192) How to Slay in Chess, Part 3: The Middle-game -- Intermediate Level

Now that we have covered the basic heuristics, let’s take it a little deeper.  I came up with the following 8 “steps”, based on scenarios that happen over and over and over in chess games.  Following these steps will help you remember important strategies, and give you ideas in the midst of a complex board.

* * * * *

Step 1:  Assume your opponent will find their strongest move.

You know that little voice that says, “If I do this AND they don’t see it, then oh maaaan, I’m gonna slay!!”??  You know that voice?

Yeah, tell that voice to shut up.  And then never, ever, ever listen to it again…. 

Your opponent is not stupid; assume they will find their strongest move, rather than “not noticing” what you’re trying to do and miraculously doing something random so that you can enact your Brilliant Plan. 

If you plan your moves based on your opponent’s strongest moves, you will set stronger attack/defense plans yourself! (And you’ll prevent YOURSELF from “not noticing” the Brilliant Plan they are about to unleash on you…)

So if you are defending, find your opponent’s most devastating attack, and defend against it.  If you are attacking, find their most devastating counter-play, and make sure you are prepared for it.

* * * * *

Step 2:  Are there any vulnerable pieces?

IF IT’S YOUR PIECE IN DANGER: Look at defense options. There are four basic options:

Option 1: Defend the piece.

Bring in another piece to ‘cover’ the piece under threat.  Also, look at the number of defenders you can bring to the defense.  Is it greater than the number of your opponent’s attackers?  If so (and assuming you aren’t using high-power pieces, like your Queen, which can then be exchanged for lower-power pieces, like your opponents Rooks, Knights and Bishops), then defend your piece! 

If you have more defenders than they have attackers, you are generally safe.  On the other hand, if they have more attackers, then you are probably better off not defending the piece and choosing a different option.

Note: be careful about “overloading”, when you are using a single piece to defend multiple pieces. This can be exploited by your opponent.)

Option 2: Move out of danger. This is straightforward; however, to where should you move the piece? 

The same principles apply as in the opening:  Unless you have “A Plan”, then move your piece to squares of maximal control and good connections to your other pieces.  More control + more inter-connectedness = more POWER.

Option 3:  Escalate by attacking an even more valuable piece of theirs.  This is super bad-ass.  You just leave their attack unaddressed, and instead, launch your own, as though you could care less whether they take your piece….

  E.g., if they’re attacking your Knight, can you find a way of attacking their Rook or Queen?  As always, you have to calculate ahead, to make sure that your escalation of tension is going to be more effective than their ability to escalate in return.  Similar to Option 1, this boils down basically to figuring out who can bring the most attackers vs. defenders into a situation. 

Oftentimes, it is worth NOT breaking the tension in a game, but instead escalating, adding more and more complexity and danger to a situation. For one thing, it intimidates people, who might back down simply because they feel things are “getting too crazy”.  In this way, chess is, sometimes, like a game of chicken.  If you have the guts to keep raising the tension, you might break your opponent’s confidence and make them back down.  But again, calculate ahead to make sure that you aren’t going to get outgunned in the escalation-race.

Note:  You can see clearly here the importance of maximizing your activation of pieces.  In general, the person with more active pieces, will have greater ability to escalate tension and win a show-down.  This underscores the importance, in the opening, of activating all your pieces!! 

Option 4 (my personal fav, when it works…):  Sacrifice the piece.  Yep, just let ‘em take it.

Why on Earth would you do this, aside from trying to make your opponent think you are an absolute maniac (or idiot…)?

Well, for your opponent to take your piece, they have to spend a move doing so.  Or, if they’re setting up something more complex that you can see, a multi-move plan, then count the full number of moves it will take them to enact their plan. 

And then, see what you can do with those “free” moves.  Even if it’s just one move (i.e., them taking your vulnerable piece), what can you do in the meantime?  Can you set up a sneaky tactic that will make them pay?  Can you position your own remaining pieces into an attack?  Sacrificing a piece this way is super-deadly and can be a total game-changer.  Plus, it’s super-fun, when your opponent feels like they have the upper hand, to then watch their position fall apart as you use those moves they spent taking your piece(s), to generate your own even more deadly attack.

