Chess Opening Principles

1. Main Tasks of the Opening

(i) Development

(ii) Castle

(iii) Connect the rooks. [By moving the Queen]

2. Play e4 or d4 from white.

3. Develop the King side pieces first.

4. Develop the minor pieces first, knights before bishops.

5. To find the best move – use the principles of “the least active piece” and “maximum activity” (a) Develop the knights before Bishops because, Knight is passive when compare to Bishop on its own position.

6. Concentrate on the central squares, focus development of queen side pieces there.

7. Do not make several moves with the one piece, because it breaks the principle of the least active piece.

8. Castling Queen-side is little bit stronger than castling king- side. Queen side castling brings rook in to the game than king side castling.

9. Don’t try to grab the pawns at the cost of development.

10.Don’t move the queen early in the opening, except in some lines of Scandinavian.

11.After finishing the main opening tasks, make the last preparation move bring the rooks into the center lines. Use the principle of least active piece and maximum of activity.

12. What openings should you learn and play?
v They should be classical.
v They should be attacking.
v They should be practical.

Courtesy :FutureIM