Choosing Candidate Moves

8/10/2019 Choosing Candidate Moves

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Improve Your Tactical Play 6

Blow up your opponent's position tactically!

The calculation of variations

Index

Initial candidate movesPrioritising candidate movesSpotting good candidates- what do we want to invest our time in?!Beautiful combinationsWhy computers are better tactically

Initial candidate moves

Brainstorming is a useful technique in the process of analysing the initial candidatemoves in the position. It involves not rejecting moves because they appear very bad.Instead coldly and detachedly looking at all the possible moves in the currentsituation. By this process one can risk finding really creative looking moves that onewould not normally consider!

As an example of this, take the Barnet front page 2nd week puzzle position below:-

A seemingly insignificant "crazy move" to put in your candidate move list would beQf6!........can you see the implications of this? :-)

Assuming the position is deserving enough of a systematic tactical analysis, and onehas brainstormed many of the candidate moves available in the position, one needs

to go about finding out which ones are worthy of pursuit.
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Prioritising candidate moves

As human beings we need to prioritise the moves we look at because we cannot seemillions of moves per second.Moves which should be given priority in analysis of variations include :-

1) Moves which are forcing in nature , as there is less possibilities to examine for theopponent.2) Moves which are clearly linked with strategic goals/ our plans in the position, e.g.creating a passed pawn, or removing a king's defender. These are "logical" tacticswhich help further the positional goals of the situation and help to implement one'soverall game plan.

Given that the extent of a "brute force" approach is clearly limited by time constraintsand other practical constraints, there is therefore a clear need for prioritisingcandidate moves.

Postal chess may facilitiate a much more detailed investigation of the candidatemoves in a position. However in normal over the board play, a policy of filtering andprioritising after the initial round up of many candidate moves, and morefundamentally to play practical positional moves which are linked to your overallstrategic game plan [yes- you should have one of those!] is usually the mostpractical, effective way of thinking within the constraints of tournament time limits.

Spotting good candidates- what do we want to invest our time in?!

The identification of tactical elements and combinational motifs should haveemphasised the raison d'tre of potentially good combinative moves.

Candidate moves which seem to be logically related to for example exploiting pins orweaknesses around the opponent's king should be considered more carefully thanother complete random moves which may have been initially thought of in thebrainstorming process.

We have to use our experiences to guide prioritising moves. At the same time weshould leave creative room for the parodoxial decision of trying to appreciate thesignificance of the seemingly insignificant.

Without leaving this creative room, we will always be restricted in the choice of ourcandidate moves by our experiences and the apparent "rules". If you want to be agood combinative player, you must be prepared to break all the "rules" of the game!Think about giving up a queen for a pawn! You may find it does somethinginteresting like force a mate in 5! You may also get a brilliancy prize in your club'smagazine!

One has to get an instinctive feel for the most favourable "insignificant" moves. Theymay for example be more strongly linked with strategic implications such as openinga file. In which case, their insignificance may only be superficial. They are simply in

the realm of subtle resources which can turn the whole game to one's favour.


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Beautiful combinations

In calculating variations, beautiful hidden tactical resources may be revealed. Aspecial place is reserved for sacrificial combinations which may be revealed inanalysis. However one should not go all out to find a combination in every position.

Only if the position is ripe for it. Otherwise simply analyse the main variations whichsupport your main game plan and make sure you stay alive tactically!

It is pointless waste of time looking for a combination if there does not exist one inthe position. There needs to be jusification for looking for a combination. If we try andfind a combination in every position, we will probably find really unexpectedcombinations in 5% of games, but be losing on time in 90% of games. Computers onthe other hand being so fast, can be tactically turned on and analysing deeply everymove.

Why computers are better tactically

In filtering/ prioritising out moves, in 1 case out of 10, or 1 case out of 100, theseemingly completely random move, may have been the most appropriate move inthe position to play.

It is here humans will be losing ultimately to computers.We have to use our judgement and experience to filter.

