Paul Copplestone

# Chess

# Tips

These are general rules that can often be ignored. They are only for guidance. In each section I try to roughly order the items by priority.

General

  • Control the center
  • Trade when you are up material
  • Trade pieces to make the king move before castling
  • Capture towards the center (except in the endgame)
  • Always take an opportunity to check

Openings

  • Don't touch the same piece twice
  • Knights before bishops
  • Develop bishops before closing the gap with your pawns
  • Don't bring your queen out too early

Pawns

  • Try to keep your pawns in islands (connected), rather than isolated

Knights

  • Keep knights away from the sides
  • Knights are best (compared to bishops) when the play is on one side of the board

Bishops

  • Bishops are best (compared to knights) when the play is on both sides of the board

Rooks

  • Control open files
  • Connect your rooks and double on open files
  • Put rooks behind pass pawns

King

  • Centralise your king in the endgame

# Glossary

  • Zugzwang (opens new window) - a situation found in chess and other turn-based games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because he must make a move when he would prefer to pass and not move.

# Immortal games

# Resources

Climbing →