The Middlegame-What to Do??

After you played your opening, from memory or from good sound principles (control the center, develop you pieces, protect your king), now what? Now you are in the middlegame. Most players don't make it to the endgame, or if they did, they have a weaker position. For most people, games are won in the middlegame. Here is where the real thinking takes part.

In the middlegame, you would like to have the better position, try to win material, get in a postion to go into a winning endgame, or find a way to checkmate the enemy king. In the middlegame, you need to have an active position while defending against any weaknesses.

If you happen to lose a pawn, try to avoid exchanging your pieces, since you need them for counterplay. If you are up a pawn, you may want to exchange pieces and go into a favorable endgame, while avoiding any exchange of your pawns.

If your opponent seems to have undeveloped pieces or blocked pieces, keep them blocked while developing your pieces to better positions. It is not the time to exchange pieces that would free his game.

If your opponent did not castle or has an exposed king, threaten it with pieces and look for double attacks or checkmate patterns, even if you have to sacrifice a piece or two. This is the best time to look for tactics and combinations that your opponent cannot prevent or calculate as well.

If you have a pawn-side majority, actively try to advance your pawns on that side. If you have a passed pawn, try to push it forward as safe as possible. If you can back it up with a rook behind it, that is even better.

If you can double or isolate your opponents pawns, then do so. Two doubled pawns is like one pawn. But be careful as not to open up files for your opponent's rooks.

If your opponent is getting into time trouble, you might want to think about unexpected moves and make surprise threats that require some time calculating.

Watch out for a back-rank mate on your own king or look for a possible back rank mate on your opponent's king. Make sure your king has an escape route or can be protected. Make sure your king is defended before you attack. Too many times a player sees mate in three, but got mated in two instead.

Don't panic if a surprise move was made against you. It may look like you are lost or about to lose a piece, but calm down, sit on your hands, and calculate other counter possibilities. Don't make the first move that pops in your head. Look around you and look at everything on the board. In times of crises, look at tactics and combinations that may get you out of a jam.

If your opponent sacrificed a piece to gain some initiative, try to prevent that initiative. You may want to decline the sacrificed piece or may find a way to sacrifice back to gain the initiative and be on the offensive.

Be careful of your opponent's fianchettoed bishop that may strike anywhere on the long diagonal, especially if it is aiming at the side of a castled king. Think about fianchettoing your own bishop if the long diagonal is not blocked.

Don't waste a tempo and move a piece back and forth. Select a plan and play with a goal. if you run out of ideas, try to put a piece on a square that covers the most space or attacks the most squares. Avoid putting a knight on the edge or rim (less squares to attack), and get the knight in the center (a knight on the rim is dim).

If you are going to lose one of several pieces being attacked, give up the one with the least value and keep the piece that will be the most active.   For example, if you have to lose knight or bishop, keep the bishop unless it is blocked by your pawns.  At that point, the knight is stronger. 

If possible, try to get your rooks on the opponent's 7th rank. Even stronger, place both rooks on the 7th rank.

Avoid giving up a knight for a bishop unless there is compensation such as doubled pawns. In the endgame, the bishop is stronger than the knight in most cases. For example, two bishops can checkmate a lone king, but two knights cannot. The exception is if the bishop is blocked and cannot develop to attack the long diagonals.

Always ask yourself after every move by your opponent, can he checkmate me? Can he win any material? What is he threatening? Can he sacrifice something that I didn't see? Look for why your opponent made the move he did. After you have done that, and you feel it is safe, make your own plans for attack.

Capture pawns towards the center in most cases. Sometimes the rook pawn in the endgame can never win, but if it had been a center pawn, there are more chances of a win.

Opposite colored bishops has a high percentage of draws, even if one side is several pawns up. Be aware of that when it comes down to opposite colored bishops or when you are about to exchange or give up a bishop.

If you think you have found a good move, look for a better move as time permits. Come up with a couple of candidate moves, and rule out the bad moves.

Accept your opponent's sacrifice if you don't understand or can't justify why not to accept it. You may be able to survive the attack and get into a winning endgame if your opponent has not calculated all the winning moves from the sacrifice.

Don't drift in the middlegame. Forced concentration is the key to prevent drifting. Develop and execute a logical pattern as deep as possible. Calculate forced moves first.

Have a good pawn structure and seize control of the central squares as soon as possible.

If your opponent has castled on the opposite side that you castled, attack on the side of the enemy king and defend on the side of your king. Both sides are going to attack the king. Whoever gets there first usually wins.

Above all, have a plan and stick to it.