We therefore have to accept we are going to be weaker tactically than computers.We have to take what's useful from the way computers analyse! (and dont get intotactical positions against them :-) )

The tactical clues which help one find combinations also act as our blind-spotbecause in one respect they guide us towards finding a combination more quickly.However in guiding us, they prejudice us from systematically analysing the all thecandidate moves in the position. Computers not being with this prejudice andguidance will simply use a brute force approach and look at moves which might notbe at all considered by us mere humans.

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Developing a winning combination

Chess combinations can be exceedingly beautiful and make one proud to be a chessplayer. Non-chess players will never understand the sense of satisfaction that isgained from playing a nice combination especially one which involves a sacrifice!

The combinational motifs or raison d'tre for combinations has been discussed underthetactical element assesment section previously.

Romanovsky is famous for his systemization of combinations. The ways and meansof the combination were categorised by Romanovsky as the ideas and themes.

These usually include a mixture of the following ingredients:-

The keys to create combinational achievements

Every chess player may at one time or another use the following tools to achievecombinational ends:-

Forcing moves, eg

A check (Patzer sees a check, gives a check is a popular expression)

A capture

A threat that must be parried

A decoy

A deflection

A discovered attack, eg discovered check or discovered attack on the queen

A Sacrifice! (Botvinnik argued in "Towards a definition of a combination", Botvinniks

Chess Activity Volume 1 that a combination is a forced variation with a sacrifice.

Quieter moves which may subtely assist in the combination, e.g

Waiting moves !

A Pin (Pin and win)
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Inteference

Square vacation

Line Opening

Combinational achievements to blow your trumpet about!

A successful combination should lead to a clear advantage for the player whoinitated it. The clear advantage could be expressed in terms of the following:-

A Checkmate or mating attack

A Material gain of some sort, eg:-

A double Attack winning material

A trapped piece

A Skewered piece

A pawn promotion

The combinational toolbox examined

Forc ing moves

Introduction

Forcing moves can be used to gain critical tempos which facilitate an unstoppableattack or win material. The opponents queen is often a good piece to gain temposfrom, in order to implement a winning attack. It is a highly "threat-sensitive" piece asa logical consequence of it's high material value.

Forcing moves can also be used to simply win material by force from seemingly non-dangerous positions. This is one of the key reasons that they should be given priorityin the calculation of variations.

Examples


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Forcing moves starting with pawn sac Material gain

Fischer - Benko, Yugoslavia 1959

Fischer exploits the position of the threat-sensitive queen on c5 to gain time for a

very strong attack with e5!

The game continuation was dxe5 15.Bxf6 (another forcing move) gxf6 16.Nce4(gaining the tempo) Qd4 17.Qh5 Nxb3 18.Qh6 exf4 19.Nh5 f5 20.Rad1 Qe521.Nef6+ Bxf6 22.Nxf6+ Qxf6 23.Qxf6 Nc5 24.Qg5+ Kh8 25.Qe7 Ba6 26.Qxc5 Bxf127.Rxf1 1-0

Forcing moves Material gain(trapped queen)


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Tal-Larsen Reykjavik 1957

An unsuspecting Larsen has just played Rac8. With 2 forcing moves, White wins theblack queen by force with b4! Qa4 and Ra3. Larsen played Rxd5 and eventually lost.

Forcing moves Material gain

Tal-Larsen, Portoroz 1958

Here Tal unleashed a series of forcing moves which ended up winning material. Tal

played e5! The continuation was dxe5 20.Ne4 0-0-0 21.Ng3 Qg4 22.Nxe5 Qh423.Qc3+ Kb8 24.Nxd7+ 1-0


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Forcing move(Queen sac) Material gain through a knight folk

Tal-Tringov, Munich 1958

This example shows that one should definitely consider apparent queen sacrifices, if

they are forcing. Tal play Qxd7+ which wins a piece because after Kxd7 Nc5 winsthe black queen.

