First Salem Hills Chess Meeting of 2011-2012

Opening principles we learned today:

1. Occupy and attack the four middle squares of the board on the first few moves.
Don't fiddle - control the middle

2. Knights belong toward the center
A knight on the side gets fried

3. You can usually tell if a piece is in a good position by counting the number of choices it has.

4. Develop your pieces in this order: Knights, Bishops, Queen, Rooks

5. Move rooks onto an open file (a file with no pawns on it)
A rook can travel for a mile, when it's on an open file

Homework: Place a knight in the corner, on the edge, near the corner and in the middle 16 squares and count the number of choices it has. Do the same with a bishop, rook and queen.
How many choices does each piece have in the corner? In the middle? Which piece is different in terms of the choices? What does that tell you about developing that piece? How does that explain why rooks should be developed last?

Ratings

2	Hassing, Connor	504
2	Isabella Mens	317
2	Klancher, Simon	171
3	Featherstone, John	149
2	Bly, Eliana	145
2	Carpenter, Ryan	139