Good Chess Guidelines for Beginning Amateur Players

1. Play lots
Someone recommended at least 50 games under tournament conditions
per a year against all standards of opponent. Playing lots under any
conditions, is definitely the most enjoyable way of improving.
2. Study Tactics
90% of chess is tactics, and how often is it you win or lose a game through
one combination. Problems as found in newspapers from real games are
useful. One a day goes a long way.
3. Study Your Own Games
Studying Masters games is useful, but finding out about your own
strengths and weakness's more so.
Having said all that, tho' here a few more specific hints.
First, a quick primer on the relative values of the pieces. These values only have
meaning when deciding whether or not to trade pieces. One is not necessarily
winning just because one has more material. Having said that, here it is:
Pawn = 1 Knight = 3

Bishop = 3.25

Rook = 5

Queen = 9

The King is never actually captured, and thus is not listed. The Bishop, while
slightly more valuable than a Knight in most cases, is often traded on an equal
basis with the Knight. Two Bishops, however, is almost always better than Two
Knights, as the advantage of the Bishops is additive. In fact, one place they are
definitely superior is in the endgame. You can force checkmate with Two Bishops
vs. a lone King, but cannot _force_ checkmate with two Knights vs. a lone king.
Also, in chess parlance, the Pawn is not considered a "piece" - Pawns and
pieces are usually referred to as separate things. Knights and Bishops are
considered minor pieces, Rooks and Queens major pieces.
Having defined a few terms, on to the guidelines.
1. Start with moving a center pawn 2 squares forward. This occupies and
controls the center, meanwhile opening lines for your pieces to get into play (in
chess parlance, we say the pieces are "developed" when brought into play). This
also allows you to keep the side (or "wing") pawns intact so your King has a safe
place to castle later. This rule is here because center-pawn openings are both
the easiest to play and to understand, and should be concentrated on by the
beginning player. It does not mean other choices are bad, they're just not good
ones for beginning players.

2. Make only as many Pawn moves as is necessary in the opening to

effectively develop the rest of your pieces or as necessary for defense. This
is usually no more than four in the early opening phase of the game. The end of
the opening phase is generally considered to be reached when all the pieces
have been developed and the King has castled.
3. Get all your pieces developed as quickly as possible. One piece will not
accomplish anything by itself, and you basically can't do anything until you do this
first.
4. Develop Knights before Bishops. Knights move more slowly than Bishops,
and take longer to get where they're going. A Bishop can travel long range and
be developed almost instantly to the desired square.
5. Develop Knights toward the center (not the edges). Remember, "A Knight
on the rim is dim." This is because it only has half the scope there as in the
center. You can prove this by putting a Knight in the center of the board, and
counting the squares it attacks (you should get eight), and then putting it on the
side, and counting how many squares it covers (four). Since this placement has a
larger effect percentage-wise on the Knight than any other piece (try it - and
notice what happens to the Rook!), and the Knight is also a slow moving piece,
this rule actually applies to almost all pieces, but especially the Knight.
6. Castle early for King safety and to develop the Rooks, usually immediately
after the development of Knights and Bishops, sometimes even before both
Knights and both Bishops have come into play, depending on necessity. If you
can wait until the Knights and Bishops are in play, however, this gives you the
choice of deciding on which side to castle, though sometimes there is only one
good choice, as one wing or the other may already be weakened, in which case
delaying would give no benefit. See items #1 and #21.
7. Do not move a piece twice in the opening. Doing so delays getting your
other pieces developed and delays castling.
8. Do not bring the Queen out too early. It is a valuable piece, and therefore
an easy target for lesser pieces. If you bring it out too early, you are likely to find
yourself moving the Queen over and over to get it to safety (repeatedly violating
guideline #7), and delaying the development of your pieces while your opponent
essentially takes one free turn after another, developing his. If you need to move
it so your King can castle queenside, generally moving it up to the second rank
just to get it out of the way is ok. Moving it farther than this before you've finished
development is usually inviting trouble.
9. Control the center squares. Traffic generally has to run through the center of
the board in one way or another. Control the center of the board, and you usually
will have more freedom to put your plans into effect than your opponent, as your

pieces will have more scope & power from the center of the board, being able to
get to any spot on the board relatively quickly.
10. Keep one or more Pawns in the center. This helps you achieve #9 above,
as one way to control the center is by occupying it, and Pawns are the most
difficult piece to budge.
11. Place your pieces on open lines (open lines are lines of movement that are
unobstructed by pawns). Place Bishops on open diagonals, Rooks on open files
(files are columns, ranks are rows).
12. Coordinate your pieces to work together. One common way to do this is to
double pieces up, such as putting a Queen and Bishop on the same diagonal, or
putting two Rooks on the same file or rank. They support each other's movement
along the diagonal, file, or rank in question, and are essentially twice as powerful
this way.
13. When protecting a piece, use the least valuable piece available to do so.
Especially, protect Pawns with Pawns (forming a Pawn chain). Why tie up a
valuable piece to protect a Pawn if it's not necessary? Not only does using less
valuable pieces for protection free up the more powerful pieces, but the less
valuable pieces are less likely to be scared away or dislodged from their
defensive posts.
14. Avoid isolated Pawns if possible. Isolated pawns are those that can no
longer be protected by an adjacent pawn (because there are no pawns on the
adjacent files). Isolated pawns generally occur as a result of Pawn captures
being made, so carefully look at the resulting Pawn structure when you have the
choice of capturing with a Pawn or another piece. Isolated pawns are weak
because they are subject to attack and must be defended by other pieces.
15. Especially avoid doubled isolated Pawns. Doubled Pawns are two pawns
of the same color on the same file. The Pawn in back is weak because its
movement is inhibited by the Pawn in front. This is not terribly weak by itself.
However, doubled isolated Pawns are _very_ weak, as they both cannot be
supported by other pawns and cannot move freely, a bad combination.
16. Make moves that threaten, when possible. These moves limit your
opponent's choices, and basically allow you to call the shots, as your opponent
usually must respond to your threat before proceeding with his own threats.
Alternately, do not get carried away with making your own threats to the point
that you overlook your opponent's threats. Being the one who is calling the shots
is called having the initiative.
17. Don't make pointless threats. This includes checks. Checking or attacking
something simply for the sake of doing so has no value. If the threatened piece

