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Improve Your Tactical Play 6

Blow up your opponent's position tactically!

The calculation of variations

Index
Initial candidate moves
Prioritising candidate moves
Spotting good candidates- what do we want to invest our time in?!
Beautiful combinations
Why computers are better tactically

Initial candidate moves

Brainstorming is a useful technique in the process of analysing the initial candidate
moves in the position. It involves not rejecting moves because they appear very bad.
Instead coldly and detachedly looking at all the possible moves in the current
situation. By this process one can risk finding really creative looking moves that one
would not normally consider!
As an example of this, take the Barnet front page 2nd week puzzle position below:-

A seemingly insignificant "crazy move" to put in your candidate move list would be
Qf6!........can you see the implications of this? :-)
Assuming the position is deserving enough of a systematic tactical analysis, and one
has brainstormed many of the candidate moves available in the position, one needs
to go about finding out which ones are worthy of pursuit.

Prioritising candidate moves

As human beings we need to prioritise the moves we look at because we cannot see
millions of moves per second.
Moves which should be given priority in analysis of variations include :1) Moves which are forcing in nature , as there is less possibilities to examine for the
opponent.
2) Moves which are clearly linked with strategic goals/ our plans in the position, e.g.
creating a passed pawn, or removing a king's defender. These are "logical" tactics
which help further the positional goals of the situation and help to implement one's
overall game plan.
Given that the extent of a "brute force" approach is clearly limited by time constraints
and other practical constraints, there is therefore a clear need for prioritising
candidate moves.
Postal chess may facilitiate a much more detailed investigation of the candidate
moves in a position. However in normal over the board play, a policy of filtering and
prioritising after the initial round up of many candidate moves, and more
fundamentally to play practical positional moves which are linked to your overall
strategic game plan [yes- you should have one of those!] is usually the most
practical, effective way of thinking within the constraints of tournament time limits.
Spotting good candidates- what do we want to invest our time in?!
The identification of tactical elements and combinational motifs should have
emphasised the raison d'tre of potentially good combinative moves.
Candidate moves which seem to be logically related to for example exploiting pins or
weaknesses around the opponent's king should be considered more carefully than
other complete random moves which may have been initially thought of in the
brainstorming process.
We have to use our experiences to guide prioritising moves. At the same time we
should leave creative room for the parodoxial decision of trying to appreciate the
significance of the seemingly insignificant.
Without leaving this creative room, we will always be restricted in the choice of our
candidate moves by our experiences and the apparent "rules". If you want to be a
good combinative player, you must be prepared to break all the "rules" of the game!
Think about giving up a queen for a pawn! You may find it does something
interesting like force a mate in 5! You may also get a brilliancy prize in your club's
magazine!
One has to get an instinctive feel for the most favourable "insignificant" moves. They
may for example be more strongly linked with strategic implications such as opening
a file. In which case, their insignificance may only be superficial. They are simply in
the realm of subtle resources which can turn the whole game to one's favour.

Beautiful combinations
In calculating variations, beautiful hidden tactical resources may be revealed. A
special place is reserved for sacrificial combinations which may be revealed in
analysis. However one should not go all out to find a combination in every position.
Only if the position is ripe for it. Otherwise simply analyse the main variations which
support your main game plan and make sure you stay alive tactically!
It is pointless waste of time looking for a combination if there does not exist one in
the position. There needs to be jusification for looking for a combination. If we try and
find a combination in every position, we will probably find really unexpected
combinations in 5% of games, but be losing on time in 90% of games. Computers on
the other hand being so fast, can be tactically turned on and analysing deeply every
move.
Why computers are better tactically
In filtering/ prioritising out moves, in 1 case out of 10, or 1 case out of 100, the
seemingly completely random move, may have been the most appropriate move in
the position to play.
It is here humans will be losing ultimately to computers.
We have to use our judgement and experience to filter.
We therefore have to accept we are going to be weaker tactically than computers.
We have to take what's useful from the way computers analyse! (and dont get into
tactical positions against them :-) )
The tactical clues which help one find combinations also act as our blind-spot
because in one respect they guide us towards finding a combination more quickly.
However in guiding us, they prejudice us from systematically analysing the all the
candidate moves in the position. Computers not being with this prejudice and
guidance will simply use a brute force approach and look at moves which might not
be at all considered by us mere humans.

