what are the BASIC middle game strategies/tactics/developments?

theres no section for the middle game so i figured this question would fit here

i think i struggle with that transition from opening to middle game and also executing more things during the middlegame. what are some things i could try or some things to keep in mind?

Read chess strategy for the club player, by Herman Grooten, or start with its reviews on amazon,

Then read similar books by Karpov etc.

10 PRINT "Let's play a game of chess!  I'll start: 1.d4"

20 INPUT "What is your move? ", MOVE$

30 PRINT "I play 2.Nf3 and offer a draw.  Accept(Y/N)?", DRAW$

40 IF DRAW$ = "Y" GOTO 10 ELSE PRINT "OK, I RESIGN."

cmon

hey

Agreed with harryz. 1.b3 2.Ba3 and 3.h4 is no way to start a chess game. "Before the middlegame, the gods have placed the opening", to paraphrase some decent woodpusher.

Improve your worst placed piece / bring all your pieces into an attack.

Stay centralized (unless good reason like maneuver to better square or tactical reasons).

Attack where your main pawn chain points (where you have more space).

Active play is preferable to passive defense.

To meet a flank attack counter in the center.

Attack the base of a pawn chain.

Rooks like open files.

Knights like advanced outposts (4th, 5th, 6th ranks)

Bishops are less effective when your pawns are on their color.

King is most safe when the pawns in front of it have not moved.

Evaluate exchanges by looking at what's left on the board not what comes off the board.

Greek gift sacrifice.

Isolated, backward, doubled pawns are examples of weak pawns.  Isolated d pawn is dynamic in mid game, weak in endgame.  Fewer pawn weaknesses and fewer pawn islands are more favorable due to endgame considerations as well.

The further pawns advance, the more space and advanced outposts you may gain, but you also leave many weak squares behind.  To alleviate space disadvantage exchange pieces.  When exploiting a space advantage you tend to avoid exchanges.

The purpose of a pawn break / leaver is to use the opened lines for your pieces.  Try to have a space or force advantage wherever you decide to open lines.

I don't know... that's off the top of my head.  Hard to summarize the middlegame strategy / tactics in a meaningful and instructive way.  I recommend getting a book and a coach.  Also google any term I used you don't recognize.

Nice

Sadly, it depends what openings you play. For example if you play the Queens Gambit Accepted and/or the Tarrasch Variation you have to understand how to play with AND against an Isolated Queens Pawn. If you play the Kings Indian understand that you are trying to force the pawn break f5 in a favourable way, while stopping white playing his c5 break. On the white side of a Queens Gambit, if you play the exchange variation then a minority attack to create pawn weaknesses on blacks queenside is the order of the day.

This is just scratching the surface - really learn the ideas associated with whatever openings you play and it makes things much easier than trying to apply general principles to every middlegame position.

my rating determines weather i should be able to be shown something? does it matter that much? get out mate

THANKS 

I am not totally convinced there are any BASIC middle game strategies - there definately aren't any BASIC middle game tactics.

wafflemaster's list shows how disparate the various ideas are.

What I commend to you is the notion that what you don't do is look for six moves which deliver checkmate or win the enemy queen. If there are six such moves you can hope they occur to you but that is going to be rare. What is common is the sense that you have got to do something but you are not sure what it is. The feeling, I suspect, which gives birth to your question.

Well, the principles of the opening are very well worked out and easily set out. The same is not altogether true of the early middle game. What has helped me is to see annotations by good (and top class) players. They don't look for instant mates. They do one or more of the things in wafflemaster's list. Little things. Things which improve your position a bit. And then allow you to look for the next little thing.

Eventually you (or your opponent, through a clear mistake) have created conditions in which the tactical opportunity to win material or to mount a mating attack appears. But until then the trick is not to think that your task is to land a knock out blow - or form a plan which leads inexorably to checkmate - but rather to focus on how to improve your position.

It pays to have a bit of a sense of whether you should be attacking or defending. Certainly prefer attack to defence but if your opponent has done nothing which you can plainly see is wrong (and could explain why it is wrong) then give preference to sound moves - by which I mean moves that keep your pieces in touch with each other and don't advance pawns save for clear cut advantage.

Lastly I'll hazard one direct answer to your question. Move pieces forwards not backwards.

Have enoug material here for half a book.

Looks like my rants or stories not needed here.

cowbook wrote:

theres no section for the middle game so i figured this question would fit here

i think i struggle with that transition from opening to middle game and also executing more things during the middlegame. what are some things i could try or some things to keep in mind?

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Based on a game between 2 players rated FIDE or USCF 2200+ the transition between the opening and the middle game is usually a pawn break(s). Depending on the opening and the defensive system selected there can be between 2 and 5 pawn breaks that the pawn structure demands. The pawn break signals the beginning of the plan of attack. The pawn break is the first move in the plan of attack. There is usually 2 or more plans of attack that the attacker can select from based upon the defensive system selected. Transpositions from one opening to another changes everything but the fact that there are pawn break(s)

that are line between the opening and the middle game.

An important fact to keep in mind is that every opening results in 6 characteristic pawn structures.

I am not really 100% sure about this, but at your level it makes sense to practice tactics first before you go to some deep strategical stuff. It would be easier and more basic. You see, appreciating the tension that exist on the specific area of the board and deciphering the relationship from the interaction of the pieces is not so difficult to understand compared to looking from the broad perspective of strategic and positional maneuvering which would probably amass a number of moves to realize. I am simply saying that you better go about mastering the tactical motifs and combinational themes first. However, if you think you are good enough for these then a good way to start learning strategy is by dissecting the relevant details of the position through its ELEMENTS. This is a time tested method and was recommended by Kotov, Nimzowitch and several masters of the past and even by the modern ones.

The middle game is the bit between the databases and the Table bases, and it is getting narrower.

how can you assume that i dont know the basic prinacples?  rating means nothing dude. ive been playing for several months now and i already read about the basics of the game

Ah, so that is how you get a backward pawn! 

Pawns Lust to Expand