Decoys/ Deflect ions

Effective decoys/deflections within a middlegame context are often used to attractkey defensive pieces away from their critical tasks. These usually involve defendingthe opponent's king in some way. But decoys can occur in the endgame, for example

an outside passed pawn can be used to decoy the opponent's king so that anotherpawn may queen.

Examples

Decoy (Rook sac) Mating attack/ winning material by force


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Tal - Veder, Riga 1951

Here the rook on d7 is helping defend the g7 square. Tal played Re1!! attempting tolure the rook away from this defensive task. His opponent played Qc5 and lostquickly after Be6. However if Rxe1, there is a forced mate, eg Rxe1 Nf6+ Kh8 hxg7+mating, or in this line if Kf8 instead of Kh8 then hxg7+ Ke7 Ne4+ Ke8 Nd6 mate.

Deflection Material gain (the black queen)

Tal-Benko, Amsterdam 1964

Here Tal played the Rd8+! deflecting the black queen to d8 allowing Nxf7+ folkingthe black queen and king.


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Line Opening

Opening lines of attack against the opponents king is like creating new roads!. Thesenew roads can be used to develop unresistable pressure.

Examples of Line Opening

Line Opening Winning attack

Spassky-Fischer 1992

Here Fischer played e5!, and after white played dxe6 the a1-h8 diagonal wasopened up for exploitation with Bc6! increasing the pressure on White's position. Thegame continued Kf1 Bxf3 0-1


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Line opening (Pawn sac) Strong king attack

Tal-Teslenko URS 1964

Here Tal was intent on opening up the b2-h8 diagonal against the black king. Thepreliminary to this move was g4!. The game continued:- Be3 18.gxf5 exf5 19.e6Bxe6 20.Ng5 Bd7 21.Qh5 h6 22.Qg6 1-0

Pins

Forcing move(Bishop sac) Material gain (queen)

Fischer vs Reshevsky New York ch, 1958


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Here Fischer exploits a latent subtle pin on the d file, with Bxf7+!! and after Kxf7 Ne6Fischer trapped Reshevsky's queen.

Discovered attack

Forcing move(Pawn sac) Material gain (White queen)

Huebner vs Kasparov, Koln 1992

An unsuspecting Huebner played Bd3 here, and Kasparov unleashed the deadly f5!with the continuation Qxf5 Nf6 winning white's trapped queen 0-1
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Choosing Candidate Moves

Introduction

How do you choose a candidate move?

When you play a game of chess you always try to play the strongest move but

after the game you may engage in some analysis with a strong chess engine

and find that although there are many variations you could have played that

fit your style of play and most of your moves while they may have been

absolutely sound were not the engines first choice, they were not candidate

moves.

A candidate move is a single move for each possible variation of the positionyou want to play that a strong player or strong chess engine gives to it, it's

highest rating. And all the rating points that it used to determine that move

are based on many factors that you may not have even considered.

This move is considered a candidate move because it is the strongest and most

sound for a variety of reasons. Its those reasons that you should be most

concerned with. Because once you have mastered what those reasons are that

make up a candidate move you will be playing more skillfully.

This page on determining a candidate move is going to help you organize yourthinking and basic knowledge towards that goal of the concepts that make up

the decision making process of how to choose a candidate move.

If you choose not to read this page for what ever reasons and procrastinate

that you don't need such knowledge then consider this.

It you are serious about increasing your chess skills just how do you think you

are going to achieve it? By simply playing more games maybe? Is that the way

the masters achieved their rating? Paying a coach perhaps to help you

increase your chess skills? Of course if you don't care about your rating andonly play for its entertainment value then I suggest you leave our club because

you are never going to be an asset here.

Maybe you feel that your understanding of the game is sufficient for now. So

why work so hard to improve it. But then you have to ask yourself.

So how much has my rating improved?


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In the last three months, six months or a year? Why has your rating failed to

improve significantly? With all your knowledge gained in playing games why

has your ability not increased significantly also?