can simply move away with no detrimental consequences, and there is no

advantage to you in making the move in the first place, then the threat is
pointless. Doing this can even force your opponent to make a good move.
Pointlessly threatening a Knight on the rim just forces your opponent to move it
back towards the center of the board, for example. However, if the Knight is
trapped there, then attacking it would allow you to win the piece.
18. When ahead in material, exchange pieces. For example, if the total value
of your pieces on the board (see relative values listed above) is 16, and the total
value of your opponents pieces is 11, this is roughly a 3 to 2 edge. Trade Rooks,
however, and now the total value of your pieces is 11, your opponent's pieces
have a total value of 6. This is almost a 2 to 1 edge, which is obviously better.
19. When behind in material, don't exchange pieces. This is essentially #18
looked at from the other side of the coin.
20. When you are attacked, try to exchange the attacking pieces to reduce
the power of the attack. This takes precedence over #18 & #19, as the safety of
the King is more important than anything else.
21. Don't weaken Pawns in front of your castled King. Generally this means
don't move them unless you absolutely have to. Once moved forward they
become easier targets for attack.
22. Try not to leave your pieces in positions where they are loose
(undefended). Loose pieces become targets for attack, and are more likely to be
lost than pieces that are defended.
23. Avoid creating holes in your position. A hole is a square that can no longer
be defended by a Pawn. Since a Pawn is the most useful piece when it comes to
threatening another piece to make it move away from a particular spot, this would
mean a piece can lodge itself in this hole and be extremely hard to drive away.
This is especially bad if the hole is near where your king is hiding out.
24. Bring your King into action in the endgame. Once the danger of the
middle game is over and there are very few pieces on the board, the King need
not cower in the corner anymore. He instead becomes a powerful attacking
piece.
25. Find your opponent's weaknesses and exploit them. This may be
anything from a set of doubled or isolated pawns to a vulnerable King position to
something as esoteric (and beyond the scope of this file) as a weak square or a
lack of development. To understand how to exploit these weaknesses, play over
master games, and watch how they do it. Games of the old masters (Morphy,
Tarrasch, Nimzovitch, Lasker, & Capablanca, for example) often illustrate these

concepts better than modern games, as they are simply easier to follow and
more straightforward in their style of play.
26. Don't sacrifice a piece without a clear reason, like a DEFINITE
checkmate. Only masters are justified in making speculative sacrifices, and even
they will not generally do so. Speculative sacrifices fail much more often than
they succeed. If your name is Mikhail Tal, you can ignore this one.
27. Always assume your opponent will make the best move. Assume he will
be fooled, and you will eventually set yourself up for trouble. Only by determining
the best moves for _both_ sides can accurate analysis be done.
28. Do not follow any of these preceding guidelines blindly or
mechanically. Analysis always supersedes these guidelines. If your analysis
says you have checkmate in three moves no matter how your opponent replies
(you are said to "have mate in three"), then all the guidelines go out the window.
Obviously, it doesn't matter if you have to put your Knight on the rim to deliver
checkmate. If you see a _specific_ reason to break a guideline, such as mate or
the win of material, particularly of a piece or more, and you believe your analysis
is sound and the benefits outweigh the negatives of breaking that guideline, then
by all means break it. These guidelines are simply to help you win, and are not
hard and fast rules for every situation. This leads us to #29...
29. Be careful when grabbing material, as it can be used as a way of luring
your pieces into positions where they will be useless to prevent an onslaught
against your King, or even in preventing your pieces from ever developing and
getting into the game. But as Bobby Fischer once said (paraphrased), "If you
can't see a good reason not to take a piece, then take it." Simply put, don't get
greedy over material at the expense of the safety of your King, but don't refuse
outright gifts, either.
30. And fittingly last, if you are playing a game and are a Rook down or more,
with no attack, passed pawn (a Pawn whose passage is unopposed by other
pawns and thus is a serious threat to promote to a queen), or other significant
compensation, against a knowledgeable player who is not likely to blunder badly
enough for you to get back in the game, graciously resign and get on with the
next game. There are exceptions to this, especially with timed play and/or when
tournament prize money is on the line at the amateur level, but it is generally a
sign of good sportsmanship to admit when you've been defeated and
congratulate your opponent. This almost always occurs at the master level,
regardless of circumstance - few would be caught dead playing drearily on until
the inevitable mate is delivered. It should _always_ occur when the games are
friendly. Also, if you are the victor, be gracious about winning, don't gloat, and
compliment your opponent on the things he did right.