Offense

[sunstruckdream]

I'm fairly new to the game of chess. I've yet to win a game against my friend who taught me. I'm getting better at seeing things and defending myself, but my attacks on the other side's king really bite. Any advice/offensive tactics anyone wants to offer? Thanks.

 

[sfodz]

Heh, yeah I was the same. One of my friends taught me how to play and he kicked my butt so many times and then one day I just got lucky and beat him like four or five times in a row and now I can beat him almost everytime. I think that it really just takes time and patience for you to develop an awareness around the board. I don't generally have a predefined strategy (unlike many other chess players who often like to start off with the three move checkmate approach, but it's so easy to spot and block so I don't bother about it), but instead prefer to improvise.

It's been a long time since I've played chess, but some moves that I used to always try first are moving the queen's pawn up two spaces to assert control of the centre board. You'll find that most casual players will move the king's pawn up one space, and if they did that to me I'd move up my pawn one more space and invite the opponent to take it. If he did, then I'd use my queen to enact revenge and do whatever damage possible or try and break up my opponent's defences by getting the king in check and forcing them to break up their defences. Depending on the board situation I'd bring my knights and bishops into the fray.

One other move that I often like to do early is to move the pawn in front of the knight on the queen's side up one space and then move the bishop to the position where that pawn was. This move can be quite useful as a support piece and more so if the opponent castles king side (which most players do). By the time that you are actually attacking the chances are that the average player has forgotten about it, and even more so if you feign an attack with a knight/queen combination or other decoy or sacrifice attack.

Also, one other unusal attack strategy could be just using your knights to break up the opponent's formations by attacking here and there. You don't even need to go for kills, just forcing the opponent to redeploy their pieces can create openings that you may like to exploit, particularly as decoy attacks.

One last little trick is, when you see what the opponent is trying to do, to allow them to keep setting up their plan and then block it at the last moment. The chances are that while they're concentrating on executing their plan that they won't be focusing completely on your moves.

I don't know how effective these moves or approaches will be for you as I often adjust and improvise, but at any rate, good luck with your games...

 

[Biarien]

I'm fairly new to the game of chess. I've yet to win a game against my friend who taught me. I'm getting better at seeing things and defending myself, but my attacks on the other side's king really bite. Any advice/offensive tactics anyone wants to offer? Thanks.

There's nothing wrong with focusing on defense for a while, but of course you want to be able to exploit the areas where your opponent gives you ground, and that requires good offense. Look for basic chess tactics (forks, pins, skewers, discoveries), structural weaknesses to exploit (outposts for knights that cannot be attacked by pawns, so the worst that can happen is a more or less even trade), and even sacrifices.

A good tactic can be to sacrifice a knight or bishop for two pawns around the opponent's king. You lose a pawn in some sense, but often you can get a pretty strong attack against the enemy king. Of course, you have to make sure that you will actually have an attack - otherwise, you just lose a pawn for nothing.

Unless you have a very strong attack, always make sure your king is safe before launching an attack to force mate or a heavy loss of material. Look out for in-between moves by your opponent (especially check or threats to your queen) that could extinguish your attack.

Try the daily chess problems at www.chess.com and read through some of the sections at www.chesstactics.org (a great site). The computer at www.chess.com is pretty decent too - a good no pressure way to practice, though its openings are very strange.

Most of all, enjoy yourself. If you ever would be interested in a correspondence game (by email), I'd be happy to try it out and give pointers. I've never done it myself, but it could be fun.

—Brendan

 

[Rascaduanok]

If you ever would be interested in a correspondence game (by email), I'd be happy to try it out and give pointers. I've never done it myself, but it could be fun.

—Brendan

I’d like some of that action if you would feel prepared to do so! I can’t pm as yet, so I had to post my interest here (sorry to hijack your thread sunstruckdream!). I have only recently gotten into chess ‘properly’ after messing about with it as a young teenagers many years ago.

 

[PhilosophicalBluster]

My strategy is usually to win pieces in the opening and mid-game in order to cripple the opponent during the end game, and then use the gained power to dominate the board and checkmate. In my opinion, the easiest way to win pieces early on against inexperienced to semi-experienced players is with the Fried Liver attack. I don't know whether that is the real name of the opening or just a nick-name my old coach gave it, but it's really quite effective in gaining an early advantage if your opponent doesn't know how to block it.

If I'm not mistaken, you have to be white to use it, though I may be wrong. It goes like this:

e4 ; e5
Nf3 ; Nc6
Key move: Bc4

When you move the bishop to c4, it is targeting black's death pawn, (f7) which is to say, the pawn that is only protected by the king. The way you decide how to continue forward is whether black makes this move:

Nf6

Only if black makes this move can you continue with the Fried Liver, and make this move:

Ng5

If black did not move to Nf6, you would have just hung your knight, as the queen would not be blocked by the knight in the way.

If black does play into the Fried Liver and move his knight where you want him to, he's pretty much screwed at this point. No matter where black goes after Ng5, you still win either a rook, a great positioning, or if you're lucky (and your opponent is not paying attention) you can win a queen. All you have to do is move Nxf2 and you have a fork on the rook and queen.

There can be some complications if after Ng5, black pushes the pawn to d5 in order to block the bishop, but then you take with the pawn and eventually take back the fork, or win an aggressive positioning.

P.S.
Message me if you don't know how to / have trouble with, reading notation (e4, e5, Ng5, etcetera). I'll try my best to explain it to you. Good luck!

 

[azure2s]

This is a strategy I find most flexible when it comes to offense.

For simplicity, let's assume that you are the white player in this explanation. You can still do it even if you're black. First, move the king's pawn two spaces. Then move the knight on the right up two spaces and one space to the left. Move the other knight up two spaces and one space to the right, mirroring the move of the first knight and defending the first pawn you move. Finally, move the queen's pawn two spaces forward.

This formation, in my opinion, is very effective in terms of offense. The queen and bishop can easily move to assault the opponent. The knights can easily attack as well. The two pawns in front can easily charge and defend one another. I always use this formation and I usually win with it.

Hope you find my strategy effective

 

[Rascaduanok]

A very very efficient, and indeed IDEAL, tactical positioin. If you play anyone of any worth they usually won’t allow you to reach that formation.