Chess Stuff...

So, I've mainly been posting about my life and working out, so here's another post about my nerdy side! Because chess is probably where I'm the 'most nerdy', I'll write about chess!

This will be a post mainly about why you should develop quickly, what to and what not to develop quickly and controlling the board...

The first thing you do in a chess game is open. The opening is when you bring out your pieces and pawns. Usually white has a slight advantage because they go first, but no worries if you're black! Now, how do you do this? Some people bring out their knights first, but I don't think that's the best plan in the world. Why? Because pawns (if played right) can chase knights around until the knights forced to retreat (wastes time and leaves your opponent with open bishops, knights, and maybe their queen as well.) You on the other hand may only have a knight out, or you might have lost the knight.

So I think opening with the queen pawn or the king pawn are the best. Sometimes if you're black and the other player opens with the king pawn, then you could bring out the pawn to the right side your the queen. This way your queen can have an opening and when/if you bring out your knight on that side it won't hold back that pawn.

Before I go on to controlling, I want to tell you that even though some of your first moves should be with pawns you shouldn't over do if. You want to develop fast. Why? Because if your opponent opens faster, he has more mobility and control. So you want to be mobile control quickly, so bring out the queen! Right? Wrong. The queen is super powerful, but if you bring it out too early, your opponent's knights, bishops, and pawns could hunt down your queen and capture it, or make you retreat so may times that he has his entire army out ready to attack you, while all you have is a queen out and ready.

So, the next most power piece is the rooks! I should bring that out, right? No. Rooks are too slow to get out in the beginning. By the time you bring out one, your opponent will probably have at least three pieces out.

What's next? Bishops and knights? Yup. Bring them out. They are easy to get out and are pretty strong. Use them.

Now, why would you open in the middle? Because you want to control the middle. I heard a quote once thar went something like this: "Control the middle, and you control the game." the reason the middle is so good is because from the middle you can attack everything else, or defend everything else. From the corners you can only go so far with a knight, bishops can only attack the opposite corner, and the rooks can only attack the corners next to your corner. This doesn't mean put all you pieces in the middle because you want som well defended pieces in the corner. Another thing is that there is a difference between "controlling" and "occupying". So putting all your pieces in the middle could be a one way ticket to your devastation if you don't control it and your opponent does.

So try and control the middle and develop quickly! There is a ton more to chess, but I don't have 100 years to write about it!