QUEEN'S GAMBIT ACCEPTED

       Hello guys. Do you enjoyed about my tactic yesterday? Ithink yes, but now i will give you a nice opening. There is QUEEN GAMBIT ACCEPTED. The opening isn't same with QUEEN GAMBIT DECLINED. But the structure and the position almost the same. So be careful if you tell this opening,because the opening have a very much alternative trap.
      THe opening of this opening implies a courageous attempt to take white offered pawn and repel the ensuing onlaught. One may think of the KING GAMBIT ACCEPTED wiht its may sacrifices to conjure an image of the gambit on the queenside. Thus it is ussually a surprise to the uninitiated that this opening is one of Black's safest and stodgiest defence to 1 d4.

QUEEN'S GAMBIT ACCEPTED:
1 d4 d5 2 c4 cXd4 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 e3 e6 5 BXc4 c5 6 0-0 a6 7 Qe2

ALL ABOUT TACTIC!!

THREE HUNDRED CHESS GAMES THE GAME OF CHESS Here we have two books by one of the greatest players and teachers of all time, a unique biography/games collection of a great old master. One could make the case that Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch was the strongest player in the world at some point during the 1890s; he also played at a world-class (top five) level throughout, and somewhat beyond, the first decade of this century, all the while keeping up his medical practice. Tarrasch was, deservedly, designated as one of the first five "grandmasters" of chess. But he became even better known through his writings on the game, which appeared in books, columns, and periodicals. For at least two generations of aspiring players, Tarrasch's work was the primary source of their chess education. Reti made the point that Tarrasch might have had even greater success over the board had he not shared so much of his knowledge with the rest of the chess world. Surprisingly, the recent translation of Tarrasch's masterpiece 300 Chess Games (Dreihundert Schachpartien, first published in 1896, I believe) makes this book available in English for the first time. The book is an annotated collection of Tarrasch's own games, along with a biographical description of Tarrasch's chess career, from his years as a youth in Breslau through 1894, when at age 32 he was arguably in his prime. A few years ago, I borrowed and read a copy of the German edition of 300 Chess Games in order to do my own research on Tarrasch, and I got most of my ideas about his contributions from this book. Not because he expounds upon his theories as much as he does elsewhere, but because 300 Chess Games is a record of how Tarrasch actually played, and how he explains his own moves. It reveals a pragmatic player who, however, had extremely strong opinions about certain positions, and who was judgmental regarding many move options about which the modern master would be indifferent, considering them more a matter of taste than of fundamental principle. 300 Chess Games offers an excellent perspective on late 19th-century play, and includes many classic illustrations of how to exploit positional advantages. I'm not sure which players would benefit most from playing through the games and notes of this book--probably those from about 1200 to 2000. For those who value the study of classic game collections, I think that the games in this book have more educational value than those of any great player up to Alekhine, because the positional themes and types of complex maneuvering which arise in Tarrasch's games are more universally applicable to a developing player's needs. Nevertheless, the book's main appeal will be to collectors and fans of the old masters. I don't have the German edition any more in order to make a direct comparison, but the translation by Sol Schwarz is unpretentious, literate, and reads very well, qualities lacking in the translations of many chess books. I do take exception to the habit of capitalizing all piece names, and even such things as "Queenside" and "the Exchange." Yes, nouns are capitalized in German, but that is no reason to do so in English. Okay, that's my petty academic quibble, expressed solely for the record. Admittedly, it has nothing to do with the generally high quality of 300 Chess Games. A more serious question is whether, as the German edition did, Hays should have gotten a strong player to write updated notes to supplement the openings section. I think you could argue this either way, and in any case, it's our gain to have this classic available in English. Since we're on the subject of English editions of Tarrasch's works, I also want to comment onThe Game of Chess, a new edition of which was put out by Hays in 1994. This is essentially an update of an older edition, with conversion to algebraic notation and some modest editing (e.g., some sparse notes and happily, more diagrams) contributed by the publisher. In this case, the translation (an old one) has many flaws and is not up to Schwarz' standard; but fortunately, the simplicity of the subject matter and clarity of Tarrasch's writing renders this unimportant. The Game of Chess is primarily an introduction to chess for near-beginners, with material of increasing complexity later on in the book that would serve intermediate players as well. Tarrasch starts with a description of algebraic chess notation and basic mates, assuming only a knowledge of the rules on the reader's part. I would describe his teaching method as a "standard positions" approach, in that he believes that exposing the student to a great number of fundamental and essentially-recurring positions will develop his or her intuition, a process, in his words, "analogous to that a mother uses to teach her child to talk." For me, this immediately