We’ve all been there many times during our chess life: You start a game of chess (either over the board or online) and you’re faced with some never-seen-before-opening-moves by your opponent. How should you react in such a situation? 1. Do not panic Just because you’ve never seen this opening […]
Daily archives: 10/02/2017
If you’re an experienced chess player, you have likely heard of these before. Opening principles that have been passed on from chess generation to chess generation until today. Little has changed over the centuries regarding these principles (but also some has changed indeed and I will add something extra at […]
Important opening principles
1. Not having a plan I firmly believe that it is not necessary to know much of opening theory when you’re a beginner. But this is not to say that you should play random moves. You should always follow opening principles or at least you should have very good reasons […]
The 4 commonest opening mistakes
Everybody plays some kind of openings, right? I mean, you can’t play chess if you don’t play some form of opening with your first moves in each game. When you start as a beginner, openings don’t matter a lot. Games are won and lost mainly during the middlegame or the […]
How to choose the right opening to play?
You may think you know all the basic principles in chess. That you’re past the ‘how to avoid beginner mistakes’ tutorials. Well, think again! Nobody is immune from ‘easy’ and avoidable mistakes –especially if there’s lack of concentration. And I would be the first to raise my hand and admit […]
The commonest mistake in the opening
We’ve all been there. You play an opening you like. It may not be a very well-known opening. Maybe few GMs play this opening. But you like it. After all, you have some good results with it. You have won many good games employing this same opening. Maybe your opponents […]
Are you playing the right opening?
There are so many books out there on openings. No other phase of the game has been studied so much by chess players. Whether this is right or wrong is a matter for another discussion… But let’s assume for now that you want to learn how to play an opening […]