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How to Win at Chess
By Stephen Condren

This article is intended for anyone that desires to improve his or her game of chess. It is clearly not the aim of this article to show you how to be the greatest chess player in the world or how to get your rating over 2000. If you want to win at chess just follow what I say in this letter and you will attain significant results.

First I suggest that you buy or borrow a book entitled "A primer of Chess" by Capablanca. It is my opinion that Capablanca (Capa) was the greatest chess player in history. Read it three times cover to cover.

It is imperative that you gain control of the center of the board and keep it. If you do not the game is lost. Make sure that before you touch any piece that you look at the next move that each adjacent piece will make contingent on the piece that you move and where you move it. No one can keep their eye and mind all over the board. If you try you will expend too much energy and grow tired by trying to second guess all of your opponents moves. Focus on the next move and its impact on adjacent pieces.

As you bring out your pieces (pawns are not pieces) make sure that you only move the piece once. Make sure that every move you make is a single move for each piece until all the pieces are out, and then castle. Try and have all of the piece out and castled by the eighth move and no later than the tenth. If this is the only piece of advice that you heed you will find that your game performance will be up 50%.

Now when it comes to taking pieces always go for the exchange. The rule is exchange knights first then bishops. This is the reason why and few people ever explain this. Knights are at their best when the board is filled with pawns and pieces because it is oafish in movement. It is extremely clumsy and awkward but on a cluttered board its power is greater than that of a queen! (See "The Immortal" a chess game played in 1851 by Adolf Anderssen where he sacrifices his queen in order to secure checkmate with a knight!) No other piece has the ability to jump over pieces like the knight does. It is this unique quality that makes the knight most effective during the start of the game, when the board is cluttered. As the board clears and it becomes open the knights lose their power in proportion to the bishops gaining. That is why bishops are valued more, because they are used later in the game. It is impossible to escape the wrath of the bishops on an open board; they are like ray guns perpetually shooting at you.

When the chance comes to exchange pieces do so and of course take any stray piece that is offered to you. Your goal is to clear the board so that you can march the pawns. That is the true secret to the game of chess.

The king and pawns are what the game of chess is all about not the pieces, however, everyone else thinks just the oppositely. Most people do not care if they lose a pawn or two, as long as they have their piece. This is where you can gain tremendous ground. Let your opponent exchange and when he or she does try and make the exchange move so that the pawn is moved closer to the center of the board. Also, try and prevent the pawns from doubling up (stacked) this may cost you the game.

When you can, try and exchange the queens. Almost everyone hates to exchange their queen but do it. It is in your favor because your opponent feels weaker (and there is no substance to support that) and you can then more quickly with the advancement of your pawns.

Now is the time to close in on your win. Move your king close to the middle pawns and keep the king in front of the pawns. Do not let the opponent's king get in front of your advancing pawns. This is especially true if there is only one pawn and it is yours. If the opponent's king is ever able to get in front of your single pawn and it is near the center of the board your will not win. Keep the king at the center and in front of your pawns at all times.

Finally, as you advance your pawns make sure that the squares that are adjacent to your king's are always three in a row. In other works the side of the king take 3 spaces and the other king is not able to approach those spots. Use that space as an aisle to advance your pawn to queen. Your opponent will have no ability to stop the queening of your pawn.

Warning. It is always advisable after you have queened your pawn to keep checking your opponent's king as you move in on the mate because often the game ends up as a stale mate due to your opponent's king not being able to move and yet not being in check. This is a very common mistake.

With this advise you will find that your game is much improved. Enjoy.

I was born and raised on the south side of Chicago in Hyde Park Township, near the University of Chicago. As I child I was always drawing and painting. My father owned an art supply company, Favor Ruhl & Watson, where I was able to get all that I need to progress in my work.

I have always enjoyed portraiture and landscape. In High School (Naperville Central High School) I took Drafting from Mr. Pierce. I quickly grasped the principles of perspective and hence made a career with both Fine Art and Architectural Renderings.

