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you start with one or two moves and that experience of playing will aid considerably.

Look at what the different pieces do, examine the possible movements and never be hasty with judgment as this can lose a game, thinking in terms of short term gain instead of consequence. Sending a knight in to take a pawn without thought of consequence could lose that valuable piece.

In the center game process, it is always necessary to protect your King as in all phases of a chess game. Being aware that the King needs to be able to move if threatened is vital to success, though also being aware of an escape route called Castling where the king and castle change their place on the board will help you strengthen your game. Keeping the King in place and the Rook will enable you to get out of a sticky situation, provided that no pieces stand in the way of the castling process.

The Queen is a strong piece, though the loss of her weakens the game. She can be used to attack, to threaten the opponent, though here, she can also be pulled back to safety or to protect the King, though one of the classic mistakes that players that are pulled into moving their Queen to protect the king, is consequence, and frequently players will lose their Queen and have no choice left to them. That is why it is essential at all times to have protection in place for the King.

A particularly vulnerable situation is when a Knight threatens the King but also the Queen. Here, the Knight is extremely powerful, and even when placed in another scenario can threaten two vital pieces at the same time, giving the other player no choice but to sacrifice one or the other.

The rules of the middle game are thus:

*Think of movement
*Think of consequence
*Plan ahead

The consequence of poor play is that a player loses advantage, and to practice your middle game, a great tip is to have a program that enables you to quietly contemplate good moves, contemplate the consequences, and then see how the computer would move the pieces as an alternative. Gather information and work out why the computer did it differently than you would have done, again working out the consequences of the computer's game and comparing them with your own conclusions as part of the development and learning process.

The benefit of doing this with a program like KchessElite which allows you to ask the computer for hints is that as your middle game strengthens, the results you see will correspond to what you planned as a movement, and thus will increase your ability and your self-awareness as a player. Building up middle game strategies must be flexible, since every player that you play will have their own plans. Kchess actually give you several alternatives which is extremely helpful in learning to strengthen middle game. At the press of the hint button, it shows you it's first choice of move, and pressing it again, it will give you a second choice.

Once you are able to increase the strength of your middle game, success awaits you, and by remembering the guidelines of reflection, consequence and planning, your battle upon the field of chess will strengthen and you will play better games, just as on a real battlefield, those battles that have taken into consideration the consequence of action profit from good sense, and win the day.

Learn more about this author, Rachelle de Bretagne.
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