35 Vital Chess Principles _ Opening, Middlegame, and Endgame Principles - Chess Strategy and Ideas

Hey guys , in this video , you're gonna learn the top 35 most important chess principles .

A chess principle is just like a guideline or a rule that generally speaking , you should follow and you're going to get into better positions .

So you've probably heard control the center of the board .

That is an example of a chess principle .

It's true .

Most of the time , sometimes you will need to control some other squares on the board , but usually the center is most important .

And what you might not know is that there are actually hundreds of different chess principles .

So in this video , I've narrowed down the top 35 that I think are the most important and I'm gonna share those with you right now .

All right .

Principle .

Number one , no surprise here is control the center of the board .

Usually the player who controls the center of the board has a better chance to win the game than somebody who is making a lot of moves on the side of the board .

Principle .

Number two is develop your pieces quickly , developing your pieces just means moving your knights and bishops off of the back rank .

So night here night here and then getting your bishops out in this position , white is gonna have much better chances to win the game because he has developed his pieces while black has not and just made a bunch of pawn moves .

Principle .

Number three nights before bishops , usually when developing , you want to develop your knights first and then follow it up with your bishops .

Principle .

Number four , don't move the same piece twice in the opening .

If you're moving the same piece multiple times in the opening , it means you're not developing your other pieces and you're gonna fall behind in development and probably get into a worse position .

Principle .

Number five is , don't bring out your queen too early .

Although the queen is a powerful piece .

If you bring it out too early , it just ends up getting harassed by your opponent's pieces and you waste a lot of time .

As an example .

If I play E four D six and I bring my queen out immediately after night of six , I have to move my queen .

Maybe I'll move it over to a five after night C six have to move my queen again .

And all of a sudden , I'm falling behind in development .

So don't bring out your queen too early .

Principle .

Number six is castle before move 10 .

If you look at this example , it's possible to castle in as little as four moves .

And usually after you castle , your king is safe behind a wall of ponds better than being in the center of the board .

Principle number seven is connect your rooks .

So after you've developed your pieces and you've castled , you can simply move your queen up and now your rooks are connected .

This is beneficial because your rooks protect each other .

They can help each other and they also have easy access to go to whatever file you need them to , which is gonna be most beneficial for you .

Principle number eight is that rooks should go on open or half open files in the position on the board right now .

The E file is an open file because there are no pawns on it .

So a move like rook to E one would make a lot of sense because it's putting my rook on the open file .

A half open file is a file that only has one color pawn on it .

So for example , the D file is a half open file because it only has a black pawn and no white pawn .

So this would also be a smart move because I'm putting this rook on a half open file .

Black's rook on F eight is already on a half open file because there's only one color pawn on it .

Principle number nine , knights on the rim are grim .

You can see in this position how blacks knight is very effective covering a lot of important squares in the center .

And my night on the side is not doing as much .

It only covers a few squares .

So keeping your knights towards the center of the board is better than putting them on the side .

Principle .

Number 10 , try to avoid doubled ponds and this position of block captures my night and I recapture with this pawn , I've created a set of doubled pawns .

Doubled pawns are when one pawn is on the same file as another pawn .

This is usually a disadvantage because this guy is blocked by this guy so he can't move .

And also they can't help each other and defend each other if they needed to .

It's very easy for me to move this pond up and it's defended by this one or to move this one up and it's defended by this one .

You can't do that with doubled pawns .

So usually you wanna try to avoid those .

Principle .

Number 11 is try to avoid isolated ponds .

Isolated ponds are ponds that have no ponds on the adjacent files .

So this a pond is an isolated pond because there's no ponds of the same color on the file right next to it .

And these double ponds on C two and C three happen to be double isolated ponds because again , there are no white ponds on either side of them .

So isolated ponds and double isolated ponds are particularly weak and they can't help each other .

Like connected ponds can principle number 12 , try to avoid backward pawns in this position if black plays pond to C four .

He's created a backward pawn on D five .

A backward pond means that all of the pawns on the adjacent files have been pushed in front of that pond and can therefore no longer help protect it .

When this pond was back here on C six , it was protecting it .

So it wasn't a backward pond because of the way it's been pushed forward .

OK , guys , I'm going to show you some quick variations out of the Italian game , also known as the Juco Piano .

It's actually not an opening that's preferred by Grand Masters because it's considered somewhat draw .

I and the ideas are not as deep as what you would find in .

For example , the queen's gambit or the Roy Lopez or the Spanish game .

But it's a good way to get started , I think with very straightforward developing moves .

So the Italian game starts with E four and if your opponent responds with E five , you would proceed with what's probably the most logical and expected move knight to F three , attacking the E five pawn .

Now , let's say black brings out this night to C six .

The Italian game is characterized by this move right here .

Bishop to C four as opposed to bishop to B five , which would be the Spanish .

But we're looking at the Italian .

If your king is still in the center , in this position , black could consider playing D five , but it wouldn't be a good idea because after white trades , he started to open up the center and his king could come under pressure from White's rook because he hasn't castled yet .

