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By Bradford Roegner

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By David P Hurley

David P Hurley
Level: Basic

After graduating from the University of York in 1985 with a degree in Politics and English Literature I took a course in Teaching English as …

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By Maxwell Powell

This short article will give fundamental chess strategies for beginners. Using the following strategies, the complete beginner through to a player of more experience will see an improvement in their game and an overall increase in the number of chess games they win.

The game of chess has been played for centuries and has stood the test of time. It is a game of skill, wit and knowledge and is a great exercise of the mind. To this day people from all walks of life enjoy pitting their wits against other chess opponents. Chess has also seen a bit of a comeback in recent years.

When the game of chess is first taken up the fundamental rules must be learned, that govern how a game is won and how each if the chess pieces can move around the board. Once an understanding has been obtained by beginners, basic chess strategies can then be added into the mix. Simple chess moves can have a dramatic effect on the overall success rate of the beginners game.

The following are my top chess strategies for beginners, although they can also be used by more experienced players;

1) Take your time. A much overlooked chess technique but it’s fundamental to ensure mistakes are not made.

2) Undertake a ‘castling’ move wherever possible.

3) Try to plan several (at least 3) moves in advance.

4) Beware of your sacrifices. Never sacrifice a piece for one of lower value.

5) Linked to the above point never sacrifice a queen, and although bishops and knights are the same in points, always favour keeping a bishop above a knight.

5) Avoid premature attacks. Bind your time to favour your overall long term chess strategy.

6) Do not be tempted to advance one side only of your pieces. You must keep a uniform defensive front as far as is possible.

Although my top chess strategies for beginners will give a sound platform for building your chess game upon, there are hundreds more advanced techniques that can be adopted to further develop your game. You will never know every single trick and technique in the game of chess but the above strategies will improve your game no end.

So, now that you have a few basics to use, to continue your quest for knowledge of chess strategies for beginners and advanced players alike, visit http://chess.247info.us for more great information. Within minutes from now you’ll be able to use these chess smoves and techniques and increase the number of times you’ll be saying “check mate”.

To continue your quest for knowledge of chess strategies for beginners and advanced players alike, visit http://chess.247info.us for more great information.

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With the abundance of options in chess sets, it is easy to become overwhelmed, especially at the delicate pricing point. This article will point out the reasons for price variation on chess sets, for a given l. Of course such choices as size of the chess pieces, the length of the chess board, or thickness will have an overall effect on the price. This article focuses on the relative differences when all such things are held equal.

The first thing that will dictate the price of the chess set is choice of the materials that are used in its production. The most popular options include Metal and Wood. Additionally there are several woods that are available and each will influence the price of the chess set.

Chess pieces that are made from metal are going to be the most expensive, while chess pieces that are made from wood are less expensive, in some cases extraordinarily so. Metal chess pieces are more expensive because of the extra equipment that is needed. The hardness of the metal that are used will force replacement of equipment due to wear faster than wood. Additionally, mining the ore needed for metal is usually more expensive than that of obtaining wood.

Even with choosing wood chess sets, there will lie a large price variation in pricing amongst the possible woods. Sheesham wood, Rosewood and Ebony are the three most popular choices for chess sets. This also their order of increasing cost. Sheesham is a lighter colored brown. It is an excellent choice for chess pieces, with its ability to be carved. Identical sheesham set can be up to 50% less that Rosewood set and 70% less that Ebony. Sheesham pieces are just as beautiful as their counter part, with a warm traditional feel to them.

Rosewood chess sets are then next on the ladder. Rosewood is a darker wood with even darker grain running through it. It is also a harder wood and more difficult to procure. As such, the skill needed to work with rosewood drives the cost higher. The wood varies in color from a Brown to a very deep coffee color, and can be found to have red hints throughout. As such, this wood produces a rich chess set that is a beautiful centerpiece to any chess collection.

Finally there is Ebony. When a player is looking to make a statement in a room or in a match, this is certainly the choice to make. Ebony is a dense hardwood that is difficult to find. The wood will vary in color from dark purple to deep black. Carved, it is a very impressive as chess pieces. Because of how hard it is, creating chess pieces from ebony is something that left to the most skilled of the trade. That, coupled with its rarity and demand causes the ebony chess sets to rise in price. The result is a severe and well heeled chess set.

