How to know when to trade?

Hi,

I've been playing for a few months now (around full time work) and got to a point where I can't seem to recognize how to break up the game past the opening.

It goes a little something like this:

Both the opponent and I move pieces making sure everything is protected and claiming ground up the board. There's a stale mate of knights can't jump around because pawns are covering all the squares. Bishops are kinda only staring down half the board as pawns are in the way. 

And then from there, its random what pawns are exchanged and how pieces come to the rescue and get caught in a fork/exchange.

It's repeating though. It's always this "stale mate" feeling mid-game, but when I look back at GM games, they are always exchanging early and in wild ways. For example, I see their bishops flying out early exchanging the enemy bishop on the back line, or a nicely outposted Knight in the centre exchanging itself for another knight tucked away behind enemy lines or on the side. I can't figure out why they do these exchanges. Can anyone shed some light?

Thanks.

It's generally about the activity or potential activity of the pieces being exchanged. 

For example if your opponent has a nice active knight in the centre it may make sense to exchange it for your knight which is not so active. If your opponent has a daft looking knight on the edge of the board it may make sense to avoid exchanging as this will solve a problem for them.

Unfortunately it’s a lot of “it depends” and context via specific positions is needed to determine motive and application of some chess idea. A broad stroke answer is going to be more or less vague and unhelpful to you I believe. Can you post some examples that you’re unsure why a trade was done or what piece(s) should be aimed to trade off and why?

-Jordan

Also, if you are winning, try to trade down material into a winning endgame (but don't trade down until you have a knight when you have no pawn at all!)

If you are losing, you should aim to hang on to your material.

This is a general rule of thumb only and as Horse and JG have mentioned, it will depend on the demographics of the position.

@1

"I can't figure out why they do these exchanges."
++ The general rule is to try and exchange your worst piece for his best piece.
Exchange your bad bishop on the color of your pawns for his good bishop not on the color of his pawns.
Exchange your wing pawn for his central pawn.
Exchange your knight on the rim for his central knight.
Exchange your passive piece for his active piece.
Exchange your knight for his bishop.

Those are two very different questions because GMs break the rules (so to speak) all the time. First learn the basic ideas, then later (much later) learn when you can break them.

Ok, so what are the basic ideas... that's hard to answer without a position, but I'll try to give some general idea. A piece tends to be valuable when:

 - It is mobile (has many squares it can move it
 - It is at least somewhat centralized (so it can attack or defend in any quadrant)
 - It is defended
 - It can't be easily chased away
 - It is in contact with something important (like a weak pawn or squares near a king).

So the simple answer is you try to make favorable trades. Knight takes knight is a good idea if their knight is centralized and defended and helping attack your king while your knight is not as mobile and doesn't have any attacking prospects.

I'll give the more advanced answer after this... but as much as you probably wont like it, I think the correct answer to this is:  "find ways to make 1 move threats." If you make enough simple 1 move threats, your opponent will miss a few, and so you'll win material... obviously this is not how advanced players play, but I don't think it's possible to skip this stage of development... because if you can't find one move threats then how can you do anything more advanced?

Ok, the more advanced answer is that when both players have all 8 pawns it's very hard for any of your pieces to infiltrate onto your opponent's side of the board. Whether queenside, center, or kingside, you'll usually need to infiltrate with 2 or 3 pieces before you can start overwhelming defenses... so the question becomes 1) how to get rid of pawns and 2) which pawns should I get rid of (i.e. asking do I want to play on the queenside, center, or kingside).

The answer to "how?" is that you play a pawn break. A "pawn break" is when you move your pawn to attack an enemy pawn that can't move foward... in other words either they will take your pawn, or you will take theirs. After the pawns are traded it will open files, ranks, and diagonals that the other pieces can use to infiltrate.

The answer to "where?" is you want to attack in the area where your main pawn chain "points" For example in the pawn structure below, as white, you want to seek play on the kingside.

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In general there are two ways to do that. First is you play a pawn break like I discussed. For example pushing the f pawn up to f5 to trade pawns and open your f file.

The other way is to use non-pawns, attacking black's kingside with knights, bishops, your queen, and sometimes you'll have to sacrifice one of them to remove the opponent's pawn cover.

Ok that was a lot, let's get back to the basics.

Especially during the first 10 moves, it's very useful to let your opponent initiate trades, because when you recapture, it will pull your pieces to move active squares. Here's an example.

