Chess

• Own the center 2x2, next best bet – own the surrounding squares
• Consider the area of control: in the center i.e. a nite has more areas it can attack
• “Castle early, castle often”
  • Castling protects your king behind three pawns
  • Castling is a good way to introduce your rook to the game
  • Castling moves the king away from the center of the board, where all the action is happening
• En-passant
  • The capturing pawn must have advanced exactly three ranks to perform this move.
  • The captured pawn must have moved two squares in one move, landing right next to the capturing pawn.
  • The en passant capture must be performed on the turn immediately after the pawn being captured moves. If the player does not capture en passant on that turn, they no longer can do it later.
• Activation – out of all available moves, which one would best activate a moving piece?
  • Which player has more pieces activated at any given time?

Fried liver #

Even though strategy is supposed to be helpful in farming the rating on chess.com, realistically it is more useful for learning basic defense.

Top 35 chess principles #

• Control the center
• Develop your pieces quickly
• Nites before bishops
• Don’t move the same piece twice in the opening
• Don’t bring up the queen too early
• Castle before move 10
• Connect your rooks (❓)
• Rooks should go on open, or half-open files
  • Half-open means there’s only one color pawn on it
• Keep nites towards the center of the board
• Try to avoid doubled pawns
  • Doubled means two of one color in the same file
  • Can’t help each other
• Avoid isolated pawns
  • Isolated means no pawns in the adjacent file ⇒ Can’t help each other ⇒ Leaves the file open for the opposite color pawn
• Avoid backward pawns
  • Backward pawn means the one that does not have pawns behind it on the adjacent files that could support it
• ...I paused the video here, would need to give it another go, sorry!