In the mid 1970's I had joined the US Navy and was stationed on the USS Midway, CV-41. The Midway was home ported in Yokosuka, Japan (A suburb of Tokyo). While in service we traveled all over Asia including such countries as Korea, China, Philipines, Singapore, Pakistan, Hong Kong, and Japan.

While in Japan I learned Japanese. I speak German and Spanish as well.

I am a lover of Philosophy and Opera. I admire the works of Immanuel Kant and Fredrich Nietzsche. In music I admire the works of Mozart and Wagner.

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Chess Strategies For A Winning Game
By Lee Dobbins

Chess is often thought of as a complex game, but can really be easily learned. The key to becoming a better player is to never get stuck on one level of play. Always be adding to your game by learning and trying new strategies. Here’s a few tips to start you off.

What’s A Good First Move?

Want to get the most freedom of your pieces right off the bat? Move the pawn in front of your king forward. While this may seem like it is leaving the king in a vulnerable position, it is also freeing up the queen and bishop to wreak havoc on your opponent!

Get Them In Checkmate In Just 4 Moves

In this series of moves, the bishop and queen are used to get your opponent into checkmate in just 4 moves. For your first move, move the pawn in front of the queen forward by 2 spaces. Your opponents move is next. Then move the bishop diagonal 3 spaces. After the next turn of your opponent, move your queen to the diagonal 2 spaces and let it sit in front of the pawn. Now, depending on your opponents next move, you can zip the queen straight up to his pawn, capture it and get the king in checkmate! Then king cannot capture the queen as he will then be captured by your bishop, he cannot move away from the queen as he is blocked by his own pieces.

Sacrificing Pieces

While nobody likes to lose a key piece, there are times, however when it makes sense to sacrifice one of your pieces. If an opponent’s piece is taking up a spot that you need open, putting one of your pieces in a position to lure his piece out to capture you is one way to move your game forward. Since you will be losing a piece, be sure to check the board carefully to make sure this really will result in the move you wanted!

Put Your Pieces In Play

The pieces in your back row are key to winning the game so you must move them out at first chance. At first you may reluctant to use your more powerful pieces for fear that they will be captured. Put them into play! The sooner you get those pieces out the sooner you will be able to invoke a strategy that will result in checkmate!

Lee Dobbins writes for many websites including Chess Moves.info where you can learn more about the game of chess.

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The Quickest Way to Win at Chess
By Victor Epand

There are a number of different ways to claim a checkmate for yourself in the game of Chess. Depending on the strength of your opponent, these checkmates may be easier to come by than with others. Usually, when playing against someone of your comparable strength, the game will usually last for a period of time, as you think on the same wavelengths and will counterbalance each other out well. However, sometimes you will get paired with someone either stronger or weaker than you and the weaker player can often be taught a lesson in the mechanics of good tactics and overall game play.

There is much debate in the Chess world about what the shortest game ever actually was. A number of games have been played which were over in only one or two moves, but all of these games ended in forfeiting, which is not something that will usually happen with beginners. Games with beginners will usually play out as the beginners are usually not able to see ahead enough in the game to tell what is coming and besides, it is usually more valuable for the beginners to actually see what happens with a checkmate. There is still much debate about what the shortest possible game in Chess is, however. Currently, two possible options are provided.

One option, called the Fool's Mate, is the actual shortest possible Checkmate available. However, it's rare that this circumstance would actually play out in a game, as even most beginners can see that it is not a wise way to play. The white pieces must act very recklessly in order for Black to procure the win and it has been postulated that the only times this move actually occurs is during some of the practice sessions between beginners, not even between real games.

In the Fool's Mate, White takes its first move by taking the King-side Bishop's Pawn and moving it either one or two spaces. Black then moves their King's Pawn either one or two spaces. White then moves their King-side Knight Pawn two spaces and Black reacts by moving the Queen all the way diagonally, to the edge of the board. This provides a Checkmate, as the White King has no possible moves.

