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?