Chess Strategies

Chess is a mind game and requires serious thinking and application of a series of tactics and strategies to achieve the mission of saying checkmate to the opponent.  Though categorized as a board game played between two players, the game of chess is unique in the sense that there is no room for luck or chance in the game.  This is one reason why chess strategies need to be deployed for emerging victorious and/or avoiding defeat.

The game of chess is often referred to as a war game or a battle between two forces having equal amount of resources at the beginning, differentiated only by the colors of the pieces.  That is the reason why the names of the pieces in chess are called as King, Queen, Bishops, Knights, Rooks and Pawns.  Rooks are used for castling – a word derived from Castle referring the Fort.

For the sake of clarity and understanding the importance of chess strategies, let us presume that you are the king of a country and is planning to wage a war with your opponent in a battlefield.  Before initiating the attack on the opponent, it is but essential that you assess the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent and take adequate precautionary measures to ensure that you achieve the mission of victory over the opponent with minimum loss and maximum gain.  If you fail to do so and carry out an unplanned attack, the possibility of loss will be much more and the probability of losing the battle will be more.

Having understood the basics of chess and arranged the pieces in the chessboard, chess strategies and tactics need to be employed.  It is clear that except the Knights, no other piece in the board can hop over the other pieces.  As such, it becomes necessary that one should move either the pawns in the second rank of the board or move of the two knights from the first rank initially.  One should not move a pawn for the sake of making the first move.  A move of the pawn in front of the rook at the “a” file as the first move would be absurd, as it will not serve any meaningful purpose.

The chessboard is a square board having eight rows and eight columns, thus making 64 squares in alternate color.  Of the 64 squares, the four squares in the centre gain special importance in that controlling the squares will give an edge over the opponent.  Controlling the center of the board could be one of the chess strategies one should adopt to gain an upper hand over the opponent.

One more point worth noting in the game of chess is that the least valued piece in the board, the pawn, has one unique advantage that is not available for other pieces.  Only the pawns are capable of getting promoted, provided they advance either from the first rank to the eight rank, in case of white pieces, or advance from 8th rank to 1st rank, in case of black pieces.  Recognizing this important aspect, one of the chess strategies might be use the pawns judiciously and not lose them in sacrifice without any purpose.