Strategies for Improving Your Chess Game

• Knowing a few tested chess tactics could improve your game. chess image by Vasiliy Koval from Fotolia.com

  Great chess players understand the importance of strategy and know how to creatively employ tested tactics to frustrate and defeat opponents. Knowing a few of these tactics can help you advance your game. It can also help you recognize and foil the plans of your opponents. At the same time, one should remember that the success of various tactics relies, in part, on the element of surprise. A great chess player has a flair for the unexpected and the ability to leave opponents always guessing about intentions.

The Knight Fork

• While players can use several different pieces to employ the fork tactic, the most common and arguably most effective forks involve knights. Forks occur when one piece simultaneously threatens two or more of the opponents' pieces. Knights prove especially suitable for forks because, thanks to their "L"-shaped movement and unique ability to jump over pieces, they can threaten pieces without putting themselves in harm's way. In effect, opponents who fall victim to knight forks almost always face unwelcome choices. A classic fork using a knight might entail putting the king in check---thus requiring a move from the king---while also threatening a queen or other piece of importance.

Discovered Attacks

• Chess legend Garry Kasparov once said, "The attacker always has the advantage." With discovered attacks, you move one piece and, in the process, open up a line of attack for another one of your pieces. Thus, discovered attacks use two pieces to simultaneously threaten two of the opponents' pieces, not unlike the knight fork. The best discovered attacks go unnoticed as the opponent focuses attention to the threat of the last piece moved. Discovered attacks typically put opponents in a defensive mode of decision-making that often requires sacrificing the less-important piece under attack. This could pave the way for more attacks.

Sacrificing Pieces

• Novice chess players may look at the number of pieces that each player has taken as a measure of which player has the lead. A more nuanced view considers not only the value of the pieces taken, but also the current arrangement of the board. Sometimes, a player may want to sacrifice a piece in order to create future opportunities and to open up space for other pieces. An obvious choice for sacrificing involves pawns, but you could also sacrifice more important pieces if the ends justify the means. One of the more classic sacrifice moves, known as the Greco's sacrifice, gives up a bishop for a pawn to break the line of a defense of a king-side castled king. This sacrifice draws the king out along the edge of the board, negating the protection of castling, and exposing it to future attacks.