Copyright 1997 - 2014 Chess Corner. All rights reserved.

Developing a winning combination

Chess combinations can be exceedingly beautiful and make one proud to be a chess
player. Non-chess players will never understand the sense of satisfaction that is
gained from playing a nice combination especially one which involves a sacrifice!
The combinational motifs or raison d'tre for combinations has been discussed under
the tactical element assesment section previously.
Romanovsky is famous for his systemization of combinations. The ways and means
of the combination were categorised by Romanovsky as the ideas and themes.
These usually include a mixture of the following ingredients:The keys to create combinational achievements

Every chess player may at one time or another use the following tools to achieve
combinational ends:Forcing moves, eg
A check (Patzer sees a check, gives a check is a popular expression)
A capture
A threat that must be parried
A decoy
A deflection
A discovered attack, eg discovered check or discovered attack on the queen
A Sacrifice! (Botvinnik argued in "Towards a definition of a combination", Botvinniks
Chess Activity Volume 1 that a combination is a forced variation with a sacrifice.
Quieter moves which may subtely assist in the combination, e.g
Waiting moves !
A Pin (Pin and win)

Inteference
Square vacation
Line Opening

Combinational achievements to blow your trumpet about!

A successful combination should lead to a clear advantage for the player who
initated it. The clear advantage could be expressed in terms of the following:A Checkmate or mating attack
A Material gain of some sort, eg:A double Attack winning material
A trapped piece
A Skewered piece
A pawn promotion

The combinational toolbox examined

Forcing moves

Introduction
Forcing moves can be used to gain critical tempos which facilitate an unstoppable
attack or win material. The opponents queen is often a good piece to gain tempos
from, in order to implement a winning attack. It is a highly "threat-sensitive" piece as
a logical consequence of it's high material value.
Forcing moves can also be used to simply win material by force from seemingly nondangerous positions. This is one of the key reasons that they should be given priority
in the calculation of variations.
Examples

Forcing moves starting with pawn sac

Material gain

Fischer - Benko, Yugoslavia 1959

Fischer exploits the position of the threat-sensitive queen on c5 to gain time for a
very strong attack with e5!
The game continuation was dxe5 15.Bxf6 (another forcing move) gxf6 16.Nce4
(gaining the tempo) Qd4 17.Qh5 Nxb3 18.Qh6 exf4 19.Nh5 f5 20.Rad1 Qe5
21.Nef6+ Bxf6 22.Nxf6+ Qxf6 23.Qxf6 Nc5 24.Qg5+ Kh8 25.Qe7 Ba6 26.Qxc5 Bxf1
27.Rxf1 1-0

Forcing moves

Material gain
(trapped queen)

Tal-Larsen Reykjavik 1957

An unsuspecting Larsen has just played Rac8. With 2 forcing moves, White wins the
black queen by force with b4! Qa4 and Ra3. Larsen played Rxd5 and eventually lost.

Forcing moves

Material gain

Tal-Larsen, Portoroz 1958

Here Tal unleashed a series of forcing moves which ended up winning material. Tal
played e5! The continuation was dxe5 20.Ne4 0-0-0 21.Ng3 Qg4 22.Nxe5 Qh4
23.Qc3+ Kb8 24.Nxd7+ 1-0

Forcing move(Queen sac)

Material gain through a knight folk

Tal-Tringov, Munich 1958

This example shows that one should definitely consider apparent queen sacrifices, if
they are forcing. Tal play Qxd7+ which wins a piece because after Kxd7 Nc5 wins
the black queen.

Decoys/ Deflections

Effective decoys/deflections within a middlegame context are often used to attract

key defensive pieces away from their critical tasks. These usually involve defending
the opponent's king in some way. But decoys can occur in the endgame, for example
an outside passed pawn can be used to decoy the opponent's king so that another
pawn may queen.
Examples

Decoy (Rook sac)

Mating attack/ winning material by force

Tal - Veder, Riga 1951

Here the rook on d7 is helping defend the g7 square. Tal played Re1!! attempting to
lure the rook away from this defensive task. His opponent played Qc5 and lost
quickly after Be6. However if Rxe1, there is a forced mate, eg Rxe1 Nf6+ Kh8 hxg7+
mating, or in this line if Kf8 instead of Kh8 then hxg7+ Ke7 Ne4+ Ke8 Nd6 mate.