Why does your ability not increase in proportion to the number of games you

play?

I don't think I have to spell it out for you, the answer is obvious. Important

chess knowledge required to increase chess skills is not obtained in playing

games, it only comes from the hard work of study.

It's the equivalent to fixing a racing car to win races that doesn't have an

engine.

You can put on the most expensive wax and polish the exterior for hours and

hours and make it shine with a high gloss, but with out a powerful engine it'snot going anywhere. Or if it does have a small puny engine its not going to go

very fast or win any races either.

This analogy is similar to the engine in a chess program like Fritz. With out

that engine Fritz would be near worthless, not able to analyze or calculate

anything. Just a simple viewer like chess assistant, SCID or chessbase. This

engine makes all the difference in the world to a chess program like Fritz ,

and those engines are constantly being improved on each time a new version

of the chess program comes out.

How powerful is your chess engine? Are you actively trying to improve its

power, better understanding of chess and calculating abilities too?

What kind of engine have you? Does it have any special abilities? Consider the

unique playing style of the Fritz Engine of Junior 9. According to its authors,

it is now a reigning computer chess world champion in all categories.

This is because Junior is different from all other programs in its search

strategies and evaluations function. This gives the program a very distinctive

"STYLE" of play. The special strength of Junior is its understanding ofcompensation. This makes the program an extraordinarily effective tool for

analyzing sharp and dynamic positions especially those involving the sacrifice

of material. It is the program that shocked Garry Kasparov with its famous

bishop sacrifice on h2. It's the program that is most likely to correctly

understand the compensation involved, both in the execution of a sacrifice and

the defense against it.

Have you tried to develop a distinctive style of play also? In our page ofHow

to Develop a Opening Repertoire is a discussion on the styles of the top GMs

past and present.
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The popular styles of the masters.

Attacking, Positional, Defensive, Unorthodox, Conservative, Tenacious fierce

defender, Not overly aggressive, let opponents weaken their position before

attacking and stresses defense, Vigorous and combinative, Loves mayhem,

Fearless attacks and deep understanding of the endgame.

Further consider two players, one can see four moves ahead and has little

basic or positional knowledge of the game and the other that can see only two

moves ahead and has spent the time to obtain extensive basic chess knowledge

and positional knowledge, who will win the vast majority of the games?

This is a key lesson that all the time spent in acquiring the ability to see

several moves ahead are worthless when compared to see only a few moves

ahead but to have extensive basics chess principle knowledge to ensure youare making more sound candidate moves that will guide you to a winning

game.

How do you choose a best move?

Is there some simple method by which you can use to determine a so called

best move or candidate move?

Proponents who have tried to simplify the choices and come up with a solidunified theory that one can use in any position argue that to actively promote

an advantage in a position can involve so many different concepts that it is

almost impossible to try to state only one methods above all the others. Yet

there are sound and logical ideas that one can use that can simplify the

process.

Given all the choices to move in any chess position can be a daunting task. So

what can one use to guide them into the right decision?

Just like there may be no single one best move given in any position, there alsomay not be no single idea one can use to find one, but your guide lines can be

the same as those that strong players use if you care to study what those guide

lines should be.

These guide lines are those that use the basic principles of chess and may or

may not consist of basic rules for less advanced players. As one's experience

grows, one learns that some rules are meant to be broken. For example the old

rule that of always capture with a pawn towards the center is widely followed,

but a good 30 percent of the time it is correct to capture away from the center.

The trick of course is to know when and more importantly why to do so.


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Other rules such as avoid doubled pawns, castle as early as possible, develop

knights before bishops, etc can also be suspect.

However that does not mean that there are not certain basic principles that

can never be broken and not followed as sound guidelines.

The Secrets of Calculation

Many say that chess is 99 percent tactic, and some say it is not, it is 99 percent

calculation. It's the technical and practical aspect of how to think ahead and

select candidate moves, the evaluation of end game positions and finding the

proper move order. We have a page on the use of calculation to find out more

information on using it.