With all the chess set that are available for purchase, this article was able to provide the guidelines explaining the source of the costs in a chess set. While there is a large range of the prices to choose amongst, a chess set is an investment that will return hours of joy and satisfaction to anyone who empowers them selves to own one.

Bradford Roegner is webmaster for BraRoe Chess Sets He is available to help provide people with the tools to bring chess into their life. You can contact him Bradford@braroechess.com any time with question.

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By Erik Christensen

I have played chess for 35 years now, but only in the last 8 years or so have I taken the game seriously enough that I could consider myself an avid student. By reading books, using chess software to analyze games, and by hiring a coach I have been able to raise my game to a reasonable level (about 1800 FIDE rating, about one class below “expert”, two below Master). Due to lack of time to commit to the game I did not pursue a higher rating, but I have gained a solid understanding of the path that must be walked in order to master the game. I still have much of the path to walk, but I do own the road map, so to speak.

Chess is broken down into various facets for the purpose of teaching and learning. Aside from the obvious necessity to learn how the pieces move, and the other rules of the game, chess lessons come in four basic subjects:

1. The opening. Sometimes this is simply common or “accepted” opening moves annotated for the purpose of memorizing, and sometimes it involves more principles than specific moves.

2. Tactics and combinations. This is how the pieces interact in the short term, and how one might take advantage of a weakness with a sacrifice, in order to gain a major advantage, or even an outright win. Checkmating falls into this category, except where it relates to the end game.

3. Strategy. This is the subject of long term objectives and how to obtain them. It can be sub-divided into two categories: piece placement and pawn structure.

4. End game. This is where the majority of the pieces are traded off and the emphasis turns to the attempt to promote a pawn to the last rank to gain a queen or another piece. The end game is often considered to have started when the King becomes a fighting piece.

Learning all of these subjects was an eye-opening experience, as I had no idea there was such a vast amount to learn. In fact, as I mentioned before there is still a lot left for me to work on! But I have always been a student of learning as well as a student of whatever subject I am studying, and I was left with a feeling that there was something missing from the process that could have made it easier, or perhaps more efficient.

My understanding of the chess learning process deepened when I started teaching a young fellow by the name of Tanraj Sohal. I learned as much by teaching him as he did, perhaps more so since he is a much more gifted player than I am. However, I had wisdom and experience on my side, and together we improved his game to the point that he won the Canadian Championship for his grade that year. To be fair, I should point out that he placed second the year before, when I was not coaching him, so I cannot take much credit for this. But I can say that I did learn a lot about learning chess!

More than learning how to make good moves, getting better at chess is about learning how to not make bad moves. You can play solid chess for 30 or 40 moves, and then make one bad move and lose the game. The quality of your other moves may not have made a difference in your game, but the bad move certainly does. To prevent these bad moves, we have to overcome weaknesses in understanding, and we need to learn them so well that we will recognize them when the situations arise in game play.

Memorizing, or even being able to explain something is not enough. There needs to be an “aha!” moment that forever changes the way you look at the game. I have experience this enough, and seen it happen in other players enough to know that this is an absolute requirement to deepening your understanding of the game.

There are two problems with this, though. First, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of “ahas” required to master the game. Second, they can be tough to achieve.

Why is this? Mostly because the average player has had most of his instruction from books. The “aha” factor occurs mostly with a combination of instruction and repetition. Books can certainly offer instruction, but if you have to set the board up all over again just to repeat a lesson, or even move on to the next one, how often are you really going to repeat it? I know from experience it is often too much work to do the first time!

E-books may be even harder, since most players will find it difficult to set up a board on a computer desk; plus, flipping between text and board diagrams is harder with a PDF file than with a physical book.

In recent years there have been many new chess programs, and these are great for repetition, but I have yet to see one that gives adequate explanation for anything other than the basic lessons.

More recently there has been an introduction of chess videos that can be downloaded and played on your computer. These are usually just videos of a board from a chess program that the instructor is using to play through the moves of whatever he is teaching. The beauty of the video lesson is that not only does it come with verbal instruction (much easier to follow while watching the board than reading), but it is easily repeated. There is so little effort required that repetition seems to happen naturally.