My personal favourite experience of this was a game in which I was getting utterly destroyed by my opponent.  They had taken my own Queen, and gotten their Queen so far up in my grill that they were guaranteed, to scoop up both of my Rooks, plus a Knight, and they’d have their Queen situated to just destroy my pawn structure from the back.  I was devastated….

But then, I got creative, and looked ahead, counted how many moves it would cost them to take my Rook, take my Knight, check my King, take my other Rook, and start attacking my pawn structure.  Overall, it was 6 moves in total, and I would need 1 to move my King out of the inevitable check.  This gave me 5 “free” moves.

It turned out that in those 5 moves, I was able to maneuver my two Bishops and my other Knight, into a “mating net”.  In other words, while my opponent was busily decimating me, I created a web of threats around their King that they wouldn’t be able to escape from.  So, even though I was down a Queen, two Rooks, and a Knight, it was I who delivered “Checkmate”, leaving them utterly stunned. (And myself as well.)

Obviously, this is high-risk, which is why you need to THINK AHEAD (see Step 3) as many moves ahead as you need, and figure out whether you can use their spent-moves to do something even nastier. 

In sum, when you have a vulnerable piece, although your first instinct will be to either protect it or move it out of danger, there are other options.  Check to see if you have the power to escalate tension and threaten their own pieces, and check to see what you could do by simply sacrificing the piece and letting them have it. 

IF IT’S THEIR PIECE IN DANGER:  

Ask what happens if you take it; how will they respond? 

This is the same as what you ask yourself if they are going to take your piece, only the other way around.  You want to make sure that by taking a piece, you’re not setting yourself up for a counter-attack. 

A classic example of poor attacks occurs with what are called “poisoned pawns”, which are often the pawns sitting in front of the Knights in the starting position (i.e., the pawns on the b-files and g-files).  The most common example of a poisoned pawn situation is when a Queen can zoom down and grab one of those pawns.  Woohoo!  Now you’re up a pawn!  But then, you realize your mistake when your opponent slides their rook over to the same file, attacking your Queen, and you realize, shitttttttttt, you have nowhere to go.  So, for the sake of a Pawn (plus their Rook which you might as well take given that you have no other options) you just lost your Queen…. 

ALWAYS look at your opponent’s counter-attack options when you are taking their piece, and make sure you’re not making your own pieces vulnerable as a result of taking theirs!

* * * * *

Step 3:  Think ahead:  Are there any tactics?

Tactics are clever combinations of moves that allow you to gain an advantage.  For e.g., forks, pins, batteries, discovered attacks, forcing moves, exchange sacrifices, clearance sacrifices, etc…. There are lots of different tactics, and LEARNING TACTICS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR GAME!!!!!! 

I have even heard Grandmaster advice to focus on nothing BUT tactics until you’re about a 2000-level player, given that virtually every game below that level is decided when someone either blunders or out-tactics their opponent.  This seems a bit extreme to me, to literally just focus on tactics and nothing else (although who knows; I ain’t no Grandmaster…), but it underscores the point – tactics are super, super, super important.

chess.com (and no doubt other sites too, but that’s the one I used) has very user-friendly, short videos (about 5 minutes each) that outline most of the key tactics, from beginner to advanced.  This couple hours of your time is WELL WORTH IT.   

You can then practice puzzles, which sharpen your tactical sense and train your brain in tactical pattern-recognition.  If you spend a bit of time every day just practicing puzzles, your game will improve.  (And far more than, say, playing 5000 blitz games and learning essentially nothing except how to get better at making mistakes.)

To get better at tactics, the key ability to practice is THINKING AHEAD.  Practice imagining in your mind what the board will look like 2, 3, 4 moves ahead in a game.  Like Beth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit, visualizing chess pieces on the ceiling above her bed, strengthen your ability to “see” the board in your mind, and imagine what it’ll look like a few moves down the road.