Deflection

Material gain (the black queen)

Tal-Benko, Amsterdam 1964

Here Tal played the Rd8+! deflecting the black queen to d8 allowing Nxf7+ folking
the black queen and king.

Line Opening

Opening lines of attack against the opponents king is like creating new roads!. These
new roads can be used to develop unresistable pressure.
Examples of Line Opening

Line Opening

Winning attack

Spassky-Fischer 1992
Here Fischer played e5!, and after white played dxe6 the a1-h8 diagonal was
opened up for exploitation with Bc6! increasing the pressure on White's position. The
game continued Kf1 Bxf3 0-1

Line opening (Pawn sac)

Strong king attack

Tal-Teslenko URS 1964

Here Tal was intent on opening up the b2-h8 diagonal against the black king. The
preliminary to this move was g4!. The game continued:- Be3 18.gxf5 exf5 19.e6
Bxe6 20.Ng5 Bd7 21.Qh5 h6 22.Qg6 1-0
Pins

Forcing move(Bishop sac)

Material gain (queen)

Fischer vs Reshevsky New York ch, 1958

Here Fischer exploits a latent subtle pin on the d file, with Bxf7+!! and after Kxf7 Ne6
Fischer trapped Reshevsky's queen.
Discovered attack

Forcing move(Pawn sac)

Material gain (White queen)

Huebner vs Kasparov, Koln 1992

An unsuspecting Huebner played Bd3 here, and Kasparov unleashed the deadly f5!
with the continuation Qxf5 Nf6 winning white's trapped queen 0-1

Choosing Candidate Moves

Introduction
How do you choose a candidate move?
When you play a game of chess you always try to play the strongest move but
after the game you may engage in some analysis with a strong chess engine
and find that although there are many variations you could have played that
fit your style of play and most of your moves while they may have been
absolutely sound were not the engines first choice, they were not candidate
moves.
A candidate move is a single move for each possible variation of the position
you want to play that a strong player or strong chess engine gives to it, it's
highest rating. And all the rating points that it used to determine that move
are based on many factors that you may not have even considered.
This move is considered a candidate move because it is the strongest and most
sound for a variety of reasons. Its those reasons that you should be most
concerned with. Because once you have mastered what those reasons are that
make up a candidate move you will be playing more skillfully.
This page on determining a candidate move is going to help you organize your
thinking and basic knowledge towards that goal of the concepts that make up
the decision making process of how to choose a candidate move.
If you choose not to read this page for what ever reasons and procrastinate
that you don't need such knowledge then consider this.
It you are serious about increasing your chess skills just how do you think you
are going to achieve it? By simply playing more games maybe? Is that the way
the masters achieved their rating? Paying a coach perhaps to help you
increase your chess skills? Of course if you don't care about your rating and
only play for its entertainment value then I suggest you leave our club because
you are never going to be an asset here.
Maybe you feel that your understanding of the game is sufficient for now. So
why work so hard to improve it. But then you have to ask yourself.
So how much has my rating improved?

