Best Chess Strategy Tips for Beginners

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

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.

Chess Notation: Learn How to Write Down Chess Moves

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.

Remember, every great chess player started out as a beginner. To go further in chess be sure to read this educational guide on what it takes to become a chess grandmaster.

The Ultimate Guide to Become a Chess Grandmaster