Many players often express frustration after the opening phase, unsure of what to do next. They might say, “I’m not sure how to make a plan—there’s so much going on, I don’t know where to start.” This is a common issue, especially for those who find the transition from the opening to the middlegame challenging.
Once the opening phase is complete, meaning all of your pieces are developed, it’s a good idea to pause for a moment and assess the position. Ask yourself: Has your opponent completed their development? Are both kings safe? Are your pieces well-positioned? What about the pawn structure—are there weaknesses or targets you could exploit? By asking these questions, you can gain a better understanding of the position and figure out where to focus your attention.
Another effective approach, particularly when the plan isn’t immediately clear, is to evaluate which of your pieces are poorly placed and work on improving them. By improving even one badly positioned piece, you enhance the overall quality of your position. A poorly placed piece can drag down your whole setup, and its impact is felt both in the short and long term. If you have multiple mispositioned pieces, focus on improving the worst-placed one first. After that, you can shift your attention to improving the more powerful pieces, then move on to the minor ones. Additionally, fixing a back rank weakness can often significantly improve your king’s safety.
Middlegame Planning
After the opening, it’s helpful to implement the Scanning Technique to assess the position. The board should be divided into four categories:
- King: Is it safe or under threat?
- Pieces: Are the queen, rooks, knights, and bishops well-positioned?
- Pawns: Are there any weak pawns, isolated pawns, or significant imbalances in the pawn structure?
- Holes: Are there weak squares on critical ranks (like the 5th or 6th) that could be exploited?
King’s Safety
Your king should be treated as a distinct entity and be the first focus of your scanning process. First, determine if your king is safe or exposed. If your king is safe and unlikely to face an attack soon, you can afford to spend time improving your pieces. However, if your king is vulnerable and under threat, your priority should be to address that, even if it means postponing piece improvement. In this case, counterattacking the opponent’s king might be your best option.
What Makes a King Safe?
A general guideline for a safe king is to have a minor piece in front of it (like a knight or bishop) and three pawns around it. The defensive force around your king should always outnumber the opponent’s attacking force—if the opponent’s attacking pieces (including pawns) surpass your defensive ones by more than three, your king could be in serious danger.
Active vs. Passive Pieces
It’s easy to assume that pieces of the same type and color are equal in all situations. For instance, you might think that any knight or queen has the same value in any position, but this isn’t true. The value of a piece depends heavily on its activity. A piece that is well-placed and involved in the game is far more powerful than one that’s passive and limited in its options.
This is important because, in chess, pieces are the most powerful units on the board. Active pieces can be far more valuable than a solid pawn structure or having an equal number of pawns. If faced with the choice of:
- Playing with equal material but with passive pieces, or
- Playing with slightly fewer pawns but with active pieces,
The better choice is usually the second option—active pieces will often more than make up for a material deficit. Understanding this is one thing, but acting on it during a tournament can be much harder, as it might require sacrificing a pawn just to activate a piece. That’s the challenge: knowing the best move doesn’t always make it easier to play it!
Pawns
A strong pawn structure is one of the key advantages you can have in a game. Common examples of poor pawn structures include isolated pawns, hanging pawns, backward pawns, doubled pawns, tripled pawns, overly advanced pawns, and having too many separate pawn islands or chains.
Majority vs Minority
In general, having a pawn majority on the queenside gives an advantage in the middlegame, while a pawn majority in the center is often more powerful in the endgame.
It’s also important to consider any potential pawn breaks—moves that either you or your opponent can make to change the pawn structure. These breaks can significantly affect the course of the game.
Potential Weaknesses vs Actual Weaknesses
Let’s consider a scenario where your opponent has a pawn with no supporting pawns around it. This pawn is a potential weakness, as it could become weak if attacked. However, it’s not an actual weakness until it’s under direct threat. Potential weaknesses don’t necessarily become actual weaknesses unless they’re attacked.
This tells us that we should focus on exploiting potential weaknesses in our opponent’s position, attacking them before they become a real threat. Similarly, we should always be on the lookout for potential weak spots in our own position and try to guard against them. Our opponent is likely to focus on attacking our weaknesses, so we need to be proactive in protecting them.
To use the Scanning Technique, start by scanning the board from the a-file to the h-file. First, consider your pieces, then your pawns. For each piece, list all possible strong moves. Do the same for your pawns. Once you’ve made a list of candidate moves, proceed with one of these approaches:
- Eliminate moves that seem unpromising.
- Focus on the most forcing moves (like checks, captures, threats, or pawn breaks) to see if they have an immediate impact.
- Choose a move you find promising and analyze it. If it doesn’t work, discard bad ideas and look for the most forcing moves instead.
Order of Improving Pieces
- Worst Piece
- Queen
- Rooks
- King
- Minor Pieces
The logic behind this is simple. Think of it like triage in medicine: If three patients come in at once—one with a migraine, one with a hand fracture, and one with a severe head injury—who gets treated first? The one with the head injury obviously needs attention immediately, followed by the hand fracture, and lastly the migraine.
In chess, we prioritize improving our worst-placed pieces, much like the most urgent medical case. These could be pieces that are underdeveloped, stuck in a corner, or blocked by other pawns. They should always be your primary focus when improving your position. Once those are dealt with, move on to the bigger pieces like your queen and rooks. After you’ve repositioned your major pieces, focus on your king, followed by your minor pieces (bishops and knights).
Sometimes improving your major pieces can expose weaknesses in your king’s position—especially on the back rank. If your king’s safety is compromised due to a back rank issue, first address that by moving a pawn to shield the king. When your opponent has a single bishop, it’s helpful to keep pawns near your king in the same color as the bishop’s squares to prevent checks.
In endgames, always prioritize improving your king‘s position over your minor pieces, unless one of your minor pieces is the worst-placed piece on the board.
While this order is a solid guideline, it’s not rigid. It works well about 80% of the time. As you make moves, always ask yourself: “Which piece is the worst placed right now?” Once that’s fixed, move on to the next priority. If your opponent’s move shifts the balance, making one of your pieces the worst-placed, it’s time to address that piece again before continuing the plan.