In the last three months, six months or a year? Why has your rating failed to
improve significantly? With all your knowledge gained in playing games why
has your ability not increased significantly also?
Why does your ability not increase in proportion to the number of games you
play?
I don't think I have to spell it out for you, the answer is obvious. Important
chess knowledge required to increase chess skills is not obtained in playing
games, it only comes from the hard work of study.
It's the equivalent to fixing a racing car to win races that doesn't have an
engine.
You can put on the most expensive wax and polish the exterior for hours and
hours and make it shine with a high gloss, but with out a powerful engine it's
not going anywhere. Or if it does have a small puny engine its not going to go
very fast or win any races either.
This analogy is similar to the engine in a chess program like Fritz. With out
that engine Fritz would be near worthless, not able to analyze or calculate
anything. Just a simple viewer like chess assistant, SCID or chessbase. This
engine makes all the difference in the world to a chess program like Fritz ,
and those engines are constantly being improved on each time a new version
of the chess program comes out.
How powerful is your chess engine? Are you actively trying to improve its
power, better understanding of chess and calculating abilities too?
What kind of engine have you? Does it have any special abilities? Consider the
unique playing style of the Fritz Engine of Junior 9. According to its authors,
it is now a reigning computer chess world champion in all categories.
This is because Junior is different from all other programs in its search
strategies and evaluations function. This gives the program a very distinctive
"STYLE" of play. The special strength of Junior is its understanding of
compensation. This makes the program an extraordinarily effective tool for
analyzing sharp and dynamic positions especially those involving the sacrifice
of material. It is the program that shocked Garry Kasparov with its famous
bishop sacrifice on h2. It's the program that is most likely to correctly
understand the compensation involved, both in the execution of a sacrifice and
the defense against it.
Have you tried to develop a distinctive style of play also? In our page of How
to Develop a Opening Repertoire is a discussion on the styles of the top GMs
past and present.

The popular styles of the masters.

Attacking, Positional, Defensive, Unorthodox, Conservative, Tenacious fierce
defender, Not overly aggressive, let opponents weaken their position before
attacking and stresses defense, Vigorous and combinative, Loves mayhem,
Fearless attacks and deep understanding of the endgame.
Further consider two players, one can see four moves ahead and has little
basic or positional knowledge of the game and the other that can see only two
moves ahead and has spent the time to obtain extensive basic chess knowledge
and positional knowledge, who will win the vast majority of the games?
This is a key lesson that all the time spent in acquiring the ability to see
several moves ahead are worthless when compared to see only a few moves
ahead but to have extensive basics chess principle knowledge to ensure you
are making more sound candidate moves that will guide you to a winning
game.

How do you choose a best move?

Is there some simple method by which you can use to determine a so called
best move or candidate move?
Proponents who have tried to simplify the choices and come up with a solid
unified theory that one can use in any position argue that to actively promote
an advantage in a position can involve so many different concepts that it is
almost impossible to try to state only one methods above all the others. Yet
there are sound and logical ideas that one can use that can simplify the
process.
Given all the choices to move in any chess position can be a daunting task. So
what can one use to guide them into the right decision?
Just like there may be no single one best move given in any position, there also
may not be no single idea one can use to find one, but your guide lines can be
the same as those that strong players use if you care to study what those guide
lines should be.
These guide lines are those that use the basic principles of chess and may or
may not consist of basic rules for less advanced players. As one's experience
grows, one learns that some rules are meant to be broken. For example the old
rule that of always capture with a pawn towards the center is widely followed,
but a good 30 percent of the time it is correct to capture away from the center.
The trick of course is to know when and more importantly why to do so.

Other rules such as avoid doubled pawns, castle as early as possible, develop
knights before bishops, etc can also be suspect.
However that does not mean that there are not certain basic principles that
can never be broken and not followed as sound guidelines.
The Secrets of Calculation
Many say that chess is 99 percent tactic, and some say it is not, it is 99 percent
calculation. It's the technical and practical aspect of how to think ahead and
select candidate moves, the evaluation of end game positions and finding the
proper move order. We have a page on the use of calculation to find out more
information on using it.
Calculation is the working out of variations without moving the pieces
physically. There are positions that have a purely tactical nature and in such
situations the player's ability to calculate variations accurately can take on
great importance. It may be based on an imbalance in order to form a plan
and from that plan calculate candidate moves that lead up to some advantage
for you or it may be involved in calculating the importance of a threat from
your opponent. If your calculations show that the threat does not really
present a serious problem then maybe your planed combination will be more
decisive to go through with rather than try to defend against your opponent's
plans of attack.
If your planed combination involves a sacrifice, it is then a calculable series of
moves to see if it leads to material or positional gains and can not be made
with out a through calculation first being made.
The combination you may be calculating may be a sacrifice combined with a
forced sequence of moves, which exploits specific peculiarities of the position
in the hope of attaining a certain goal or mate.
We know that this is the master's main tool in selecting their so called best
move or candidate moves. But if your not a master, then what?
True you can use the principles of calculation and you should do so before you
venture into unknown waters but to gain the use of calculating effectively you
should first train your combinative vision and study the games of such skilled
attacking players as Alekhine, Tal, Kasparov and Fischer. Follow their
opening moves and then cover up the rest of the game and endeavor to figure
out all the rest of the moves. You should also try to figure out what their plans
are based on, the imbalances or weakness that they are trying to exploit if any
exist.

