Chess Tip Of The Day

Whenever you chase a knight back to the first rank, look for an immediate central pawn advance, even if it's a pawn sacrifice. Sunil Weeramantry & Ed Eusebi, Best Lessons Of A Chess Coach

If you are ahead material, try to keep pawns on both wings. Andrew Soltis, Turning Advantage Into Victory In Chess

Keeping the enemy king in the centre is often worth more than a pawn. Alex Yermolinksy, The Road To Chess Improvement

Do not overestimate a computer's ability. Even in messy, open positions, after thinking for hours, programs can and do make mistakes. Robin Smith, Modern Chess Analysis

All the major defences to 1.e4 and 1.d4 are equally good at the amateur level. Andrew Soltis, Studying Chess Made Easy

At almost every stage in any opening there are several good moves. Because only one is given in a book does not prove there are no other good moves, nor even that the one given is the best. Cecil Purdy, Chess World magazine

Rushing your opponent when he's in time pressure by moving quickly creates artificial time pressure for yourself. Pal Benko & Burt Hochberg, Winning With Chess Psychology

To think of the Sicilian as a defence is to make two errors. First, it is an attack, despite being played by Black. Second, the Sicilian isn't a single entity - it's a sprawling metropolis of variations marked as much by difference as by community. Sam Collins, Understanding The Chess Openings

Junior players and weaker club players should try to keep the pieces on if possible against better-class opposition since their lack of technique will be less exposed. Tony Rubin, Chess For The Rank And File

My recommendation for building an opening repertoire is to pick one or two of the leading grandmasters whose style you are comfortable with, and emulate a few of their openings. James Rizzitano, Understanding Your Chess

If you set up any opening position on your board and look for moves (which are obviously not blunders) which have not been played before and start to analyse them with a concrete strategic or tactical aim in view, then you may be on the track of an important new theoretical idea. Raymond Keene, The Openings In Modern Theory And Practice

If you exchange a piece which has made one or more moves for an undeveloped enemy piece, you lose the whole of the tempi consumed by your piece. Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, How Not To Play Chess

If you play in a tournament, don't waste energy playing friendly games between the rounds - instead, try to have a break from chess. Simon Webb, Chess For Tigers

Offbeat openings are generally offbeat for a reason - they are not usually as good as the respectable mainline openings. Steve Giddins, How To Build Your Chess Opening Repertoire

Above all else, before playing in competitions, a player must have regard to his health, for if he is suffering from ill-health he cannot hope for success. In this connection the best of all tonics is 15 to 20 days in the fresh air in the country. Mikhail Botvinnik, One Hundred Selected Games

If your opponent is short of time, ignore him - play just as you played earlier in the game. Alexander Kotov, Think Like A Grandmaster

When one chooses a pattern of play which is in itself dubious, as is the case with Alekhine's Defence, it is absolutely vital to know in depth at least the most important lines derived therefrom. Alexander Alekhine, 107 Great Chess Battles

If a player spends more than 20 minutes over a move, the result is almost always a mistake. John Nunn, Secrets Of Practical Chess

I have found that opening preparation on the day of a game tends to lead to the kind of nervousness and anxiety that blocks the brain, and there is rarely anything of value that you can study in an hour or two. Nigel Davies, The Chess Player's Battle Manual

I find it a fairly reliable rule never to play Qb3 (or ...Qb6) early in any opening unless the queen goes there with a threat. Cecil Purdy, Fine Art Of Chess Annotation And Other Thoughts - Volume Two

The isolani is perhaps weakest in a queenless middlegame - a position in which disappearance of the queens largely eliminates direct attack on either king, but in which enough pieces remain for heavy attack on the isolani together with collateral manoeuvres. Al Horowitz & Geoffrey Mott-Smith, Point Count Chess

Long-range pieces like bishops are quite happy on the back ranks. The main reason they need to be developed in the first place is to let the rooks into the game. Joe Gallagher, Starting Out: The Caro-Kann

If you win two pieces for a rook, remember that it is an exception to the general rule that you go for swaps with material up. Cecil Purdy, On The Endgame

Central play is the most effective plan in chess. Jeremy Silman, Chess Life magazine

If in the course of your calculations of the consequences of a certain move, you find that a certain other move will be necessary or desirable, try substituting that other move as the first move and see how it works. Cecil Purdy, The Return Of Alekhine

Be very suspicious about any pawn move that closes the position after move six. Andrew Soltis, Grandmaster Secrets: Openings

We may restate the Tarrasch Rule thus: put your rook BEHIND a passed pawn if the pawn has crossed or can cross the middle line; put your rook IN FRONT of a passed pawn if the pawn is held in its own half of the board. Cecil Purdy, On The Endgame

The main feature of a space advantage is that it tends to make your rooks better than the opponent's. Jonathan Rowson, The Seven Deadly Chess Sins

The general rule for Black (in the Dutch Defence) is: Stonewall if White develops his g knight at f3; ...d6 if the knight goes to h3. Cecil Purdy, Fine Art Of Chess Annotation And Other Thoughts - Volume Two

When you have a bad bishop, don't trade the other bishop. Gregory Kaidanov, Chess Life magazine

In strategically superior positions do not lessen your bind by the capture of a stray pawn. Keep increasing the pressure until the pawns start dropping by themselves as if overripe fruit. Edmar Mednis, Practical Middlegame Tips