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I've been taking an interest in chess and have been doing okay. I do have a couple of questions though. I do understand that the main objective is the protect the king. First question is, which chess piece would you say is the most important and why? Which piece would you consider the least important and why? At what point can you do what is called castling? Lastly, is stalemate a good thing to you or no? I've been told that it's not a good thing, and I've been told it is by others. Which one is true? Thanks!
I've been taking an interest in chess and have been doing okay. I do have a couple of questions though. I do understand that the main objective is the protect the king. First question is, which chess piece would you say is the most important and why? Which piece would you consider the least important and why? At what point can you do what is called castling? Lastly, is stalemate a good thing to you or no? I've been told that it's not a good thing, and I've been told it is by others. Which one is true? Thanks!
No, the main objective is to checkmate the other king. Of course, you need to protect your king along the way.
All pieces have their role and, at any given time, any one piece can be more strategic/valuable than another (however, a Queen is considered the most valuable according to the point system). You should generally castle early in the game...and, if you're behind, forcing a stalemate is a good thing.
There really isn't a best piece to protect the King. It can be a pawn sometimes or it can be the Queen. Castling can only be done in certain circumstances, but you shouldn't worry about that for now. Get an introductory chess book and learn a couple basic openings and the ideas behind them. It's less about the pieces and more about positioning.
If you'd like some examples of what I'm talking about, look up the "stonewall attack" (for white) and "dragon variation" (for black). Again, it's important to understand why those moves are being made--you can't just use the same moves no matter what your opponent does and expect to have success.
For a beginner, the most important "piece" is really the opening set of moves. You should learn to develop your pawns and protect them with other pieces (hello knights and bishops!) while improving their position as well. It's a constant offense/defense and you have to consider what you're opponent is up to at all times.
The objective is to win the game, so making it impossible for the opponent to get out of check is actually the focus; although White has the advantage, Black can win, too.
Castling helps shield the king while freeing the rook. Mastering classic opening moves was a big help to my game...as is my online chess game's Tutor mode.
It might be fun to play chess by post. I've never tried that.
The object of the game is to take (checkmate) the other person's king. If you lose all your pieces (except your own king) yet checkmate his king, you still win. You'd need at least a pawn and a king, I think, in order to win. Two kings can't fight each other since they can't get close enough to win without the other player taking them first. Which is where the stalemate comes in.
Flexibility is always a good thing. If I can't win the game immediately, then usually I'll take it by attrition. If you take the other players knights and bishops with pawns and get the other player's queen, they generally have a pretty hard time checkmating you. Setting things up so you have more than one attack and defense plan available is always good, too.
Attacking is better than defending since if you're making them get out of the way they have a hard time attacking back. Setting it up so you can attack two at once is great.
Get to know the other player, too. Some folks get really rattled if you take their queen, other folks don't seem to fuss much. Chess is more mental than most other games, so do what you can to mess with their minds while you're playing. A nice serene smile and having your moves thought out in advance so when it's your turn you can move quickly and with confidence can get them rattled.
I always consider the best wins when the other player is frustrated enough to fly the pieces against the wall when they lose, although that's generally only saved for special opponents. (insert sly snarky grin here)
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