There are many books on how to play winning chess and most are based on
how the masters think and how their games were won by them skillfully
calculating ahead. But then there are also strong playing masters like Judit
Polgar who said after winning a tough game against another GM, "I just
trusted my institution to select the winning move and it proved to be the right
choice."
The point here is that in order to choose a so called best move you do need
guide lines in choosing rather than just to make moves based on what you
may think is a good move and may be looking a move or two ahead. That is
probably how most average players make their decisions, they just think a
good tactical move is based on looking a move or two ahead, but is it?
Making sound moves that are going to give you a long term advantage is more
than that, they must be based on solid basic chess principles.
Strong chess programs don't have to have any knowledge of sound basic chess
principles if they can look 15 or more moves ahead in a billionth of a second.
But humans can't do that, they need some practical methods to guide them.
Let us look at some of these basic principles of chess that you can use to make
good moves.
It's been found by people who were interested in how strong players play that
the stronger a player is the more knowledge he has about pawn levers. In
extensive testing of strong players the more a player knows about the basic
principles of pawn levers the better is his play.

Pawn Levers
A pawn lever is pawns move which:
1. Offers to trade itself and
2. Leads to an ultimate improvement in the pawn structure of the side playing
it and or
3. Damages the opponent's pawn structure.
So we notice that number three gives us a basic chess principle to guide us in
our choice of moves in that to damage your opponent's pawn structure may be
a good choice in choosing a candidate move. Let us put that down in our list of
sound basic principles to guide us. Also note that the calculation of moves is
not a basic chess principle, rather it is a method of determining what a move
may lead to and to determine a move order especially important in the end
game.
1. Damage opponent's pawn structure.

We have a page on Pawn Levers to give you more valuable information on

this subject. So your choice of moves could be based on this basic information
about Pawn Levers if you care to study it and learn more about this valuable
tool.
If you own a strong chess program like Fritz you may be amazed at all the
basic principles that Fritz can expound on in the option Explain All Moves.
Recently in the analysis mode in Fritz to see if I could find another good
opening plan for The Queen's Gambit D37, I was considering the options of
either advancing a pawn or of taking the adjacent pawn and Fritz gave me 43
choices in the Explain All moves box.
Some of the moves were, Is not bad, is not wrong, is playable, is ok, is good, is
fine, etc. But other choices were much more meaningful. Like increases
pressure on c6, overprotects d4, controls g4.
Others near the bottom of the list were, is wrong, is bad, loses material, gets
refuted, is a weak move, aimless, not to the point. Is less strong, etc,
But there were others choices that actually gave advice based on sound basic
chess principles that could be useful and solid advice for most any position
consideration.
These were advice suggestions that we need to note on our list of basic chess
principles to use for our Basic Guideline list.
Weakens the King Safety, Increases the center control, the bishop has less
influence here.
But the one move it suggested that I thought was the most significant was, a5!

"White gets more space!"

Is not that a good sound basic principle we find in our list of opening
principles that is in our training pages? Basic principles teach us that one of
the goals in the opening is the struggle for more space.

"White gets more space" is our Candidate Move

Its our candidate move because its based on sound basic chess principles.
In our page of Winning with the Point Count System System we learned
that Simply squeezing your opponent to death is good way to win games. But

to squeeze an opponent, you must first acquire a significant advantage in

space.
When you have the advantage in space, you control more territory than your
opponent. Your pieces have more squares to choose from than the enemy
pieces, which are severely restricted in their movements. By applying the
principles of space, you can win a game by taking so much space away from
your opponent that all he can do is pace back and forth in his little cell,
waiting for you to proceed with his execution.
I used the advice of the basic principle of space and played advancing the
pawn to a5 to gain more space and instantly the Evaluation Profile Graphical
Display Graph jumped into action with a large green bar above the base line
to denote a significant advantage for White. If instead I had taken the
adjacent pawn, not only would I have lost the opportunity to gain more space
but I would have wound up with a new isolated pawn that would have been
necessary to protect by a major piece, not a good move because defending a
pawn with a major piece, a rook or bishop takes away the use of that piece for
more useful choirs, like harassing his king maybe.

