Start to Play a Chess Game

After you have learned the basics and rules, it's time to start to play a game! As you know you could randomly make a first move on a chess board, however there are strategies and principals for playing a chess game. Generally, a chess game has three phases - the opening, the middle game, and the end game. Here is a list of important principals for starting a game,

Control the Center

The following diagram illustrates the four center squares (e4, e5, d4, d5) of a chess board, marked by a "x".

The center squares in Chess are very important, whoever has the control of the center would definitely have some sort of advantages. It gives your pieces more mobilities and lots of attacking options. If you have a pawn at the center, your opponent won't be able to cramp your playing styles easily. Most of the games are started with an e4 or d4 move.

Development

The next important step in playing a chess game is development. In chess, development simply means that the pieces (Knights, Bishops and Queen) have left their original squares at the bank rank and move into squares on which they are well placed and ready to join the attack and defense. The following diagram shows the possible well developed position for white in a chess game,


During development phase, time is very important, whichever side has quickly developed the pieces has the initiative on attacking. In general, during development phase, it is undesirable to move the same piece twice as it slows down the development. Normally, it is considered that the development is complete if you have castled and the two Rooks are connecting to each other at the back rank.

King's Safety

Nothing is more important in Chess than the safety of your King. You loss the game if your king is checkmated. So it is absolutely vital to move your king to one the corners via castling. If the King is left in the center, it is subject to attacks by your opponents and in fact, lots of openings traps and tricks are are played based on the King is left in the center. On the other hand, if your opponent's King looks vulnerable in the center, you should quickly attack him before it can find a safe place.

How to Record Chess Moves?

Algebraic chess notation is used to record and describe the moves in a game of chess. It is now standard among all chess organizations and most books, magazines, and newspapers. The following diagram shows the layout of a chess board,

Each square on the chess board is marked by a Algebraic notation.

There are several advantages for recording chess moves,

• Replay or review your games to learn from your mistakes, you can do this with your teacher, a better player or a computer software.
  
• Re-set positions after illegal move sequences,
  
• Prove who is to move and what the position is,
• In the case the game is interrupted by an unforeseen events, like fire alarm, or the board was knocked down by accident, you can recover to the exact position and continue with the game later.

File and Rank

Each line of squares going up and down the board is called a file. Files are lettered with small letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h. The Kings are on the e-file while the Queens are on the d-file.

Each line of squares going from left to right across the board is called a rank. Ranks are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. The first rank is always where White sets up his major pieces; the eighth rank is where Black sets up his major pieces. At the start of the game, all your pawns are on the same rank.

Each square is identified by its file and rank. So at the start of a game White sets up his Queen on d1 square and Black sets up his Queen on d8 square.

Notation

Each piece in Chess has an abbreviation,

• King = K
• Queen = Q
• Rook = R
• Bishop = B
• Knight = N

There are so many pawns that no letter is used for a pawn.

There are some important symbols:

• x = takes or captures
• 0-0 = castling on the kingside or short castling
• 0-0-0 = castling on the queenside or long castling
• + = check
• # = checkmate, sometimes, it uses ++
  

Record The Move

Every time you move, you write the letter for the piece that moved followed by the name of the square it moved to. For example,

• Kd2 - K moves to d2 square
• Qg5 - Queen moves to g5 square
• Rd1 - Rook moves to d1 square
• Bg2 - Bishop moves to g2 square
• Nf3 - Knight moves to f3 square

When you capture with a piece, put an “x” between the name of the piece and capture square, regardless which the piece is on that square, for example,

• Qxd6 - Queen captures on d6 square
• Kxe2 - King captures on e2 square
• dxe5 - the d pawn captures on e5 square

In the case where two of the same pieces could move to the same square, then you need to use file or rank to differentiate the move.

In the diagram on the left, if you want to move the Knights e4 square, you need to write N3e4 which moves the Knight on c3 square to e4 square while N5e4 means moving the Knight on c5 to e4 square.

If you want to move the Rooks to d1 square, then write Rad1 to move the Rook on a1 square to d1 square or write Rfd1 to move the Rook on f1 square to d1 square.





When a pawn reaches the last rank (for White it's the 8th rank, for Black it's the 1st rank), the pawn can be promoted to a piece, you could record the move like this assuming a White pawn on e file is promoted,

• e8=Q - promote the pawn to a Queen
• e8=R - promote the pawn to a Rook
• e8=B - promote the pawn to a Bishop
• e8=N - promote the pawn to a Knight
  

Evaluation and Annotations

In Chess books and magazines, games are printed with some evaluations and annotations for teh readers. Here are a list of the special symbols used for this purpose,

• ? = weak move, mistake
• ?? = a major mistake or blunder
• ! = strong move
• !! = an excellent move
• !? - interesting move
• ?! - dubious move

An Example

The following shows an example of a game,

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Qe7 5.O-O d6 6.d4 Bb6
7.Bg5 f6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Nxg5 fxg5 10.Qh5+ Kd7 11.Bxg5 Qg7
12.Be6+ Kxe6 13.Qe8+ Nge7 14.d5#