These chess tips are more about understanding the game of chess and developing a firm position than about finding the best move. A good rule of thumb is to move your chess pieces to control the center of the chess board. This rule branches off into two parts: Control the center and Develop your piece.
It is pretty well known that it is important to control the center of the chess board, but not many people know why it is so important. The explanation to the importance of controlling the center area of the chess board is that this best allows you to move your trivial pieces while at the same time taking that very ability away from your opponent's pieces.
It is all about who controls mobility of your chess pieces and your opponent's pieces. The foundation of the center control of the chess board should be the bishop and the knight. The bishop and the knight make perfect pieces for control of the center because they have control over the most squares, which means your opponent has fewer squares to move to.
Developing your piece is important for the simple reason that pawns are not as valuable pieces because they can only move forward in one direction. This is why it isn't good to have a lot of pawn moves. They are vulnerable chess pieces because they are unable to retreat and have very poor mobility, and they are very limited when trying to adapt to an opponent's moves.
When you make a pawn move, the position of your piece is concrete and your only defense for it can be with minor pieces. Also, when you develop your chess pieces, you end up controlling more squares, thereby increasing your own mobility while decreasing your opponent's.
Another important move to understand and use is castling. When castling, a king and rook can move simultaneously, but only under the following conditions:
- The king that will make the castling move has not yet moved.
- The rook that will make the castling move has not yet moved.
- The king is not in check.
- The king cannot move over a square that is attacked by an opponent's piece during the castling move.
- All squares between the rook and king before the castling move are empty.
- The King and rook must occupy the same row.
In short, when castling, the king moves two squares towards the rook, and the rook moves over the king to the next square.
Castling in chess is a very good strategic move and although this is widely known, few know the reason for it. There are two reasons behind why you would want to castle your chess pieces. The first is that when you castle, you are engaging your rook into play and second is that you are placing your king into a safe position on the chess board. When you have both your bishop and your knight still on the back rank, which means you haven't castled, then your rooks are not engaged in play and have a limited mobility.
These are just 3 simple guide lines to follow that can help you greatly improve your chess game.