Basic Candidate move list.

Use this list to determine your next best candidate move. If you analyize the
moves of the Masters in their gmes you will find that many of their moves
were based on this important list.
Take a good look at our Basic Positive Chess Principles List. All of those
concepts are based on the fact that they all increase the effectiveness or
strengthen a position and so can be called positive factors either for your self
or for your opponent as well.
By using the following simple example we can make it more clear on how to
use this same simple example to use the other positive factors in much the
same way.
So if you want to increase your effectiveness you would want to use them in a
positive way. Conversely if you try to prevent your opponent from using them
you have gained an advantage as well and then they could be turned around
for a negative disadvantage for your opponent.
For example picking the first one, Control of the center. In the opening if you
are White, you might want to try to take control of the center by moving e4.
That move attacks two important squares in the center of the board to take
control over those key squares. This is a strong positive move that attempts to
take control of the center. But it does more than that. It also uses other

positive factors in that it gains space, and takes control of important key
squares in the center of the board,
Ideally your plan in the Queen pawn opening is to put pawns on d4 and e4 to
control the center. Develop your Kings Bishop and Knight and castle early.
These are the positive ideas. The preventive ideas are to stop Black from
doing the same, to shift the equilibrium in your favor.
So now your plan is how to try to stop Black from doing the same. If Black
moves e6. You play d4 to increase your control on the center and maintain
your advantage. Black plays d5 and you take it with exd5.. Black takes back
with his Queen. What should be your next move?
If you follow your chess basic principles list you should develop your Knight
with tempo and attack the Black Queen making a forcing move. Again this is
not only a good forcing move but a candidate move as well based on a chess
principle of developing knights before Bishops. Now White is about to fall into
a trap because he failed to follow opening basics of not moving out your
Queen early in the opening moves and losing tempo of developing your pieces
as well.
Black has to respond to this move by moving his Queen to prevent capture,
but instead Black decides to pin the Knight against the King with his dark
Bishop from e8 to b4. White counters to relieve the pin with Bishop to d2.
Black must now move his Queen from d5 or lose it. He moves it to c6. White
attacks the Bishop with pawn to a3. Black blunders and decides he does not
want to lose his Bishop and moves his bishop to a5 . and now Black is about to
lose his Queen with a vicious pin of White's light square Bishop on e1 to b5.
Pinning the Black Queen on c6 to his King, with the White knight on c3
holding the White Bishop's pin. and with that decisive move Black resigns
with the loss of his Queen so early in the game.
You now can see that by White following basic chess principles he gained an
advantage that was decisive in wining the game for him in just the first 6
opening moves of the game.
Once you have gained control of the center you will want to observe other
very important basic chess concepts of basic opening principles and develop
your pieces to key squares for their maximum effectiveness. You will want to
strengthen any advantage you have made by developing your pieces and to
strengthen your control on the center however small it may be. One way to do
this is to always try to maintain at least one pawn in the center of the board.

As you now can see all of the above ideas can be used for you to make a plan
on how to decide as to what your candidate moves should be in the opening. If
you just use this one simple idea, no longer will you have to make decisions
that are not based on sound chess principles concepts. And you will have a
guide towards nullifying your opponents advantages.

Basic Positive Chess Principles List.

Use this list to gain an advantage.
Control of the Center.
Strong outpost station
Superior development
Gaining space.
Greater space
Bishop-pair
Rook(s) on a open file
Rook(s) on a half open file
Rook(s) on the seventh rank
Passed pawn
Protected passed pawn
Outside passed pawn
Advanced pawn
Advanced pawn chain
Better king position (castled king)
Pawn Lever advantage
Knight on Outpost advantage
Bishop(s) on diagonal
Strong outpost station
Taking Control of useful open file
Qualitative pawn majority
Take contro of a key square
Two Bishop Advantage
Taking the Initiative
Castled King
Gain a central pawn majority.
Gain a Queenside pawn majority.
Gain a Kingside pawn majority.
Make a plan and follow it and try to simultaneously try
to stop the plans of the enemy.
Always play in the center because that is the most
important area of the board.
Try to gain a spatial plus in the center.

