Chess in the middle
Learned how the pieces move and how to position them in the opening game? But don’t know what more to do? Does the game get out of hand once you have to go on the offensive or defend your pieces? Can’t figure out exactly which strategy
to apply? Well you need not panic and hold your head in your hands because we have just the right anecdote that will make life easy for you. We are going to discuss the way to play chess once you are in the middlegame.
The first thing to do is to develop an understanding of the middlegame. There will be no announcement made during the game that will mark the end of the opening game and indicate the start of the middlegame. It is a slow transition
that you need to realize is taking place while you play. Essentially, you have entered the middlegame once the pieces are all positioned and you and your opponent are looking for ways to make a capture. There are certain concepts worth understanding if you
need to be effective in the middlegame. As Reuben Fine describes in his book, “The Middlegame in Chess”, three factors are of utmost importance. These are king safety, force and mobility. We will discuss each one of them separately.
If you have mastered the opening game you would know that it is best to make your king safe in that phase of chess. More often than not, the ideal way to do this is by castling. While playing the middle game, your first priority should
be the safety of the king; otherwise, an unprotected king just becomes a liability. If the king is safe, you can concentrate on attacking maneuvers and defensive strategies effectively.
Now we will come on to the concept of force. This term can be alternatively used for material. The middle game aims to achieve any sort of material advantage. If the game reaches the end game stage, material advantage can be a decisive
factor in winning the match. Usually, middlegame proceeds with the players making trade-offs between equally valued pieces, such as an exchange between a bishop and a knight. If you are up against a strong opponent, it gets difficult to capture pieces without
losing them yourself. It is also difficult to make a trade-off by sacrificing a lesser valued piece in exchange of a more valued one, for example, capturing a rook by sacrificing a bishop. A player can only be forceful and capture material if his/her position
offers mobility. It lays the framework for good attacking maneuvers. Mobility is determined by factors such as pawn structure and secures outposts for pieces.
Having said that, there are different ways in which middlegame can be played depending on how the opening game has ended. In case the kings are castled and the queens are uncaptured, the middlegame can be aggressive as both the players
would want to make direct attacks at the king. If a strong pawn structure has developed, then the game will be concentrated towards that side of the board where the network offers more mobility. Lastly, a strong material advantage will give confidence to a
player to bring the contest to the endgame stage by trading material.
Eugene Alexandrovich Znosko-Borovsky, a Russian chessmaster defines the middlegame in the following words,
“The middlegame, i repeat is chess itself; chess with all its possibilities, its attacks, defenses, sacrifices, etc.”
These were the basic middlegame concepts that you needed to know in order to improve your chess performance. But they won’t be of any value if you do not practice regularly. So go on ahead and sharpen your skills on a chess board.
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