Chess Basics: 5 simple tips for opening moves

Chess is a simple board game that can be learnt in quick time by understanding the chess basics or the elements of chess. The real challenge comes when you start playing the game. This is one unique game where there is no room for luck or chance and you will decide the fate of your game. So, right from the beginning, each and every move of yours should be carefully planned and executed with specific chess tactics and chess strategies in mind.

Assuming that you are playing with white pieces against your opponent, at the start of the game, you have to choose between any of the ten pieces to make the first move. Did you get that what those 10 pieces are? - eight pawns and two knights. The ideal move would be to move the king pawn two squares - from e2 to e4, or the queen pawn - from d2 to d4. This move is considered to be good because it opens up the Queen and the bishop. Secondly, you can have a fair share of the centre of the board comprising the squares d4, e4, d5, and e5. If you move your pawn in front of the king rook or king bishop - i.e. g2 to g4 or h2 to h4, that will not serve any effective purpose. In turn, that may turn out to be bad when you castle at a later stage as your king might be exposed by a opened pawn file.

Having better control over the centre of the board will always be advantageous. In this regards, knights should also be considered for movement towards the centre such as Nc3 or Nf3, instead of Na3 or Nh3. The simple reason is that the more the knight is in centre, the more squares it can control. The more the knight is in the wings, the less its control over the squares. For eg., the knight in say e4 can have control over eight squares around it, but the knight in a file can have effective control over three squares only. So, it is advisable that the knights are directed towards the centre of the board.

The most important point worth considering or noting in mind is that each and every move you make should have some sort of purpose - either to advance or allow for development of other pieces as part of a minor tactic. Moving a piece for the sake of moving and awaiting other person's moves is not good. In other words, each move should either develop a piece or increase the mobility of piece by opening up the files, ranks or diagonals.

One of the principles of opening, which hardly even grandmasters find it difficult to follow, is "move every piece once before you move any other piece twice". While it is not possible always because of the specific tactics being employed, one should avoid moving the same piece more than once at the cost of developing other pieces.

Bring out the Bishop and the Knight on the kingside as early as possible, thereby creating room for castling on the King side.

Once castling is done and the pieces in the queenside are developed adequately, then plan for attacks on the opponent's king. Premature attacks on the king without proper development of pieces and a fair share on the centre of the board will not be advantageous.