The most powerful ideas in chess


I am glad to present you the new lesson. This issue’s topic is: “The most powerful ideas in chess”. Here we will talk about “what are the most powerful ideas in chess?” and “what works best in chess?”.
However, first I’d like to discuss another question. What does a man do in a critical situation?He/she makes the SIMPLEST and the most AUTOMATIZED action. If someone has no automatized actions for such situations – he usually freezes with fear and does nothing at all (or becomes panic).
Why do I ask you about critical situations?
It is because chess is a critical situation also. You have to make a decision in only a few minutes (sometimes in only a few seconds) and you are under the constant psychological pressure (you are getting nervous about a result of a game etc).
So what do you need to have for a successful chess game? Again, you need some SIMPLE rules and you need to train them and to AUTOMATIZE them.
I’ll give you another analogue. Masters of martial arts train 5 actions 1000 times (and NOT the other way round!).
Many chess players prefer to collect many different rules about chess (especially recondite ideas). Such players purchases hundreds (sometimes thousands) of different educational chess materials. They study all this stuff seriously, copy out the rules to an exercise-book (computer) and so on. Thus they “practise 1000 ideas 5 times”.
Ok, I know that you want to know many recondite ideas anyway  No problem, I have plenty of them. I do not want to make this issue endless, therefore, let’s choose only 1 topic. Let’s say “a defense”. Here are some rules for you:
- Don’t lose courage. Otherwise you will continue making mistakes.
- A tactical blunder is a consequence of a bad strategic situation.
- Calculate variations very accurately, because one tactical error can directly lead to a loss.
- Constantly put problems before your opponent. Protect each weak pawn and each weak square as long as you can. When attacker encounters furious resistance, he starts getting nervous and may make a mistake.
- Exchange pieces to reduce the power of an opponent’s attack.
- It is better to be protected from a threat by using inactive pieces. If a protection has to be assigned to an active piece, it is necessary to pay attention to not to overload it. Otherwise it will not be able to execute all functions assigned to it.
- Detect the main attacking pieces and neutralize it.
- Detect the opponent’s plan/threat and prevent it.
- Detect your main weakness and strengthen it.
- Take away your king from a dangerous zone.
- Try to change character of a position sharply (e.g. sacrifice something). It will be difficult for an attacker to change his mind, so it puts psychological problems before the opponent.
- Don’t use for a defense more pieces than it is necessary. Otherwise you will play too passively and will not be able to start a counterplay.
- A king is also a piece and it can protect itself (at least Steinitz thought so :) ).
- Your opponent wants to win without a risk. Therefore you should just sit calm and do nothing. Force your opponent to start making complications. This will make him feel nervous.
- Don’t move pawns, when you are under an attack.
    Let’s stop here. It seems like even one topic can be endless. 

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