Middle Game Principles

I would like to find a summary of middle game principles.  I have a few openning principles that seem to get me through most opennings without a fatal blunder.  Fight for the middle, get my minor pieces active, castle, don't move a piece twice and centralize my rooks.

I have learned a few exceptions in certain openings and my openings are becoming more sophisticated, but I have these principles to fall back on when I do not know what to do.

However, once I accomplish opening objectives I find myself at a loss for what to do next.  I run through line after line of tactical analysis looking for a pawn or a piece to win.  But if I can find no such opportunity, I do not know what to look for.

I have read a few books and articles, but they seem to run through lines from various positions and I have difficulty extracting the underlying principles.

I am thinking things like:

1.  Advance pawns on the side with a pawn majority

2.  Attack doubled or backward pawns

3.  Stack rooks on an open file

4.  Lock pawn structure if you have an extra knight

5.  Open diagonols if you have an extra bishop

6.  Centralize king after Queens are gone (although perhaps this is getting into an endgame idea)

7.  Try to create a passed pawn

8.  Try to solidify a protected pawn on the 5th or 6th rank

9.  Position a knight on a protected square in the middle of the board that cannot be attacked by a pawn

10. Mess up opponent's pawn structure

11. Expose opponent's king

Well, I guess looking at my list, I have a few principles.  But I really do not feel confident of these ideas or how to use them.

Anyway, I am maybe an advanced beginner at chess (1600s in turn-based and around 1300 live).  I play for fun and I really do not find it fun to work through lines of chess notation or struggle with chess mentor.  I want to learn a few principles and go play and learn how to apply these principles in games like I have with my openings.

Short book or article with words and pictures, no or minimal chess notation.  I am looking for a conceptual understanding of what I am trying to accomplish.

Thoughts?

Do any of the chess.com videos speak to you in this arena?

I have never looked at any videos.  I am more of a reader than a video watcher.  Us baby-boomers are old school.  Grew up with one black and white TV with rabbit ears and 4 channels.  You actually had to stand up and walk over to the TV to change channels.

Same here, although we had only three channels. hah

Bah! When I was a kid our mother had to gather the programs and then spit them into our mouths. Bonanza was great and we all loved Hoss.

Too bad you dislike "struggling" through Chess Mentor.  Silman has a course titled "Now What" that is all about forming plans for the middle game.  Yes it is quite difficult, but if an old patzer like me can struggle through 20 lessons.... You guys had television?  I remember listening to the radio for entertainment (The Lone Ranger, etc.)

If you're looking for books, I would recommend Dan Heismann's Guide to Chess Improvement and Bruce Pandolfini's Weapons of Chess: An Omnibus of Chess Strategies. Both are very well written and are great for explaining the concepts (no dropping in a dozen moves and then just saying "white is better"). Dan's book is very process based (thought patterns, square safety, etc) and Bruce's is very positional based (how to break a fianchetto, how to play a minority attack, etc).

Your principles list is a start but you seem to have put some limitations

on your learning... How are you going to convince your pieces over the

board to win no matter what it takes when you yourself aren't willing to

try all possibilities.

Trust me, his pieces are highly motivated. lol

Johan Hellsten, "Mastering Chess Strategy" (2010).  About 300 pages of text and examples, plus 400 exercises.  Everything is "bite sized."  Covers all you might need to know for the middlegame.  Knock yourself out on it.  

Sorry, but a "list of principles" won't cut it.  Middlegame is too complicated for simple generalizations.  Unless you want to use something like--

"Simplify through piece exchanges, then play for a win in the endgame." 

 kborg - I like your statement on your home page that "the only thing easy about chess is playing badly" and I am sure you are right that a list of principles will not get me very far, but I admitt that I am looking for the easy way out.  I am not ashamed of that.  I play for fun and I usually do okay in opening and then once I get my pieces developed, I look at the board and have no idea what to do next.  Usually I make a few uncoordinated moves based on some loose calculation then forget what I was trying to do.  If I avoid doing anything fatal and my opponents offers me a tactic then I win some material and nurse it to the barn for the win, if not.....

My birthday is coming up.  I think I will ask my wife for one of the books recommended here and see what I can figure out.

I used to take golf really seriously.  I was a single digit handicap and woke up one morning to find that golf was no fun for me.  Now I hack it around and have a lot more fun.  I respect skill and achievement and progress is part of the fun, but you cannot lose sight of the fact that fun is the objective.

Moreover, you must enjoy whatever means you use to progress.  Otherwise you will not progress for long.

chess principles are good whether opening,middlegame and ending but sometimes there appears positions that chess principles must be violated, like for highest stake, decoy and deflection,exposing the king,sacrifice tactics,misplacing the defender, luring perpetual attack zugswang, xray attack,mating nets, queen planning for consideration as the game progresses.

Sorg67, I fully share your thinking: I get through opening, but after, what is the plan? Is there some principles to follow?

Help would be great here...

I read Euwe's book a couple of years ago.

Agree, and violating principles is great fun.  But knowing and using principles does not have to make you a prisoner of them.  Tactics training can help to train you to recognize opportunities.  However, I am looking for ways to quietly strengthen my position when I cannot find any tactical opportunities.  Many of my losses come from pushing unsound tactical ideas, when quietly making a very subtle move would have been more effective.

 In the opening post of this thread, I list some principles.  However, I am not really sure how I developed these ideas and I do not know how sound they are.  Nor am I really confident of how to use them.  I would welcome some comments about the usefulness and accuracy of these ideas.

The middle game is the phase of the game in which you are executing the plan(s) of attack that is/are a direct result of the opening moves.  General middle game principles will almost never be as effective as knowing the middle game plan of attack dictated by the opening.  

http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/Dan_sayings.html

he you go, there is loads on there 

@transpo,dats true bt its a different story when you have kids as young as 8 to mentor,i definitely use these general principles to model their game before we can explore more of tactics...

Set up your tactics and execute them.....pin a piece then attack it . Set up a discovered attack then open the door. Create your own attack while at rhe same time defend against your opponents advance.