More commonly played is the Scholar's Mate. This is an ending which often happens in games among beginners as it is a bit more intricate than a Fool's Mate and more possible to play. It is based on the theory that the F7 square of the board is one of the weakest, as it is only protected by Black's King. In this strategy, White's King-side Bishop is moved to C4 space and White's Queen is moved to H5. Then, if nothing more has been moved than some Pawns and Knights by Black, a checkmate is possible which leaves no possible moves open to the King and nothing able to remove the Queen from it's landing position of that weak F7 space. These two moves, while able to easily be avoided, are good moves to study for any Chess student, however, for they can help to teach the beginnings of masterful Chess tactics.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for board games, chess boards, and dungeons and dragons miniatures. You will find all these things and more if you visit used board games, chess boards

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Win At Chess With These Special Moves
By Lee Dobbins

The game of chess has many interesting moves and some that can only happen under certain circumstances. In order to play the best game you can, it is wise to know about all the moves so that you can best outwit your opponent.

In order to effectively talk about chess a special method of notation has been devised. This helps identify the squares and positions without having to have a board and pieces always in front of you to illustrate. In this notation the columns (or files as they are called in chess) are identified with a letter and the rows (or ranks) are identified with a number. If you are looking at a chessboard from the perspective of the white player, the leftmost file is 'a', the one next to it 'b' and so on until the last file which is 'h'. The back or closest rank for white is 'rank 1', the next one (the one the pawns are on) is 'rank 2' and so on until the last rank, which is the back row for black and is 'rank 8'. So the when using chess notation, the leftmost back square for white would be called 'a1', the square directly above 'a2' an so on. See how easy that is?

Now that you know how chess notation works and you have a chess board visualized in your head, we can talk about some of the special chess moves.

En Passant

If you have played even only 1 game of chess you know that pawns have some special rules. For example, they can only capture a piece that is placed diagonally in front of them. Also, on it's initial move, a pawn can move up two squares instead of just one. However, there is a special case for this - if an enemy pawn could have captured it had it only moved 1 square, the enemy is still able to capture.

This move is called 'en passant' and can only be used on the very next move after the pawn is advanced 2 spaces - if you do not capture then, you cannot do it at a later move.

Here's an example - BLACK has a pawn at d4; WHITE moves his e2-pawn to e4; had WHITE moved to e3m the BLACK d4 pawn would have been able to capture so now he can capture en-passant on his next move. But if BLACK decides to make another move instead, he gives up his right to capture.

Castling

The King can make a special chess move called 'castling' and it is, in fact, recommended that you do this during the opening phase of the game. This is a defensive move which increase thesafety of the King. Castling has two forms - 'short' and 'long'. Here's how it works:

Say the white King is on e1 with the white Rook on h1 (this is the initial setup at the start of the game). You can make the move called short castling by moving the King to g1 and the Rook to f1. This move does have some restrictions - the squares in between the Rook and King must be empty, neither the Kind or Rook can have been moved before and the King cannot be in check. Note that even though you move two pieces, this is considered to be one move.

Long castling has the same rules and is a similar move but uses the Rook on the a file instead. In this scenario, the King ends on c1 and the Rook ends on d1.

Promotion

You might think the pawns are not very useful but if you can get your pawn to the other side of the board he can be promoted. This means the you can replace the pawn with any same colored piece you want with the exception of a king or pawn. Needless to say most people choose to replace the pawn with a queen.

There are some other situations in chess that novice players might not be aware of. For instance, a game can very easily end in a draw. This can happen when neither side has enough material to checkmate the opponent. This would happen if one player had a Bishop and King while another had only a King - no matter how many times you try you cannot get the opponent into checkmate so the game ends in a draw.

The chess game might also end in a draw if you have to repeat the same move 3 times as their are no other choices, if no advance or pawn capture has happened in the last 50 moves or stalemate. Stalemate can happen when a player who is not in check has no valid moves. If a player can continuously checkmate another player any time he wishes then he can claim a draw by "continuous check".

Lee Dobbins writes for many online publications. Visit http://www.chess-moves.info to learn more about the game of chess and see this article in more detail and with diagrams of the special moves.

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