191) How to Slay in Chess, Part 2: The Middle-game -- Beginner Level
In Part 1 (post #181), we looked at key principles for the opening. One thing to remember, which I still struggle with and pay for dearly every time, is to IGNORE YOUR CLEVERNESS, most of the time.
You see, you get a couple moves into the opening and start thinking “oooh, if I do this, and then this, and then this, I might just be able to trap their piece!” (or similar logic). And so, off you go, following your clever idea. And what happens?
In almost all cases, if your opponent is playing tight chess, sticking to principles, you will end up wasting tempo, while they develop their pieces and defend whatever you’re trying to attack. Half a dozen moves later, they’re still defended (or maybe you forced an exchange, at best), they’ve got more pieces in play, and your attempt to set up something clever just put you at a serious disadvantage.
So, remind yourself, whenever you start to get clever in the opening – “This probably won’t work; stick to opening principles”. Trust me, I resist this still; it grates on me; I WANT to be clever and sneaky and catch my opponent off guard right off the bat. But, opening principles are opening principles for good reason —- usually, they set you up for the strongest position in the mid-game.
And this is where my son’s question first started us down this path — “How the heck do you decide what to do in the middle-game?”
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The Eternal Chess Question: “Shit…what do I do now?”
First of all, it’s obviously wonderful if you have a brilliant plan. So step 1, if you can do it, is “make a plan”. Look ahead a few moves, formulate strategies, think of desired outcomes and break it down into steps of how to get there. Etc. How to make a good plan is itself a whole ‘thing’, and in the future, we’ll break this down. But right now, we’re assuming you have no overarching plan and instead are just trying to figure out what the hell to do with this big mess of chess pieces in front of you.
Because this is a SYSTEM. A “how to” approach when you DON’T have a brilliant plan (i.e., for me, all the time…). Chess is like hide&seek – “Ready or not, here I come!” You have to do SOMETHING, even when you’re not ready.
So, the purpose of this system is to facilitate good decision-making, AND to develop a practice of good strategic habits that will lay a strong foundation for advanced chess skills. If you have a great, genius plan, then go with that. But otherwise, there are clear steps to take in your thinking, or as I like to think about it, key “heuristics” that can guide you.
***Overarching Habit: Look at the whole board.***
Before you commit, look at the whole board, not just the part that you are focusing on strategically. Quickly cycle through as many of the opponent’s reasonably-possible moves as you can, and don’t forget simple moves like moving pawns forward. VERY OFTEN, a pawn move is the easy-to-overlook-surprise that blows a whole set-up apart and leads to an advantage.
So, look at the whole board and double-check (lol, no chess-pun intended…) that you aren’t overlooking something because you’re hyper-focused on whatever your plan is. Which in fact, leads right into the Steps….
NOTE: In my first formal tournament game, which was very recently, I neglected to consider this, in the very end part of the end-game, just before I checkmated my opponent. I got overconfident in my positional advantage and forgot to check what weaknesses I might have left for my opponent to exploit. And BOOM, a surprise back-rank checkmate, literally one move before I was able to dish out my own checkmate.
I’d played for about two hours, considering every single move carefully, and was in a totally winning position. And then, because of sheer forgetfulness + overconfidence on my part, I forgot to be careful for ONE MOVE. And, that was it. Game over. Which, yes, made me want to climb out of my own skin and go live in a hole, forever.
So, to avoid making yourself homeless and skin-less, you must always, EVERY SINGLE TIME, look at the whole board.
***Three Key Heuristics ***
My first epiphany in mid-game strategy was to adopt three quite simple, but deep, heuristics. Only later did I break them down further into “Steps”. So I will describe these three heuristics first, and encourage you to consider them each and every time you make a move. Things will get more complicated in the next post, but if all you do is deeply internalize and practice these three heuristics, you’ll be in pretty good shape.
Heuristic #1: Ask yourself, what is your OPPONENT’S BEST MOVE? Both in terms of how they are trying to attack you, and in terms of how are they likely to respond to your attack.
This is in direct contrast to many people’s tendency, which is to come up with an idea, and then HOPE that your opponent doesn’t notice what you’re doing, does something useless, and ….boom, you’ve done something brilliant!
Unfortunately, this works poorly, and at higher levels of chess ability, not at all. Your opponent is not stupid. Assume instead that they are deadly, and if you underestimate them, they will make you pay.
Therefore, ASSUME YOUR OPPONENT WILL FIND THEIR STRONGEST MOVE.
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Heuristic #2: Play more for CONTROL, than focusing on pieces. Following from the opening principles, “control” = controlling more squares, and having your pieces more connected. Sometimes, you can even let your own pieces get taken, if it means you are gaining control. (We’ll discuss this more in the next post.)
Thus, get in the habit of considering not merely what pieces you can threaten to take, but rather, how well situated your own pieces are for control over the entire board. In general, if you control more space, then you are going to be able to start generating more opportunities than your opponent.
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Heuristic #3: WHEN IN DOUBT, ***Improve your least-developed piece***
In other words, find which piece is doing the least on the board, often a Bishop or a Rook that’s in a position where it can’t do much, and then move that piece to a square where it controls more of the board! Simple as that. For example, moving a Bishop to a long diagonal or a central position, or moving a Rook to an open file (i.e., a column in which the pawns have been cleared), gains you substantial control over the whole board, and certainly gives that piece more to do than lolly-gagging in obscurity.
Even if you don’t know what it’s all going to add up to (i.e., you don’t have a Plan), you’re better off with pieces in GOOD positions where they have options, rather than relegated to some location in which they can’t control hardly any squares.
If I had to choose the single-most-important mid-game strategy, it’s this one. If all else fails, and all you’re doing, move by move, is moving pieces in weak positions, into stronger positions, then you have a fighting chance.
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So, those are the “beginner” heuristics for the Mid-game. To take it a bit further, I have broken down my overall decision-making process into a short series of steps. I’ll describe these in approximate order of importance and therefore, chronology, in the next post….