Chess strategy from beginner to intermediate
Published
Tactics win games, but they come from positions that strategy builds. When nothing is hanging and nobody has a forcing move, you still have to choose a move, and a beginner often chooses one at random. This article is about the next step: small, concrete ideas that tell you which piece to improve and which pawn to push. None of them need calculation. They need you to look at the board in a particular order.
If you are still losing pieces to one-move threats, start with reading a quiet position and common beginner mistakes. Strategy only helps once the pieces stay on the board.
Step one: find your worst piece
The single most useful strategic question is: which of my pieces is doing the least? A bishop staring at its own pawns, a knight on the rim, a rook still on its starting square behind closed pawns. Improving that one piece is often the best move in a quiet position, because chess is played with the whole army and a side whose pieces all work usually beats a side with one brilliant piece and three idle ones.
Practical routine: go through your pieces and give each a quick score from one to three for how active it is. Then ask where the lowest-scoring piece could stand in two or three moves, and whether the route is open. That route is your plan for the next few moves.
Pawn structure decides where the pieces belong
Pieces can go back; pawns cannot. That makes the pawns the skeleton of the position, and most plans come from reading them. A few terms are worth knowing because they come up in every game.
Open and half-open files. A file with no pawns on it is open. A file with only enemy pawns is half-open for you. Rooks belong on open and half-open files, because that is where they can reach the enemy position. When a file opens after a pawn trade, the first player to put a rook on it often controls it for a long time.
Isolated pawns. A pawn with no friendly pawns on the files beside it cannot be defended by another pawn. It often needs a piece to guard it, and the square in front of it becomes a safe home for an enemy piece. In return, an isolated pawn in the centre usually gives its owner open lines and active pieces. The side with the isolated pawn should attack in the middlegame; the side against it often wants to trade pieces and reach an endgame.
Doubled pawns. Two pawns of the same colour on one file. They are weaker in endgames because the back pawn cannot protect the front one, but they often come with an open file next to them. Do not panic about doubled pawns in the opening; judge them in the endgame.
Passed pawns. A pawn with no enemy pawns in front of it or on the files beside it. Nothing but pieces can stop it, which ties those pieces down. A passed pawn grows stronger as the board empties. A common saying among coaches is that passed pawns must be pushed, and in endgames that is usually right.
Outposts: squares the enemy pawns cannot reach
An outpost is a square in or near the enemy half that no enemy pawn can ever attack. A knight placed there cannot be chased away by a pawn, and from the middle of the board it hits many squares. The usual way outposts appear is when a pawn moves past a square and leaves a hole behind it.
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 d6 6.N1c3 a6 7.Na3 b5 8.Nd5
In this Sicilian line Black played ...e5 and ...d6, gaining space and kicking the knight, but the d5 square is now a permanent hole. White has rerouted a knight to it, and the plan for the next moves is to keep a piece there and add c2-c4 or c2-c3 to support it. Black's counter-plan is to trade off that knight, usually with a knight brought to e7 or f6, or with the light-squared bishop. This tug of war over one square is typical of real strategic games.
Good bishops and bad bishops
A bishop is called bad when many of its own pawns stand on its colour, blocking it. A light-squared bishop behind pawns on d5 and e6 has few squares. That bishop is not useless, since it often defends those pawns, but it is a worse piece than its counterpart. Two practical rules follow:
- Put your pawns on the opposite colour of your remaining bishop, so the bishop and the pawns cover different squares.
- When trading, try to swap off your bad bishop and keep your good one. Your opponent will often try the reverse.
The Queen's Gambit Declined is the textbook example: Black's pawns on d5 and e6 shut in the light-squared bishop, and many of Black's plans in that opening (...b6 and ...Bb7, or ...dxc4 followed by ...e5) exist just to free it. The opening principles article shows that position.
King safety is a strategic question too
Once both kings are castled, the pawns in front of them matter. Three pawns on f2, g2 and h2 (or f7, g7, h7) are the safest shelter. Each one that moves creates a square the enemy pieces can use. Pushing h3 to stop a bishop from coming to g4 is often fine; pushing g4 without a reason usually is not.
Castling on opposite sides changes everything. If you have castled king-side and your opponent queen-side, both of you will usually throw pawns at the other's king, because your own pawns moving forward no longer weaken your shelter. Those games are races, and speed matters more than material.
When to trade pieces
Trades are not neutral. A few guidelines that hold far more often than not:
- When you are ahead in material, trade pieces, not pawns. Each trade makes your extra material count for more. A pawn up with all the pieces on is a small edge; a pawn up in a king and pawn ending is often a win.
- When you are behind, avoid trades and keep pieces on for counter-chances.
- Trade your opponent's most active piece, and your least active one.
- When you have less space, trades help you breathe. When you have more space, avoid them; let your opponent's cramped pieces get in each other's way.
Making a plan: a simple three-question method
When you have run out of obvious moves, answer these in order:
- Where is the action? Look at the pawn structure. The side with more space on one wing usually plays there. Pawn chains point to the side where you should attack: a white chain from d4 to e5 points toward the king-side.
- What is my worst piece, and where does it belong? Use the routine from step one.
- What does my opponent want? Find their best plan and see whether one move both improves your piece and slows theirs down.
This sounds slow. In practice it takes a minute, and after some games it becomes automatic. The result is a series of moves that fit together instead of single moves that each look reasonable but point in different directions.
Practising strategy on this site
Play the computer on Normal and, before each of your moves after the opening, say one sentence out loud about your plan. When the game is over, play it back from the move list and see where the plan changed for no reason. That is usually where the game turned. Once you reach endgames regularly, the endgame basics page covers the positions those plans are meant to reach. The tactical ideas that strategy sets up are in two attacks from one move.