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Chess tips: How to improve your middle game

Chess is a complex game, consisting of three stages, the opening, the middle game and the end. The idea of this article is to help new players to develop that part of the game which is referred to as the Middle game. For these middle game tactics to be effective, a player does need to be aware of the importance of wise openings, though here, the article assumes that the player has built up a repertoire of opening moves that lead to the center game, or battle area of the game of chess.

The purpose of the middle game.

While every game is aimed at winning just like in battles upon a battlefield, if you imagine a battle taking place with no plan, then the likelihood is that the battle will be lost. It's very much the same in chess, and in the middle game one player will try and outsmart the other to take control of the center board area which is vital to success.

CENTER BOARD AREA.

Why should a player consider this area important in the middle game phase of a game of chess ? If you take the layout of a chessboard at the beginning of a game, the center of the board is the least populated. Of course, it will become more populated as the game progresses, but what this huge amount of space permits is flexibility and choice of where a player can put his pieces. It also allows one opponent to threaten the other opponent as and when those fundamentally important pieces that make up a team become vulnerable, by the imprudent movement of pawns.

The center board area offers chances to offer up pieces as bait. Here, if a player plans his moves in advance, a pawn can be offered to an opponent as a sacrifice, and if planned correctly in the middle game process opens up the center of the board and strengthens the play of that player that took a calculated risk.

How you work out whether it is indeed worth sacrificing a piece is to play the scenario over in your head, anticipating the opponents moves and your own to work out what advantage is to be gained by sacrifice. It frees up the center of the board area to vulnerabilities and indeed strengthens the possibility of advantage.

PIECES

In the middle game phase, planning moves in advance helps a player to gain advantage. To make the most of the learning process, it is necessary for the player to ask themselves, what happens if I make this move and to try and think three or four moves in advance. Master chess players think many more moves than this in advance, though it is a practicing skill that

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