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Are you learning to play chess? Do you want to improve your chances of victory in your training games? Or even in tournaments? You are in the right place! Here we have the best chess strategy tips for beginners. We’ll help you get to know and understand basic chess tactics.
Here Are Our Best Beginner Chess Tips:
Control the Center of the Board Throughout the Game
This is one of the most important chess strategy tips for beginners to learn. The center is the most important section of the board since your pieces can pretty much have access to the whole board when they are correctly located in the center.
That’s the reason why this strategic principle is so important, and it has been proven over and over by the best players in the world. These players always try to keep their pieces adding pressure to the center.
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Always develop all your pieces as quickly as possible.
Developing your pieces quickly is also a very important chess strategy since your pieces are like your army, they are the ones that will help you dominate the board, attack the enemy, and eventually help you win the games.
Not developing your pieces quickly can be a very serious mistake. By not developing your pieces quickly you might be allowing your opponents to take more space on the board. They could quickly swap you off of the board.
Try not to move the same piece multiple times in the opening.
Not moving the same piece multiple times in the opening goes along with the concept of developing your pieces quickly. This is because by moving the same piece multiple times, you allow your opponent to develop several pieces much faster.
There are occasions on which you’ll need to move the same piece multiple times in order to avoid losing the piece or something else. But this principle still needs to be kept in mind at all times.
- Interested in chess strategy? Check out these 8 useful examples!
Castle Early
One of the main chess tactics is to always keep your king in a safe position, while you try to create weaknesses around your opponent’s king if it’s possible.
That’s the reason why you should always castle your king as soon as possible. That way, it moves away from the center, which is the area of the board where most of the action usually takes place. It also helps you bring your rooks to the center more quickly.
Don’t move your queen too soon.
Not moving the queen too early in the game is one of the most important chess strategy tips for beginners. Most beginners try to move the queen too early in order to create mating threats on f7 or f2.
These threats are usually not real and the player who moved the queen usually loses several tempos on trying to get the queen back to a safe square.
You’ve probably heard this many times before. But “don’t move your queen too early in the game” is a rule that can be omitted sometimes. For example, if your opponent makes a huge mistake that you can punish immediately by starting an attack with your queen.
Connect your rooks and place them on the columns that will be open.
The rooks are usually the most difficult pieces to activate. This is because they can only move horizontally and vertically. It’s not easy to move these heavy pieces when there are not open columns.
That’s one the reasons why castling your king early is very important. It helps you bring one of the rooks closer to the center of the board.
You should also always try to anticipate which columns are the ones that are most likely to be opened during the game, so that you are the first one to take advantage of the open columns with your own rooks.
Think twice before moving your pawns. They can’t go back.
As you already know, pawns can only move forward. That’s the reason why this is a fundamental chess strategy for players of all levels, not only for beginners.
Another very important chess strategy tip is that pawns are the pieces with more limitations when it comes to mobility. So pawns are always very important for determining the nature of the position and the plans that each player should follow.
If you have a bad piece, try to exchange it very quickly.
Being able to identify when any particular piece doesn’t have a bright future is a very important aspect of chess strategy at all levels. This actually makes a difference between novice players and masters.
When a bishop is blocked by its own pawns because they are located on squares of the bishop’s same color, usually the bishop is considered to be a bad piece. It’s a wise decision to exchange it with another piece of the same value whenever it’s possible.
- Wait! Before you continue, check out The Anna Rudolf Method – Smash the Barriers to your Chess Success.
Bishops tend to be better pieces than knights when the position is wide open. Knights tend to be better pieces in closed positions because they are the only ones that can jump over other pieces.
Check out the following video in which GM Damian Lemos provides some valuable chess strategy tips for beginners:
Also check out: Positional Chess Strategy – The Grandmaster’s Positional Understanding
Why Is It Important to Learn These Beginner Chess Tips?
Many beginner chess players suffer frustrating experiences during their first chess games. They get mated quickly. Or lose control of their positions without even recognizing what happened. Or stalemate their opponents with many extra pieces, throwing away a win for only a draw.
Every chess player remembers the days when he or she tried to capture as many pieces as possible without any significant clue about how to checkmate the opponent with all the extra pieces.
- Want to learn more about chess openings? Check out this article: Best Chess Openings – A Definitive Guide.
These situations can be very discouraging, especially for children getting started on a chess career. Following the above-mentioned chess strategy tips for beginners can help you avoid them.

Taking into account these beginner chess tactics, the Italian game for White with 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 and the Sicilian Defense for Black with 1. e4 c5 are pretty easy openings that follow very logical patterns. They are easy to understand for beginners.
Chess Strategy Training
Chess tactics often decide the chess games of players of all levels. For that reason, one of our main chess strategy tips for beginners is to start getting to know tactical themes like pins, forks, double attacks, and discovered checks right from the beginning of your chess career.
hey i’m new at chess and found these tips really helpful!
For a beginner like me who has played for couple years and learned the basics of how the pieces moved and protecting them and being fascinated by Chess ever since I really appreciate the video and it should improve my openings.
Am a beginner, am 14 and we are having our chess finals tomorrow and I was choosen for my house, what are the moves and what will I do
There is a lot of jargon here that eliminates beginners right out of the gate… I have no clue what developing a piece even means let alone castling my king! 🤷🏼♀️
hi jess have you tried a computer simulated chess game with a “game+optional tutorial guide”?This is the method I am currently using.I will say using the game+ optional tutorial guide method has helped me a lot.I also had a friend who was able to show me a thing or two about chess.Though I don’t think anything will beat having a friend who can help you.when it comes to playing chess I like to think I am of the fun, easy going, simple minded type.best wishes to you jess, I would also like to add a thank you to all here who has shared their advice,brian spencer
Awesome! I’m aspiring to learn more about playing chess. Found this helpful. Thanks!
As you may know, I’m a chess player ( I don’t expect all of you to know me ) and I’m pretty rusty about mid games and endgames as well. I played a lot of games and I need more tips about mid and end games. Which would be the best website to look at?
Lol
Black queen in blocking white queen from the black king. Black cannot move the queen without removing white queen.
I have a question about the pin example. If White moves Rc1, why cant black just take the rook to open the escape route? I think it would still end in defeat after a few turns as black loses the queen and only has a Rook and knight left to defend. Thanks in advance for answering my question.
Hello Dominic! Black wouldn’t be able to take white’s Rook on c1 because moving the Queen along the c file would mean leaving his King in check by the Queen on b4 (Illegal move).
any ways to quickly knock out your oppenent?
What about a left hook? 😉
that would de try
Yah I was wondering about what to do when the queen does apply pressure and you can’t stop it