Calculation is the working out of variations without moving the piecesphysically. There are positions that have a purely tactical nature and in such

situations the player's ability to calculate variations accurately can take on

great importance. It may be based on an imbalance in order to form a plan

and from that plan calculate candidate moves that lead up to some advantage

for you or it may be involved in calculating the importance of a threat from

your opponent. If your calculations show that the threat does not really

present a serious problem then maybe your planed combination will be more

decisive to go through with rather than try to defend against your opponent's

plans of attack.

If your planed combination involves a sacrifice, it is then a calculable series of

moves to see if it leads to material or positional gains and can not be made

with out a through calculation first being made.

The combination you may be calculating may be a sacrifice combined with a

forced sequence of moves, which exploits specific peculiarities of the position

in the hope of attaining a certain goal or mate.

We know that this is the master's main tool in selecting their so called best

move or candidate moves. But if your not a master, then what?

True you can use the principles of calculation and you should do so before you

venture into unknown waters but to gain the use of calculating effectively you

should first train your combinative vision and study the games of such skilled

attacking players as Alekhine, Tal, Kasparov and Fischer. Follow their

opening moves and then cover up the rest of the game and endeavor to figure

out all the rest of the moves. You should also try to figure out what their plans

are based on, the imbalances or weakness that they are trying to exploit if any

exist.
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There are many books on how to play winning chess and most are based on

how the masters think and how their games were won by them skillfully

calculating ahead. But then there are also strong playing masters like Judit

Polgar who said after winning a tough game against another GM, "I just

trusted my institution to select the winning move and it proved to be the rightchoice."

The point here is that in order to choose a so called best move you do need

guide lines in choosing rather than just to make moves based on what you

may think is a good move and may be looking a move or two ahead. That is

probably how most average players make their decisions, they just think a

good tactical move is based on looking a move or two ahead, but is it?

Making sound moves that are going to give you a long term advantage is more

than that, they must be based on solid basic chess principles.

Strong chess programs don't have to have any knowledge of sound basic chess

principles if they can look 15 or more moves ahead in a billionth of a second.

But humans can't do that, they need some practical methods to guide them.

Let us look at some of these basic principles of chess that you can use to make

good moves.

It's been found by people who were interested in how strong players play that

the stronger a player is the more knowledge he has about pawn levers. Inextensive testing of strong players the more a player knows about the basic

principles of pawn levers the better is his play.

Pawn Levers

A pawn lever is pawns move which:

1. Offers to trade itself and

2. Leads to an ultimate improvement in the pawn structure of the side playing

it and or3. Damages the opponent's pawn structure.

So we notice that number three gives us a basic chess principle to guide us in

our choice of moves in that to damage your opponent's pawn structure may be

a good choice in choosing a candidate move. Let us put that down in our list of

sound basic principles to guide us. Also note that the calculation of moves is

not a basic chess principle, rather it is a method of determining what a move

may lead to and to determine a move order especially important in the end

game.

1. Damage opponent's pawn structure.
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We have a page on Pawn Levers to give you more valuable information on

this subject. So your choice of moves could be based on this basic information

about Pawn Levers if you care to study it and learn more about this valuable

tool.

If you own a strong chess program like Fritz you may be amazed at all the

basic principles that Fritz can expound on in the option Explain All Moves.

Recently in the analysis mode in Fritz to see if I could find another good

opening plan for The Queen's Gambit D37, I was considering the options of

either advancing a pawn or of taking the adjacent pawn and Fritz gave me 43

choices in the Explain All moves box.

Some of the moves were, Is not bad, is not wrong, is playable, is ok, is good, is

fine, etc. But other choices were much more meaningful. Like increasespressure on c6, overprotects d4, controls g4.