I recently purchased a chess video lesson package, and I was amazed at how many “aha” moments I had. I was able to approach the lesson with more anticipation than with any other method. By anticipation, I don’t mean eagerness; what I mean is that I was “seeing” the moves before they were played. Sometimes I was wrong, but the amount of times I was right told me that my game was already improving. Or, at the very least I was learning something new!

f you are interested in reading about the videos I was watching, you can read about them on my site at http://chessreview.wordpress.com Having a video lesson is like having a coach that you never have to pay twice, and who never tires of teaching you. And with that kind of help, anyone can become a much better chess player.

Erik Christensen
http://chessreview.wordpress.com

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By Barry Newton

Check Mate is every chess players favourite phrase if you are the one saying it . It is the end result of pure concentration, focus and strategy on what is the best game in the world. Why do you think it is still taught in schools and why do you think there are so many chess clubs? Computer games have soared in the last 10 years but you never hear of a Star Wars or Matrix club which play against each other. Teachers don’t teach you to play computer games at school, or maybe they do but I am too old to have heard about it. Chess however, is a different matter. Why chess? Because once you learn to play chess and how a chess strategy works it teaches you how to think in life.

It is a game of two minds. Yours against your opponent’s. There is no luck involved. If you make a mistake then it is your fault. You have not thought your chess strategy all the way through and this is the whole point of chess. Whoever thinks the deepest; whoever can take their chess strategy through to the highest level wins the game.

This is something which children and adults alike should aspire to. Thinking a problem out logically. Leaving no stone unturned. I learned to play chess some 40 years ago and the problem solving techniques I have used in chess have never left me. I recently had an interview and was told later by the interviewer I had blown the other candidates out the water with my presentation. Before the interview I covered every possible question the interviewer could ask and was ready with my well rehearsed answers. Moreover, I had created flow charts to show how I would improve the way the department was run. I produced graphs at every turn to back up my plans. I waited to near the end of the interview the came out with all guns blazing with “and here is my idea to save money in the department.” Come on admit it, you would have employed me wouldn’t you? All this from playing chess and learning chess strategy and tactics.

If I was to teach a new player how to play chess I would introduce him to Paul Morphy. If he or she was not inspired by this genius of the chess world then nothing would. Morphy was studying to be a lawyer and played chess in his spare time. He took the world of chess by storm. His chess tactics were second to none at the time. Although he died many moons ago his legacy lives on and every good chess book will examine the chess strategies of Paul Morphy.

That said, you do not have to be a genius to play chess. Remember it is a game, but the more you play the better your grasp of chess strategies will become. Automatically the way you think about problems, during the course of your life, will change. When I play chess I can anticipate the next 3 to 4 moves my opponent is going to make, sometimes more. I use this tactic a lot during my work and during leisure.

I love to tell stories to my colleagues during a boring spell at work and one of the ones I use needs a certain response from at least one of the listeners.

It goes like this: I was woken up at 4 in the morning when I heard a noise in my garden. I got up and looked out and to my astonishment there was a man with a screwdriver removing my gate from the garden. I watched this for half an hour and saw him put the gate in his van and drive off. I the wait for the reaction. There is always a silence but you cannot speak, just wait. “Did you not do anything” someone will ask. ” Did you not shout at him”…no I reply. I was scared in case he took a fence (offence). Alright I know it is corny but the point is it works because it has been thought out to the nth degree. Somewhere in the world of chess there is a chess strategy or strategies which will mimic this. A chess strategy or trap which will need patience and nerve to hold out until your opponent makes that fatal move.

Even if you have learned all the best principles of playing a good chess game and you have used a strong chess strategy you may find you are still getting beat. This is most likely because you have not learned yet to think outside the box. Once you can do this your opponent will never know what you are planning and you will start to win even more games. When I was at school I noticed my dinner school ticket was peeling apart . I had an idea. The next day at dinner school I showed only the back of the dinner ticket. It was accepted. I proceeded to peel the two halves apart and then glued each half to a thin piece of card. I sold the front part to a friend for half the price of the dinner ticket and we both got our school dinners half price and we kept half the money. Highly unethical I know but hey I was a schoolboy. Once you can think outside the box at chess you can think outside the box in real life.

Get you kids to start playing chess. It is the best game in the world and one of your proudest moments will be when he or she finally outhinks you on the chess board and screams “Check mate”.

http://www.chessstrategy.blogspot.com

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