Opening principles to follow for players just starting out

Opening is the first part of the game and many things later are determined by how you play in this phase. Coming out badly from the opening means you might suffer for the rest of the game. But please note that until you gain around 1700- 1800 in elo there is no need to go further in chess theory. Only some sound principles will be needed to play the opening successfully.

#1 Develop your pieces quickly
This is rule of thumb and applies to most openings. In a training I once was taking part in we were not allowed to use more than 8 moves to develop all pieces. That’s a good rule of thumb to give to your student’s if you’re a trainer. All you’re pieces are fully developed when you’re rooks are connected. Another good rule of thumb is to move your pieces only once in the opening.

#2 Take control over the center with pawns
Taking control over the center means controlling the four central squares d4, e4, d5, e5. Often white tries to do that with placing pawns on d4/e4 and black trying to the same with pawns of e5/d5.

Black to move

A position from a game of mine. I was playing black here and as you can see I was doing quite badly letting white take full control over the center and play the 7 best moves you can play in the opening (e4,d4,Nc3,Nf3,Bf4,Bc4,0-0). And after just 3 more moves I had to resign. The shortest game I ever have played in a real tournament and quite embarrassing as I at that the time considered myself to be a quite decent chess player (I had 1900 in elo).

#3 Put the king in to safety
Many of the classical games from the 19^th century, the Romantic chess area, was decided right from the opening were one side didn’t manage to put the king in to safety in time. A pawn wasn’t worth anything and you gladly sacrificed 1 maybe 2 pawns in order to get ahead in development and then mate your opponent’s king. The game I just showed you is a great example of this, 11 moves and then I had to resign. You know in order put to your king in a safe place you need more than just making 0-0 (even though making 0-0 or 0-0-0 often gets your king out of trouble).

#4 Develop knights before bishops
At least one knight should be developed first. There is a simple reason for this: Depending on where you place your knights and your opponent places his/her knights your bishops belong on different squares.

#5 Don’t develop your queen to early
Many beginners think that because the queen is there most powerful piece (which it is) they have to bring it out and attack their opponent as quick as possible. Often times this strategy will only backfire. Here is an example of when this strategy doesn’t work:

White to move

As we can see the queen is standing in the middle of the board. Now it will reveal itself why the queen is so exposed. 1.Nc3! Developing a pieces and also gaining time because black has to move the queen again. And that breaks the 1th principle of not moving the same piece twice in the opening. 1… Qe5+?!  A bad move because the check is only temporary and white will soon gain extra time developing pieces and hitting the black queen at the same time. 2.Be2 Simply develops the bishop and prepares Nf3. 2…Bg4 Making use of the pin. 3.d4! Again hitting the black queen and making an important developing move (3.Nf3 would have been meet by Bxf3 when white has to compromise the pawn structure with gxf). 3…Bxe2 4.Nxe2 Qa5 5.0-0 (Diagram below)

Black to move

Please, take a moment to compare white’s position to black’s. White has made 3 developing moves and put his king to safety. Black on the other hand has not gone any further than in the last position with the exception of the missing light squared bishop. You’d be surprised if I tell you how many games online I have played white in this position. But the score isn’t surprising at all.

Case study: French Defense part 1

French Defense is one of the most interesting openings you can play in chess. It gives room for some rich strategic play as well as tactical play. White gains the center and black tries to attack it. If black prevails then it’s suddenly he who has the upper hand. It wasn’t until recently that I decided to play this opening with white (but I might even employ it with black later). The reason for not playing it was that first of all I didn’t understand it and second of all I didn’t like closed positions. I liked open positions with a lot of tactical variations. But recently I’ve figured that if I want to improve my play this would be a very good opening to start with. So, let’s take a look at the first moves:

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 And we have reached the first position! (see down below)

From here there are many variations but often the central pawns land on d4,e5 for white and e6,d5 for black. That means that white is enjoying some space advantage and that black has the bad bishop on c8. So, why did black buy in to all this? Well, one thing is that black will be able to up some pressure against white’s center with c5 and f6. Also, d4 pawn can become quite weak. Black is willing to unbalance the position and tries to develop play of he’s own.

3.Nc3 is the most common move 3…Bb4 creating the threat of dxe .4 e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3 6.bxc (see diagram below)

The mainline of the French Defense. Black is putting pressure against white center with c5 and also he has managed to destroy white’s queenside pawns. White enjoys a better center and therefore space advantage.

The line that I decided to take a closer look at here is:
6…Ne7 7.Qg4 This is white most ambitious move trying to take advantage of black vulnerable kingside. 7…g6 is not to recommend here as it weakens blacks dark squares. An idea like h4-h5 might gain in strength and white’s dark squared bishop might use these weaknesses to its advantage with Bg5-f6. Instead black has other tires like …Qc7 0-0. After 7…Qc7 the game gets sharp when black decides to sacrifices a pawn for destroying white’s center. 8.Qxg7 Rg8 9.Qxh7 cxd this is the point of black’s play. Black is both threatening Qc3+ and Qxe5+. 10.Ne2! Controlling c3 and d4. 10…dxc practice has shown that this is the best move. See diagram below.

 And we have reached an interesting position. White idea consist of:
1. Hold on to the e5 pawn
2. Push the h- pawn
Black idea is:
1. Attack e5
2. Use the slight lead in development to create threats

White often continues with f4 here and black follows with Nbc6 and so on. Mabye I will return to this line later and go deep in to the heart of this variation. But for now this is all as I will only try to give a general overview in this article.

Returning to the position after white’s seventh move 7.Qg4. (see diagram below)

Black has a lot of additional resources here. For example 7…0-0 is perfectly playable. After this white tries to attack the black king with Bd3, Qh5, Nf3-g5 trying to provoke some weakness. Black on the other hand will try to attack the white center with Nbc6 and sometimes f6. 8.Bd3 Nbc6 9.Qh5 Ng6 still it’s very important not to give away any squares by moving the pawns. For example 9…g6? would be a horrible mistake. 10.Qh6! if 10…c4 trying to get rid of the bishop when 11.Nf3! is played. Because after 11…cxd 12.Ng5 it’s hard to protect h7. This is why a move like g6 can be devastating in this type of position! 10.Nf3 protecting d4 and prepares 0-0 and threatens Ng5. Interesting position with a lot of play for both sides. I recommend that you go deeper into the positions and look at them more fully.

Instead of 7.Qg4 there are a lot of moves like Nf3 (just getting on with the development), a4 (with the plan of Ba3, the best diagonal for the bishop). The first time I played the French I played the 7.a4 variation. The problem was that I didn’t know more than putting the bishop on a3. After 7…Qa5 I played Bd2 and a4 was in some sense worthless as I didn’t have the opportunity to put the bishop on a3 any longer.