raised the question of why so few of the novice's books we see in our super-bookstores takes this approach. Remarkably, Tarrasch gives a clearer and better description of how chess is typically played than I see in our modern books, which tend to be full of broad advice and invalid generalities. One can easily see why he was considered the preeminent teacher of his time: he was not trying to fool anyone. The Games of Chess has three major sections, on the endgame, middlegame, and opening, followed by illustrative games. The endgame section is mostly filled with fundamental, "must-know" positions, and is written clearly and efficiently. The openings section, not surprisingly, is often dated and inaccurate; although on the whole, it contains mostly valid and instructive ideas, especially for the study of 1.e4 e5. Tarrasch's renowned dogmatism about openings is evident, including his insistence upon the inferiority of many time-proven Black defenses, so any teacher using this text would have to supplement or replace this section with more up-to-date material. The middlegame section best illustrates the standard-position approach, systematically enumerating standard combinations and attacks, standard techniques (pins, forks, etc.), standard tactics and tricks, and standard positional concepts. As John Hall says in his Introduction: "Other books try to be more general than specific: he presents a large number of typical situations, covering essentially all the important structures...a sort of 'hands-on approach.'" And Tarrasch himself says: "A good game of chess is decided in the middlegame...For the conduct of the middlegame, we have in the studies of the typical combinations and attacks, made ourselves familiar with the raw material. The player who carefully studies this colossal material, until he makes it his own, should be able to cope with any situation." Of course, chess has become far more complex and there are a lot more "typical structures" these days, not to mention that Tarrasch's phrase "should be able to cope with any situation" was terribly exaggerated even at the time he made it. But I have to say that you could do much worse with a novice student than to forget all those popular books and series and simply teach directly from this book. Chess has advanced a great deal, but looking through this book, I'm not convinced that chess pedagogy has done so, at least at the elementary level. To conclude my Tarrasch discussion, I want to say something about his famous "dogmatism." Tarrasch's popular historical image is that of a follower of Steinitz who rather dogmatically followed the latter's ideas while expanding them to embrace the virtues of quick development and space control. I think that any objective study of Tarrasch has to conclude that he was indeed more dogmatic than most players of his stature, not only in his extreme statements about openings, but in assessments of strategies and even of individual moves. On the other hand, he played moves he had earlier criticized, and didn't seem to take his own theories as seriously as Steinitz did when it came to practical play. He also tried to establish himself as an original contributor to chess theory, independent of Steinitz. An interesting passage from The Game of Chess addresses Steinitz's "strong" recommendation that, versus rook-pawn attacks such as h4-h5-h6, it was best to allow the pawn to advance to h6 and then play ...g6, after which the pawn at h6 would be weak in the endgame. Steinitz also warned against blocking the pawn's advance by means of ...h6, for fear of weakening the g6 square. Tarrasch proudly argues against this, asserting: "Therefore never allow an enemy rook pawn to advance to the sixth rank, but block the advance by playing your own rook pawn one or two squares forward-a principle first enunciated by the author and diametrically opposed to the teaching of Steinitz. On this point, as on many others, I had been obliged to contest the teachings of that great theoretician. Here are some examples to demonstrate the truth of my dictum..." [italics his]. Of course, the truth is that one sometimes allows such an advance and one sometimes blocks it. There are no valid "dicta" or principles about such matters. But it shows how determined that thinkers like Steinitz and Tarrasch were to put chess on a rigorous scientific basis, even to the extent of establishing rules for a particular type of pawn advance. To this day, our elementary texts are full of bogus guidelines about more important topics than rook pawn advances, so we should not feel too smug about such quaint arguments. It would be very interesting to compare the results of using Tarrasch's The Game of Chess as an elementary textbook with those of using our five best selling introductory books. I doubt that 70 years or so of added chess experience would prove to have benefited the latter.

GIUOCO PIANO

     The GIUOCO PIANO (known outside the English-Speaking world as the"Italian Game") is a fifteenth-century opening that has stood the test of time.The name means quiet, or mid, game in contrast to various gambits White can play.Yet this is misleading, as the type of game that arises depends on the temperament of the players involved.If White is an exponent of hand-to-hand combat he plays lines like the Moller Attack, trying to blast throught the centre.Those seeking quiet positional manoeuvres prefer the lines with d3 and c3, postponing agressive action until the middle game.Many of the world's best players use the opening occasionally, and several Grand Masters, such as Kudrin, use it routinely, in preference to the Ruy Lopez.

GIUOCO PIANO:

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5...