Chess was the first board game I truly loved. I remember seeing a chess book at a very young age, maybe 6, and being mesmerized by the diagrams. My step-dad introduced me to the game at around 8, and I was hooked!
If you haven't played before, I highly recommend taking up the game. It's beautiful in the depth of complexity within its simplicity. I'll be lazy and borrow from
wikipedia:
The 11-category, game theoretical taxonomy of chess includes: two player, no-chance, combinatorial, Markov state (present state is all a player needs to move; although past state led up to that point, knowledge of the sequence of past moves is not required to make the next move, except to take into account of en passant and castling, which do depend on the past moves), zero sum, symmetric, perfect information, non-cooperative, discrete, extensive form (tree decisions, not payoff matrices), and sequential.
One of the neat things about chess is that you aren't really playing the opponent. It's just you and the board (Markov state). The other player has no bearing, really, except for how the board got to its current state. There is no chance at all, unless you care to wager on the psychology of your opponent to take advantage of their weaknesses rather than find the most sound moves (see Romance chess and especially Paul Murphy).
To start, set up the board so that the white square is on your corner right and the black square is on your corner left, not the other way around. Put the Queen on her own color (white square for White, black square for Black). The King is in the middle next to her. She's the most powerful, since she's more mobile, but he's the most valuable. But since she's the most powerful, she's the most vulnerable. Conversely, the pawns, being least mobile, are least valuable. Therefore, they form effective countermeasures against any other piece on the board.
White always moves first.
To win, you need to attack the opponent King (check) so that they cannot escape by moving, blocking, or capturing the attacking piece. This is called checkmate. The more skilled you get and more equally matched your opponent, the harder it becomes to checkmate directly. You must instead accumulate advantages until their holistic system crashes.
Nothing is equal in chess, it is a game of imbalances. Some imbalances include King safety, initiative, development, material, superior minor piece, control of key squares, time, space, and pawn structure. Most people focus on material because it is the most obvious and tangible, but sometimes the dynamic imbalances outweigh the static imbalances if you can convert them into long-term advantages. That is when sacrifices, called combinations, are played. That is the art in chess.
King safety is clearly the most important. The game cannot continue if the King is checkmated. Castling moves the King to relative safety in the corner and links the Rooks together. Moving Pawns in front of the King weakens the squares they used to protect.
Initiative means you have control of the play-calling on the board, the one making the threats that the other must respond to. White, being the one to always move first, starts the game with the initiative. Therefore, Black always has a slight disadvantage, which can be seen when you aggregate the data of Master games. It is usually Black's goal to first neutralize White's initiative before wresting it from him. Post-modern games are asymmetric and counter the White initiative differently.
Development means deploying your entire military into a logical initial starting point before continuing your attack. If you try to launch your attack too early, your opponent might simply continue developing, trade down pieces to wither your attack, and then launch a counter attack against your now-defenseless position.
Material is often considered something like as follows: Pawns: 1, Knights: 3, Bishops: 3.25, Rooks: 5, Queens: 9, Kings in the endgame only: 4. But these values are highly relative to how they are developed on the board. A Knight on the rim is dim; it might only attack 6 of a possible 8 squares, and those squares are low property value away from the center of the board. A Bishop could be hemmed in by its own Pawns, making it essentially worth only 1 point, at least temporarily. This is also why development is key.
Superior minor piece means putting your Bishops on those diagonals that lead toward your targets and then clearing the way. Note that once you lose a Bishop, half the board is now weaker for you the rest of the game! Put your knights in the middle of the board or deep in enemy territory where they are supported by your own Pawns and pieces, and cannot be chased away by enemy Pawns. Those are superior minor pieces. Rooks are not considered minor pieces, but also castle and link them together. Put them on open or half-open files, or even double them up.
Control key squares, which is usually the center of the board, since he who controls the center controls the rest of the board. But since the center often remains contested, the proxy war moves to the flanks. You cannot commit to every square on the board, so you need to min-max how to commit your forces. Which flank will threaten your opponent most while also defending yourself best? Which squares in those flanks?
Time is essential. I have won many games where the opponent told me, "I could have checkmated you if I only had one more move". I know. I saw that. But I had more time. So my plan won out.
Space allows for mobility. Mobility allows for scope. Scope allows for increasing the relative value of pieces and concentration of force on the section of the board that you are attacking or defending. Pawns are the most effective at creating space. They are like fences.
Pawn structures can be good or bad. They can make a formidable screen if two side-by-side Pawns are well supported by other Pawns and pieces. Typically, the fewer the chains the better, since Pawns support Pawns. Therefore, isolated Pawns are weak, as are doubled-up Pawns. Pawns are also baby Queens (or any other piece) waiting to be hatched if they can make it across the board. Pawns are the only piece that cannot move backwards; once they move, the squares they used to protect are forever weaker!
Underneath all of this long-term strategy is short-term tactics. Tactics always trumps strategy. You may have more material, more space, and so forth. But if the opponent can execute a tactical brilliancy, your position will crumble like... like... crumb cake.
Some tactics include the pin, fork, skewer, and discovered attack.
Pins keep pieces from moving because if they do, there will be a discovered attack against the piece behind it. Absolute pins are against the King. You cannot put your own King into check. Relative pins can be broken if you want to. Some beautiful combinations start with breaking a pin on a valuable piece.
Discovered attacks can be against your own piece or against an opponent's piece. A doubled attack is when you move a piece, exposing an attack that was previously blocked, and then also attacking with the piece that moved. A double check is doing the same against the enemy King. It is important to always see potential attacks through other pieces.
A skewer is like the opposite of a pin. A piece being attacked is of greater value than the one behind it. Once the piece of greater value is moved, the piece behind it can be captured.
A fork is when one piece attacks to pieces at once. This is usually only with Pawns or Knights.
Chess is a drama played in three chapters, the opening, the middlegame, and the endgame.
The opening is when a couple Pawns vie for control of the center, the pieces are fully deployed, the King is castled, and Rooks placed behind open or half-open files. Novice mistakes include moving the Queen out too early and exposing her, moving the same piece twice, or making too many Pawn moves. There are thousands of openings and variations that have been analyzed through Master play, constantly updated through novelties that test standard theory.
In the middlegame the players compete to improve their imbalances while diminishing their opponent's imbalance advantages. They may trade off their own weak minor piece for their opponent's strong minor piece, for instance, or trade off pieces in a sector where overwhelming forces are attacking, reducing the crushing force.
In the endgame, most pieces and Pawns have left the board. The Kings finally emerge from the safety of their castled corners to throw their own weight around. Pawns race to the other side of the board. The last remaining pieces compete to either checkmate or get their own Pawn across first. Sometimes chess games are determined by whoever won a single Pawn in the middlegame.
High-level Master games that are equally matched most often end in a draw, with a slight advantage to White.
And that is your chess lesson for today.