So it would be better for black to castle first and then consider a move like D five , which is gonna start trading and opening up the center on the board .

Principle number 16 is that two minor pieces are generally better than a rook in a pawn .

Minor pieces are knights and bishops .

Obviously , these are the rooks .

So in this position , if I were to capture with my knight , black captures , I capture , he captures , I just lost a knight and a bishop which is six points .

I gained a rook in a pawn , which is also six points .

But that it puts me at a disadvantage because the knight and the bishop are better than the rook in the pawn .

Generally speaking .

So don't make a trade like that unless you have a very specific reason to do .

So .

Principle number 17 is similar , but three minor pieces generally is better than a queen , even though they both add up to nine points .

Usually the three pieces will greatly outperform the queen principle number 18 is that Rooks are very strong on the seventh rank .

So since I'm white , the seventh rank is here for black .

The seventh rank is actually the second rank , which would be here .

But in this position , I have the ability to play Rookie E seven , which is a very strong move by placing my rook on the seventh rank .

You can see I have lots of good targets and white is in a very good position because of the ability to get the rook on the seventh rank .

Principle .

Number 19 is that doubled .

Rooks on an open file are very strong in this position .

White already has control of the open file with one rook , but he has the ability to put two rooks now controlling that open file and it prevents black from gaining control of that file as well .

So two rooks on an open file is very strong .

Principle .

Number 20 bishops are better in open positions .

Knights are better in closed positions .

So let's say really quickly , we go to C four .

The opponent goes to C five .

The best continuation is C three to try to keep the initiative .

Other moves such as knight to C three .

Castling are also OK .

D three is also OK .

But this is the best continuation or is regarded as such , let's say you have knight to F six attacking this pawn now , instead of going D four , which is also probably a good , maybe the best way to play it .

We're going to look at this modest continuation D three .

Now , black castles and white immediately jumps into his territory looking for trouble .

So black doesn't really know what white is up to , but he goes to kick him with the H six pawn .

And this allows for a nice little sacrifice play with H four .

So black snaps the night .

H takes G and now we have this beautiful open file for our rook .

So Black wanting to keep his material advantage retreats the night .

And now with the queen coming to H five , black is busted .

He actually only has one move to stop maiden one which is bringing the rook to E eight , giving the king a little bit of space to escape .

But rather than going queen takes a night , we go queen takes F seven , forcing the king into the corner .

And then one more sacrifice rook takes H seven .

The king has to take the rook and now the queen just returns to H five checkmate with the bishop cutting off the G eight square .

So that's a miniature that was played by Greco , maybe the first genius of chess .

But it illustrates a lot of good ideas like the use of a sacrifice to open a file .

Um It also shows in the exchange trading material for time and space because it's one unit of time when Black retreats his night to age seven .

A really good move for him would be to put his rook behind his past pawn so that they can support it as he pushes it and tries to eventually get a queen .

If black didn't know that and played a move like rook here to defend his pawn , that way , it's not gonna be as good .

And now white also has the ability to put the rook behind the past pawn , which creates pressure .

And at any point , if the pond tries to move forward , the rook is still going to be attacking it really making it hard for that pawn to move forward .

So Rook should go behind past pawns .

Principle number 25 is that two connected pass pawns on the sixth rank will always be the rook in this position .

It's white's turn .

And by playing this pawn forward , he now has achieved two connected and pass pawns on the sixth rank .

And if this rook tries to stop them .

He's not gonna be able to do it .

For example , if the rook goes here to try to get this pawn , white can simply move this one forward .

And if the rook captures , white is gonna get a queen , we go back .

And it's more than anything space for that rook to dominate the H file .

So once the queen joins the rook on the H file , black is hopeless .

So that was just a quick look at the Italian game or the Juco Piano .

I recommend it for young players .

It's a great way to get your chess game started .

But generally speaking , attack the base of a pawn chain principle 27 is that knights are usually one of the best blockaders of ponds .

So in this position , black has a past pond that he's trying to push forward .

And white would like to blockade it to keep it from moving .

A good option would be to blockade it with the knight .

The reason this is good is because knights can still function very well because they can jump over pieces .

They can still put pressure on the normal squares that they would be able to put pressure on .

At the same time , they're blockading the pond from moving principle .

Number 28 is if your position is cramped , you should try to trade pieces to open it up and give you more options .

So in this position , Black's position is very cramped .

This bishop is stuck .

This bishop is stuck .

He doesn't have a lot of options for his pieces .

So one thing that he should consider doing is trading pieces .

In this example , he can capture here .

If white captures , he can capture here .

If white captures , he can capture here and by trading off all those pieces , now he's able to move this night somewhere and then this bishop can go somewhere .

It's a much better position for Black having traded off all those pieces than if we go back to this position where he could hardly move .

So in a cramped position , try to trade pieces .

Principle number 30 is that when you're a head material , you want to trade pieces but not trade pawns in this position , white is ahead a rook for a night .

It's called being up the exchange .

He has a two point advantage .

So he would want to trade the queen and rook for the queen and rook but not trade the pawns .

