Chess Strategy

The chess middle game is build around a strategic plan - the chess strategy. When this plan succeeds there will be a tactical solution at the end, which allows the player using strategic knowledge and exact tactical calculation to win the game. Pure tactics will not survive against a better strategic plan and a pure strategic style won't make use of all the tactical possibilities.

So you need to improve your strategic knowledge and tactical alertness to play chess at a higher level.

Studying the middlegame is not about memorizing specific variations, but about basic principles and typical positions or manoeuvres. It is very important to recognize the characteristic features of a position and plan our play accordingly. A problem with chess strategy is that the evaluation of many positions and strategic problems depends on individual style. This means that working on chess strategy also depends on personal opinion and approach to the game.

In this section (Chess Strategy) we examine stratgic concepts like

Pawn Structures
Pawn Majorities
Passed Pawns
Isolated Pawns
Backward Pawns
Doubled Pawns
Blockade
The Center
Strong and Weak Pieces
Kingside Attacks
Queenside Attacks
Controlling a Position
etc.

How we will do this?

we will link to our annotated games section when the game clearly shows one or more strategic principles
we will provide additional examples
we will critically examine books about chess strategy ( including demonstration of possible errors in these books)

Back to Chessfriend.com - Annotated Chess Games and Chess Theory

Last Updated on Saturday, 11 December 2010 15:16