Change bad bishops into good bishops,by moving pawns

out of their way.

Basic Negative Chess

Principles List
Use this list to thwart your opponent's advantages.
By gaining the initiative, attacking, damaging his pawn
structure taking away his space,
limiting his piece movement, exposing his castled king,
creating holes, creating weak
squares and using outposts for your pieces, you are
creating an imbalance in your favor
and gaining the advantage.

Prevent your opponent from expanding on the Queenside

or Kingside.

---- Weak Pawns----

1.

Backward pawns

2.

Doubled pawn

3.

Isolated pawn

4.

Hanging pawns

5.

Hanging phalanx

6.

Crippled majority wing

7.

Blockaded Pawn

----Weak Squares----

1.
2.

"Weak square complex"

Holes for outposts

Exposed Castled King

Compromised King-side protection
Restricted Knight (Anti- Knight Moves)
Lacking Initiative
Bad Bishop
Cramped position
Limited Piece mobility
Undeveloped Pieces

So now our Guideline list is shaping up into some good useful basic advice for
our use in determining candidate moves.

Our Basic Guideline

list.
1. Damage opponent's pawn structure.
2. Improve your pawn structure.
3. Gain space

4. Gain control of the center and

increase center control.
5. Weakening king safety moves, either
for you not to do or to your opponent.
6. Bishops on the long diagonals to
increase their influence.
7. Rooks on open files or half open
files.
8. Develop strong outpost stations.
9. Develop a passed pawn
10. Develop a outside passed pawn
11. Develop a protected passed pawn.
12. Better King position (Castled King)
13. Offside pawn majority
14. Superior Development.
15. Rooks on the seventh rank.
16. Avoid weak squares.
17. Fast development of all your pieces.
18. Mobilize all of your pieces as
rapidly as possible.
19. Create an imbalance in your
opponent's camp.
20. Take control of weak squares, files
and ranks.
21. Don't move a piece twice before you
have development of all your pieces.
22. Don't place a piece so that it blocks
the path of another piece or of
a center pawn.
23. Don't move a piece to a square from
which your opponent can drive it away
with a move that furthers his own
development and impedes yours.

From the basic principle of not

moving a piece twice in the opening
moves.
24. Don't make unnecessary pawn moves
that weaken your pawn structure.
25. Avoid having your own pawns on the
same color as your bishop.
26. Always try to maintain at least one
pawn in the center of the board.
27. Avoid Backward pawns.
28. Avoid Doubled pawns.
29. Seek passed pawns.
30. Seek a two Bishop advantage
31. Limiting the mobility of pawns.
32. Limiting the mobility of pieces.
(Anti-Knight moves)
33. Taking the initiative.
34. Gaining tempo
35. Using the principle of two weaknesses
for an advantage.
36. Avoid making imbalances in your camp.
37. Always take towards the center.

(Remember that most imbalances are caused

by pawn moves)
So now you have some good guidelines to use to help you decide on your
candidate moves. Combine these guidelines with good tactical combinations,
endgame theory and a little strategy and you will have a winning combination
that will be hard to beat by your opponents.
You must try to understand the logic of every move in your analysis of the
masters play. You must ask yourself before you move as to whether this move
is good or bad based on your knowledge of Our Basic Guideline list that is
based on solid basic chess principles. Use the elements of time, force, space

and pawn structure. Plan ahead with a strategy plan based on time tested
opening principles of play. Study and use sound basic principles of Strategy
for long term advantage play.
As I keep saying, out of sight is out of mind. So if you want to really use and
remember all of these basic guidelines as you play, you should print out Our
Basic Guideline list and paste it on some stiff cardboard and put it in plain
sight on your desktop to review every day.
Remember that simply putting it in a file in your computer to look at from
time to time is still out of sight and out of mind and as such you probably will
never again look at it.

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