That's because after you trade these pieces , the rook is going to be very strong , he's gonna be able to capture some of these pawns most likely .

And then he can get a queen if he trades off all the ponds .

So there's no pawns left , then the rook in the night , it's , it's gonna be very hard to win that position .

So you wanna leave pawns on the board in your head material and trade off the other pieces .

Principle .

Number 31 very similar is the opposite of that .

When you're losing or your down material , you want to trade off all the ponds if you can , but don't trade the pieces and that's gonna increase your chances of getting a draw .

So in this position , if white captures this pawn and black recaptures , he could take this pawn with his queen , but that's not good for white because he's essentially gonna be trading pawns .

He wants to keep as many pawns on the board as possible .

So a better move might be queen to D three trying to trade the pieces and not trade the ponds .

I hope that made sense .

If you have to rewash that part again , feel free to do .

So .

That's an important one .

It's really good to know .

Principle .

Number 32 is that opposite colored bishop .

Games are dangerous in the middle game and draw i in the end game .

What do I mean by that in this position ?

Both players have an opposite color bishop .

That means whites .

Bishop is on a dark square and black's bishop is on a white square .

So they're opposite colored bishops .

And since this is still in what I would say , the middle game , it's very dangerous and and white has to be very careful .

And you can see after this move bishop check king G one after queen G four , the queen's coming into F three and then there's gonna be a battery .

White's gonna get check mated .

So the only thing he could do is sacrifice his rook for the bishop to stay alive .

And that just shows how it's very dangerous .

When you're playing in a game with opposite colored bishops , you have to watch out for attacks on your king .

And the reason it's dangerous is really because your bishop can do nothing to prevent the other person's bishop .

So in this case , there are weaknesses along these white squares and this bishop can do nothing about it .

If it was a knight , you could position it to help defend .

Or if you had the same colored bishop .

If you had a bishop on the white squares , you could even trade it off for that bishop .

But because they're opposite colored bishops , you can't do that very dangerous .

Now , the flip side of that principle is that in the end game , the games become very draw .

You can see in this position , both players have opposite colored bishops .

And because of that , the bishop can't really do anything about any of these pawns .

And likewise , blacks bishop can't do anything about white pawn .

So the pawns are just gonna end up sitting there , the kings will probably just have to move back and forth and nobody's gonna be able to win this game .

So keep that in mind , opposite colored bishops are draw i in the end game , but very dangerous in the middle game principle , number 33 is what's called .

Don't play hope chess .

Now , if you've never heard of this , hope chess is where you play chess and you hope that your opponent does something or you hope that your opponent doesn't see something or I hope he moves there .

If you're playing chess like that , you're probably not going to do very well .

You always want to consider the fact that your opponent might do the very best move .

An example of hope chess would be I'm gonna play here .

I'm gonna bring my bishop out .

I'm gonna bring my queen out and I'm gonna hope that he doesn't see the check mate .

I'm gonna hope that he doesn't know about the scholars mate and I'm gonna win for moves .

I'm gonna hope he falls for my trick .

That's not good because if he knows what he's doing , he plays G six .

Stops your queen .

You come back to try it again because you hope he doesn't see it .

He's gonna play nine F six .

You might play queen B three again .

I hope he doesn't see it .

He's gonna play queen E seven .

And now all of a sudden you're in a bad position , you just wasted a bunch of moves with your queen because you were playing hope chess .

So try not to do that .

Principle 34 is when you see a good move , stop and look for a better move in this position on the board , black just played here , which is really a bad move .

And so the move that might jump out to a lot of people is , oh , that's a free rook .

That's a really good move .

It's good for white .

But if you take a second and look for a better move , you might notice that knight D six is actually a beautiful smothered checkmate .

So when you see a good move , take a second and look for a better move .

And Principle number 35 is that a really good chess player ?

Knows the right time to ignore chess principles .

All these principles are really good most of the time .

But there's always gonna be situations where they don't apply and where it makes the most sense to go against what the principal would say .

And that's what determines a really good chess player from somebody who's still learning .

So just know that everything that I told you is a good general rule of thumb , but be on the lookout for special situations where they may not apply .

And that will come with practice as you get better and better , you'll pick up on when it's OK to break the rules if you will .

Well , I know that was a lot of information really fast .

So I went ahead and put together this spreadsheet which lists out all of the 35 principles that we just talked about .

I'm gonna throw this up on the screen and just leave it for a little bit .

If you want to print , screen , pause the video and print screen and print this out so you can use it for reference .

Feel free to do .

So I know for some people , people who are just starting out , this might seem a little bit overwhelming , but don't worry , it took me years and years to learn all of these .

So you've got time , the best way to tackle it is just one principle at a time .

Practice it in your games until it starts to become a habit , then move on the list to the next one and keep doing that until you feel like you've gotten a good grasp of these principles .

If you guys learn something and got some value out of this video , it really helps me out a lot .

If you would hit that thumbs up button , I really appreciate it .

But as always , make sure you stay sharp , play smart and take care .