Others near the bottom of the list were, is wrong, is bad, loses material, gets

refuted, is a weak move, aimless, not to the point. Is less strong, etc,

But there were others choices that actually gave advice based on sound basic

chess principles that could be useful and solid advice for most any position

consideration.

These were advice suggestions that we need to note on our list of basic chessprinciples to use for our Basic Guideline list.

Weakens the King Safety, Increases the center control, the bishop has less

influence here.

But the one move it suggested that I thought was the most significant was, a5!

"White gets more space!"

Is not that a good sound basic principle we find in our list of openingprinciples that is in our training pages? Basic principles teach us that one of

the goals in the opening is the struggle for more space.

"White gets more space" is our Candidate Move

Its our candidate move because its based on sound basic chess principles.

In our page ofWinning with the Point Count System System we learned

that Simply squeezing your opponent to death is good way to win games. But
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positive factors in that it gains space, and takes control of important key

squares in the center of the board,

Ideally your plan in the Queen pawn opening is to put pawns on d4 and e4 to

control the center. Develop your Kings Bishop and Knight and castle early.

These are the positive ideas. The preventive ideas are to stop Black from

doing the same, to shift the equilibrium in your favor.

So now your plan is how to try to stop Black from doing the same. If Black

moves e6. You play d4 to increase your control on the center and maintain

your advantage. Black plays d5 and you take it with exd5.. Black takes back

with his Queen. What should be your next move?

If you follow your chess basic principles list you should develop your Knightwith tempo and attack the Black Queen making a forcing move. Again this is

not only a good forcing move but a candidate move as well based on a chess

principle of developing knights before Bishops. Now White is about to fall into

a trap because he failed to follow opening basics of not moving out your

Queen early in the opening moves and losing tempo of developing your pieces

as well.

Black has to respond to this move by moving his Queen to prevent capture,

but instead Black decides to pin the Knight against the King with his dark

Bishop from e8 to b4. White counters to relieve the pin with Bishop to d2.Black must now move his Queen from d5 or lose it. He moves it to c6. White

attacks the Bishop with pawn to a3. Black blunders and decides he does not

want to lose his Bishop and moves his bishop to a5 . and now Black is about to

lose his Queen with a vicious pin of White's light square Bishop on e1 to b5.

Pinning the Black Queen on c6 to his King, with the White knight on c3

holding the White Bishop's pin. and with that decisive move Black resigns

with the loss of his Queen so early in the game.

You now can see that by White following basic chess principles he gained an

advantage that was decisive in wining the game for him in just the first 6

opening moves of the game.

Once you have gained control of the center you will want to observe other

very important basic chess concepts of basic opening principles and develop

your pieces to key squares for their maximum effectiveness. You will want to

strengthen any advantage you have made by developing your pieces and to

strengthen your control on the center however small it may be. One way to do

this is to always try to maintain at least one pawn in the center of the board.


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As you now can see all of the above ideas can be used for you to make a plan

on how to decide as to what your candidate moves should be in the opening. If

you just use this one simple idea, no longer will you have to make decisions

that are not based on sound chess principles concepts. And you will have a

guide towards nullifying your opponents advantages.

Basic Positive Chess Principles List.

Use this list to gain an advantage.

Control of the Center.

Strong outpost station

Superior development

Gaining space.

Greater space

Bishop-pair

Rook(s) on a open file

Rook(s) on a half open file

Rook(s) on the seventh rank

Passed pawn

Protected passed pawn

Outside passed pawn

Advanced pawn

Advanced pawn chainBetter king position (castled king)

Pawn Lever advantage

Knight on Outpost advantage

Bishop(s) on diagonal

Strong outpost station

Taking Control of useful open file

Qualitative pawn majority

Take contro of a key square

Two Bishop Advantage

Taking the InitiativeCastled King

Gain a central pawn majority.

Gain a Queenside pawn majority.

Gain a Kingside pawn majority.

Make a plan and follow it and try to simultaneously try

to stop the plans of the enemy.