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So to summarize the advice:
 - Try to avoid initiating equal exchanges, especially during the first 10 moves. Of course you can capture if you'll win something, and of course you should recapture if your opponent captures first, but don't be the one to initiate equal exchanges.
- Exchange more valuable knights or bishops for less valuable knights or bishops, ... being mobile and centralized tends to give pieces more value.
 - In the middlegame try to make one move threats. Your opponent will eventually miss something.
 - A more advanced / correct middlegame strategy is to play a pawn break in an area where you have a natural advantage (like a space advantage thanks to your main pawn chain), and then activate your pieces in that area to overwhelm defenders.

Wow, thank you so much for the detailed responses. llama36, that was an amazing reply, thank you!

My knowledge was up to the point of knowing that piece values aren't their point worth but as you all stated, how mobile, outposted, enabled etc they are. This I fully understood. I have definitely learned about having your pieces pulled out of good positions and not initiating equal trades yourself.

I'm still struggling to understand this in a pawn structure, for example, when does a pawn ignore to take another pawn and simple march past it. But I think I'm starting to understand this now and that in a context really depends on the value in passing the pawn versus taking it and potentially unlinking/isolating pawns.

The example of a trade of bishop early was this Giri versus Gukesh in the Tata: https://en.chessbase.com/post/tata-steel-chess-2023-r2 - White move 6, Bxf6, takes the knight and Queen takes bishop. But now that I look closely, if that knight was to jump on to e4, it would be a pain in the butt, with nothing threating it and strong in the centre. So I can understand why the bishop decided to kill it at that point. Is this correct?

I hope this isn't hijacking the thread, but, can anyone point me to a book that will teach me mid-game/end-game tactics for someone who has only been playing for a month? (980 rated at the moment in Daily games, 1500 in puzzles if thats worth anything).

Thanks.

Buy low sell high.

edit... this turned into another long post... oh well, you don't seem to mind so I wont edit it down heh.

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Thanks, I'm happy if someone finds it useful.

6.Bxf6... yeah, black's ideal situation would be to play Ne4, c5, and Qa5 without white making any preparations for it. 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bxf6 is the most popular option in that position, but White can try a few other things, for example 5.e3 locking in the bishop isn't bad, but it is more passive.

I don't know how GMs think of it, but something I usually do is I look at each diagonal and compare them. Even if it takes a few moves, ideally what I'm trying to do is put my pieces on squares where they pressure a weak pawn or influence squares near the opponent's king... obviously you can't do this with 100% of your pieces, one or two will need to be used for defense, or to do mid-level jobs like keep opponent's pieces off of certain squares, or help a friendly piece infiltrate so it can attack (e.g. my bishop controls c7 so I can eventually put a rook on c7), but anyway, this is how I think.

On g5 the bishop is doing something very concrete (it's going to trade itself for that knight after h6). If it had gone to f4 the bishop feels a bit like it's hitting air since black's c pawn will eventually move and I don't think controlling b8 or e5 is so important in this position. Leaving it on c1 with 5.e3 is a bit passive too but sometimes GMs play it... so while rushing to trade bishops for knights isn't always good, in this case my way of thinking is it makes sense... I don't know how Giri would explain it because he's a lot better

I don't know of any books that fit that description, but if you're new and want something more than just puzzles + solutions (as in, you want some explanations) then Seirawan's book "Winning Chess Tactics" comes to mind.

Or Learn Chess Tactics, John Nunn.

Chess Network did a video on this topic. Perhaps you will find it useful.

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnltKpdtetc&list=PLQsLDm9Rq9bHKEBnElquF8GuWkI1EJ8Zp&index=28&ab_channel=ChessNetwork

It is very long, so of course, you don't have to do it in one go. I hope you will find it helpful. 

From what I've learned, those early exchanges you see in GM games are all about creating imbalances and seizing initiative. It might look wild, but it's actually a calculated strategy. When you trade off certain pieces, you open up lines for your remaining ones to breathe and maneuver. And those unexpected exchanges? They're all about disrupting your opponent's plans and taking advantage of hidden weaknesses. I've been dabbling in the world of digital assets exchange lately, exploring the white label exchange realm. It's a bit like chess – a complex dance of strategies. Only in this case it is possible to learn how to manage your assets competently. Perhaps there are those here who have also practiced this kind of work?

Check out this course: https://www.chess.com/lessons/the-art-of-exchanging-pieces

Ratio

@llama36 has a lot of patience