The farther ahead you can imagine, the more powerful your tactics and your plans will be. This is absolutely critical to improving at chess.  Therefore, ***NEVER STOP PRACTICING THINKING AHEAD.***

***We will further unpack the key importance of this point in an upcoming post which will be Part 4 of this series on chess: How to Play Thousands and Thousands and Thousands of Games Without Getting Any Better

Note:  I highly recommend training yourself in tactics, and the sooner the better. I neglected this myself, absurdly believing I already had good tactics.  But as my rating improved, I found myself frequently losing to other people’s better tactics, and so, in the past few weeks, started training myself in tactics more extensively.  But I wouldn’t recommend waiting so long.  Tactics are absolutely critical to your strength as a chess player.  Start training in them now!!!

* * * * *

Step 4:  Improve your weakest piece.

In this context, “weak” pieces are, as you already know, those that 1) control fewer squares, and 2) are not connected to your other pieces

“Improving” therefore simply means finding a square from which your piece will control even more squares than it currently does, and/or connects it better to your other pieces.

***WHEN you truly don’t know else to do, THIS IS THE GOLDEN RULE:   IMPROVE YOUR WEAKEST PIECE.***  Even if you’re not sure what you’re going to do with that piece, by improving your “weak” pieces, you gain more power over the board as a whole, and give yourself more options to do slay things as the game progresses.

* * * * *

Step 5:  Should you focus your power in the center, or on a flank?

Oftentimes, a “Pawn break” really changes the game.  This is when one of the players finds a way to bust their pawns through the ranks of their opponent’s pawns. 

My rule of thumb is to “break” in the center (usually this is a d4/d5 or e4/e5 pawn move), when

1) my opening preparation is complete AND/OR

2) I am better-developed in that area

Again, there are lots of exceptions, but as a starting point, if you have more power in the center and therefore will win an exchange of pieces, then engage your central pawn-break and take control over the center.

Sometimes, pawn breaks are on other files.  To figure out whether you should be trying to “break” in the center or on a flank, pay attention to what your opponent is doing.  If they are centralizing their own power, then their flanks will be weak, and it might be to your advantage to try a flank-attack.  Similarly, if they are building an attack on a flank, their center is likely neglected and you should be launching your own attack in the center.

In general, this means that when they go flank, you go center, and vice-versa.  Although this is a very rough principle. Sometimes, it’s necessary to be meeting their attack with your own balanced defense.  But my personal approach, is generally to create more IMBALANCES, rather than maintaining symmetry in positions.  The more imbalanced a game is, the more complex it is, and the greater chance you have of finding a tactic that your opponent can’t see.

Deciding between an Imbalanced or Balanced approach also absolutely requires that you THINK AHEAD and calculate who gets the advantage overall.  This is, frankly, hard to do.  Which is another reason to practice thinking ahead.

* * * * *

Step 6:  To Exchange, or not to Exchange, that is the question

When you are faced with an opportunity to exchange pieces of more-or-less equal value, what should you do?  Well, obviously, “it depends”. But what does it depend on?

To help figure this out, ask three questions:

Question #1:  Whose pawn structures and piece-connectedness are better AFTER the exchange?

If the exchange disrupts their pawn structure, such as doubling pawns, it is often to your advantage, because doubled-pawns and other such ‘holes’ in their defenses give you advantages in the endgame.  But if their take-back is simply with another minor piece (e.g., they have a 2nd Knight covering the Knight you are about to exchange), then it’s usually not worth it to exchange.

Exceptions: 

A) There are specific situations in which doubled pawns don’t matter that much, but these are hard to generalize. 

E.g., VERY roughly speaking though, exchanging a Bishop for a Knight in order to force doubled pawns, often doesn’t give you an advantage.  For one, you lose your Bishop pair (assuming you had both Bishops).  For another, you open up a file they can likely just move their Rook to, and thereby activate that piece and gain more control.  There’s no easy way through this that I know of. Again, look ahead a few moves, and see what will happen to the open file that you’re creating with the doubled pawns.  If it gives the opponent more control, it may not be worth it. 

B) If the exchange is part of a tactic (e.g., removing the defender; a clearance exchange, etc.), then obviously you have A Plan, and therefore you ARE gaining an advantage through what looks, on the fact of it, like an equal exchange.

