you always want to win, only play against yourself.
that’s my rule.
