Lesson 6
Strategy and tactics
Tactics are short tricks that win something right now, in the next move or two. Strategy is the slow plan that makes those tricks show up in the first place. Most games between beginners are won by tactics, so we start there.
Did you know? Gambit comes from the Italian gambetto, which means tripping someone with your leg. The same priest who gave his name to the Ruy Lopez brought the word into chess. That is what a gambit does: you hand over a pawn to trip your opponent up.
Before every single move
Ask these three questions:
- Why did my opponent play that move? What are they attacking?
- What is not defended? Check every piece of theirs, and every piece of yours.
- Do I have a check, a capture or a threat? Look at those first.
The fork
A fork is one piece attacking two things at the same time, like a fork with two prongs. Your opponent only gets one move, so they can rescue one of them but not both. Whichever one they save, you take the other. Knights are the best forkers in the whole game, because a knight jumps in an L shape and arrives from a direction nobody is watching.
The pin
A pin freezes a piece. You attack it, and standing right behind it is something more valuable, so if it steps out of the way you win the bigger piece instead. Then you pile on. Attack the frozen piece again and again, because it cannot run away.
When the piece behind is the king, the pinned piece may not move at all. That is an absolute pin. Click the black knight below and see for yourself.
The skewer
A skewer is a pin turned back to front. In a pin, the small piece stands in front and the valuable one hides behind it. In a skewer it is the other way around: the valuable piece is in front. It does not want to be captured, so it moves, and then you take whatever was hiding behind it.
The discovered attack
One of your pieces steps out of the way, and the piece standing behind it suddenly has a clear line of attack. If the piece that stepped aside makes a threat of its own on the way, your opponent has two problems and only one move to fix them.
Double check
A double check is two of your pieces giving check at the same time. Normally there are three ways to answer a check: move the king, block the check, or capture the piece giving it. Against a double check only the first one works, because blocking or capturing can deal with one checker but never with both at once. The king has to run, and that is why a double check is the most forcing move in chess.
Removing the defender
When a square looks protected, do not just believe it. Ask who is doing the protecting. Then ask whether you can capture that piece, chase it away, or give it a second job so it cannot do both.
Now for the strategy
Control the center
The four squares in the middle, d4, e4, d5 and
e5, are the best spots on the whole board. Count for yourself: a knight on
e5 attacks eight squares, and the very same knight on a1 attacks
two. A piece in the center is simply worth more than the same piece on the edge.
Keep your pieces active
Count how many squares each of your pieces can reach. If a bishop is staring at its own pawn, it is not really playing. Good players spend whole moves improving their worst piece.
Look after your king
Castle early. Do not push the pawns in front of your castled king without a reason, because each one you push leaves a hole that a queen or bishop can crawl into.
Pawns cannot go backwards
A pawn can never go back, so every pawn move you make is permanent. Think twice before you push one. Three shapes to know:
| Shape | What it is | Good or bad? |
|---|---|---|
| Doubled pawns | Two of your pawns on the same file | Usually a weakness, because they cannot defend each other |
| Isolated pawn | No friendly pawn on either side of it | Needs pieces to babysit it, but it does control good squares |
| Passed pawn | No enemy pawn can stop it reaching the end | Excellent. In an endgame it can march to the end and become a queen |
Trade when you are ahead
Imagine you have won a rook, so you have one more piece than your opponent does. Now trade pieces whenever the trade is fair. Every swap takes a piece off each side, and the fewer pieces are left, the more that extra rook of yours matters. If you are behind, do the opposite: keep pieces on and keep the position complicated.
Practice the tactics. The puzzles page has forks, pins, skewers and discovered attacks.