Question #2:  Who wins vs. loses tempo with this exchange?  (Note: “tempo” is, basically, who has the initiative.  If you make a move, that takes a tempo; i.e., it takes time.  If you waste a move, doing something random that doesn’t help your situation much, you are effectively “losing tempo”, and thereby giving the initiative to your opponent.)

If the exchange involves you moving a piece that helps your development, then it might be to your advantage. Otherwise, it’s probably not worth it. Similarly, trades that HELP your opponent develop are NOT WORTH IT (see next point).  In general, only exchange if you GAIN something from the exchange; equal exchanges are usually not worth it.

Exception:  If you have more material, it’s a good idea to exchange pieces and “simplify” the board.  Once you have a material advantage, the sooner you get into the endgame, the better, because you will be left with more options and power than your opponent, and generally speaking, whoever has more power in the endgame, wins. 

Question #3:  Who is trading a “weaker” piece for a “stronger” piece?

There are two ways of thinking of the strength of a piece.  The most obvious is the overall strength of the piece itself (i.e., Knights and Bishops are weaker than Rooks, which are weaker than Queens). 

The second is how “developed” the piece is.  Pieces that have been more integrated into your attack & defense systems are usually “stronger” than pieces that are just sitting at home where they started. 

Thus, exchange IF you are using a “weaker” piece to grab a “stronger” piece. 

Note: Calculating exactly which pieces are stronger and weaker can be difficult.  Thus far, I don’t have an easy way to do this, other than the obvious Knight/Bishop vs. Rook vs. Queen differences.  I try to just estimate how many tempi have been used developing those pieces, how integrated they are into what’s going on, and how much control they have over the board.  There is, no doubt, a more precise way to do this, but I don’t know what that is.  Yet. 

Summary of Exchange Decisions:  In general, REFUSE EXCHANGES and do something else with the tempo, unless the answers to the above 3 questions are clearly in your favour.  Otherwise, use that tempo for nasty plans, and go to Step 7.

* * * * *

Step 7:  ***THE SECOND GOLDEN RULE***:  Attack something!  RRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

In general, take the game into your opponent’s half of the board whenever you can. It’s like a hockey game — it’s better to be in scoring position around your opponent’s goalie than on defense around your own goalie… 

So, attack something, threaten something, take up more space by advancing pawns, etc. When you have no other ideas, just attack something and try to make your opponent scramble.  You should still ALWAYS be asking yourself, how will my opponent respond to this attack?  Will defending help their development?  Or will moving their piece to safety give them a better position?

The obvious corollary to this is based on the principle of CONNECTING your pieces.  When you decide what piece to threaten, consider your overall Attack Potential (i.e., how many attackers can you pile on?) vs. their Defense Potential (i.e., how many defenders can they recruit?)  And when in doubt, pile on more attackers, let the tension build and as long as you aren’t forgetting to watch what your opponent is doing, then “building the tension” will lock them up more tightly and give you an advantage, sooner or later….

NOTE:  I am aware that “attack something” is rather simplistic, and that players with a keen sense of positional control, very often do not just attack things, but instead make other, more internally-reinforcing moves that, smidgeon-by-smidgeon, strengthen their pieces’ integration and make their overall position stronger.  But, to be honest with you, I didn’t understand any of that when coming up with these heuristics, so I’m going to leave that for a future post on “Advanced Strategies”.  My first major breakthrough in chess-skill came from the application of these principles, and frankly, they got me from about 1200 to 1900 (I’m sitting at 1896, at the time of writing this).

So, I return to the initial reason for writing these chess essays, which is that, without intensive study, they helped me DRAMATICALLY and quickly improve (which then motivated me greatly to start taking studying more seriously, as I started to face tougher and tougher opponents…).  Following what I’ve outlined here took me past more than 99% of chess players, based on chess.com’s stats.  So, based on my own experience, this is where I’d recommend starting.  And we’ll leave the complexities of “positional control” for the future.

* * * * *

Step 8:  Slay 

* * * * *

That’s it!  Good luck.

P.S. I’m VERY interested in hearing feedback and insights from others who can help to refine or extend these ideas!  I know there’s a whole lot more to learn about this beautiful game, and personally, I’m extremely interested in finding out how to keep improving.  So please, consider this a “work in progress”, and comment below with your own insights!  Cheers.