Always play in the center because that is the most

important area of the board.

Try to gain a spatial plus in the center.


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Change bad bishops into good bishops,by moving pawns

out of their way.

Basic Negative Chess

Principles List

Use this list to thwart your opponent's advantages.

By gaining the initiative, attacking, damaging his pawn

structure taking away his space,

limiting his piece movement, exposing his castled king,

creating holes, creating weak

squares and using outposts for your pieces, you are

creating an imbalance in your favor

and gaining the advantage.

Prevent your opponent from expanding on the Queenside

or Kingside.

---- Weak Pawns----

1. Backward pawns

2. Doubled pawn

3. Isolated pawn

4. Hanging pawns

5. Hanging phalanx


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6. Crippled majority wing

7. Blockaded Pawn

----Weak Squares----

1. "Weak square complex"

2. Holes for outposts

Exposed Castled King

Compromised King-side protection

Restricted Knight (Anti- Knight Moves)

Lacking Initiative

Bad Bishop

Cramped position

Limited Piece mobility

Undeveloped Pieces

So now our Guideline list is shaping up into some good useful basic advice for

our use in determining candidate moves.

Our Basic Guideline

list.

1. Damage opponent's pawn structure.

2. Improve your pawn structure.

3. Gain space


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4. Gain control of the center and

increase center control.

5. Weakening king safety moves, either

for you not to do or to your opponent.6. Bishops on the long diagonals to

increase their influence.

7. Rooks on open files or half open

files.

8. Develop strong outpost stations.

9. Develop a passed pawn

10. Develop a outside passed pawn

11. Develop a protected passed pawn.

12. Better King position (Castled King)

13. Offside pawn majority

14. Superior Development.

15. Rooks on the seventh rank.

16. Avoid weak squares.

17. Fast development of all your pieces.

18. Mobilize all of your pieces asrapidly as possible.

19. Create an imbalance in your

opponent's camp.

20. Take control of weak squares, files

and ranks.

21. Don't move a piece twice before you

have development of all your pieces.22. Don't place a piece so that it blocks

the path of another piece or of

a center pawn.

23. Don't move a piece to a square from

which your opponent can drive it away

with a move that furthers his own

development and impedes yours.


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From the basic principle of not

moving a piece twice in the opening

moves.

24. Don't make unnecessary pawn movesthat weaken your pawn structure.

25. Avoid having your own pawns on the

same color as your bishop.

26. Always try to maintain at least one

pawn in the center of the board.

27. Avoid Backward pawns.

28. Avoid Doubled pawns.

29. Seek passed pawns.

30. Seek a two Bishop advantage

31. Limiting the mobility of pawns.

32. Limiting the mobility of pieces.

(Anti-Knight moves)

33. Taking the initiative.

34. Gaining tempo

35. Using the principle of two weaknessesfor an advantage.

36. Avoid making imbalances in your camp.

37. Always take towards the center.

(Remember that most imbalances are caused

by pawn moves)

So now you have some good guidelines to use to help you decide on your

candidate moves. Combine these guidelines with good tactical combinations,

endgame theory and a little strategy and you will have a winning combination

that will be hard to beat by your opponents.

You must try to understand the logic of every move in your analysis of the

masters play. You must ask yourself before you move as to whether this move

is good or bad based on your knowledge of Our Basic Guideline list that isbased on solid basic chess principles. Use the elements of time, force, space


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and pawn structure. Plan ahead with a strategy plan based on time tested

opening principles of play. Study and use sound basic principles of Strategy

for long term advantage play.

As I keep saying, out of sight is out of mind. So if you want to really use and

remember all of these basic guidelines as you play, you should print out Our

Basic Guideline list and paste it on some stiff cardboard and put it in plain

sight on your desktop to review every day.

Remember that simply putting it in a file in your computer to look at from

time to time is still out of sight and out of mind and as such you probably will

never again look at it.

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Choosing Candidate Moves

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