Ches for Beginners: Chess Terminology

Many contemplate whether to learn chess at various points within their lives. Chess for beginners is however a daunting endeavor when players start throwing around terms like tactics, strategy, special moves and first move advantage. In this article I hope to make beginners chess a little easier by presenting these common terms and explaining each in detail.

Tactics

Tactics are very important in chess. Tactics are one or more moves played to gain a short term benefit. Benefits normally include gaining a material advantage (simply means having more pieces or more valuable pieces than your opponent), positioning a pawn, guarding the king or controlling more space. Chess tactics include such moves as castling to protect the king, moving a knight into center board to control the center (the fork), positioning a piece to attack multiple pieces (the pin) or sacrificing a piece to remove an opponents strategic advantage. If you wish to learn chess, tactics must be memorized and practiced relentlessly.

Strategy

Chess Strategy is the act of playing multiple tactics to achieve a long term predetermined outcome. Strategy could start with researching a players weaknesses and deriving a series of tactics that may exploit those weaknesses. Chess strategy is normally divided into three separate parts: the begin game (or opening), the middle game and the end game. Each part will have a specific goal, such as gaining center advantage in the begin game and obviously mating in the end game. Openings are rehearsed or learned moves used during the begin game. The aim of the begin game is to develop your pieces (move them into better positions where they can attack or defend); protect your king; control the center; and develop a pawn structure (move pawns into locations where they can hold off attacks). The middle game is based on piece development. The end game is played when there are few pieces left on the board. End games involve trying to promote pawns, continued protection of the king, and initiating checkmate.

Special Moves

Chess has a number of special moves. These moves are termed special as they can only be played at certain times and may also involve more than one piece. Special moves are often confusing to the beginner chess player however they are fairly easy to grasp after a little research. Special chess moves include en passant (taking a pawn during the first two square move); castling (moving the king through the rook); and pawn promotion (replacing the pawn with another piece when it reaches the other side of the board). When a player starts to learn chess, special moves are often not played until the basic rules are understood. This link explains special chess moves in more detail.

First Move Advantage

This simply implies that the player who moves first (white) has a slight advantage over the player who moves second (black). This is also called white move advantage. This phenomenon does not typically apply to chess beginners, and even at the elite level, the effect of first move advantage is very small.

Conclusion

Hopefully the above terms are little clearer after reading this article. If not, there are plenty of resources on the Internet such as Chess for Beginners by William Lewis. I also maintain Beginner Chess: Chess for Beginners, which includes lessons, articles, rules and tips designed to assist and develop the beginner chess player.