25 Chess Principles For Beginners (with examples) 

As an intermediate player, this is still very useful, because sometimes we forget to follow the principles and only go for the attack! Love your content 👍

1. Create and develop protected passed pawns. 2. Beware excessive continuous pawn moves without piece moves, especially early on. 3. Develop to the most active squares (active squares are contextually referenced in video). 4. When developing pieces, find threats and attacks to make the development more efficient. 5. Beware Greek gift sacrifices. 6. Positional pawn sacrifices can impede opposition mobility when done correctly. 7. When calculating exchanges, make sure to not improve opposition mobility for the sake of short term material gain. 8. Don't block your own pieces in, especially with pawn moves, pawn structure is key. 9. Develop all pieces early, undeveloped rooks can become a thorn in your side. 10. Rooks like open files, also worth considering open ranks. 11. Development and castling before opposition is generally an advantage. 12. Attack weak squares. 13. Remember en passant. 14. Assess which pieces are weakest, and strengthen them. 15. When attacking, don't trade queens at their request. 16. Rooks like the penultimate ranks and files. 17. Active kings win endgames, 18. Active kinds combined with pawn decoys, dominate endgames. 19. Blocking the e-pawn and d-pawn early on, is generally very unwise. 20. There are two diagonals susceptible to early checkmates, h4-e1 for white, and h5-e8 for black. 21. Castle when the position calls for it, rather than impulsively when the opportunity arises. 22. Counter a flank attack with a central attack, opposing flank counterattacks work too. 23. Knights have great mobility in closed positions, bishops in open positions. 24. Closed files are generally easier to defend. 25. Never underestimate passed pawns.

Considering these principles are for beginners, some of these are even useful for a 1400-1500 player! Thanks, keep up the top notch content!

Loved this vid. These kind of examples are so helpful because you explained whats going on. When analysing with the engine it doesnt tell you why some moves are unaccuracies

I like the clear and concise manner in which you present and explain these principles. Great vid

Thanks for the lessons, appreciate it.

This was a great vid fun and super helpful. Thanks!!!

This is great information. Thank you!

great video thank you so much!

This was really helpful thanks

AWESOME...you are an excellent teacher with a talent for expressing things simply. Thank you!

Was looking for a channel that would genuinely help improve my game and I think I found it🙌🏻

Excellent, very instructive you have a very good teaching style

Great video! Thanks sir 🙏

I like your teaching. Simple and clear.

Nelson, I’d really appreciate if you could do a lesson on pushing pawns during the middle game. Like opposite side castle or when you push h4-h5 against a castled black king. I never know how to not close the position or when to take the enemy pawns or push past them. Hopefully I made my request clear because I struggle a lot with that.

As a professional 600 rated i can tell you guys that he's right👍

Principle 3 was mind blowing, as you said it I was like "Oh my gosh, how have I not considered that being the reasoning" Thanks so much for the video, really enjoyed a look inside the thought process!

Great video Teacher Nelson. Been watching for almost 2 years now and you've helped my game tremendously...Thank you and Happy Holidays!❤♟

Very good refresher..

Still the best channel on explaining chess principles in the most practical way - Thanks again for improving my game

17:48 I like h6 more than moving the bishop. If white takes the bishop anyway, you get his back, while opening up the rook. If the bishop took a pawn as a desperado, taking back with your knight defends your bishop.

The last six minutes of this video are examples from the game I sent in. My reasoning for retreating my white-square bishop to e-2 was I did not want to exchange a bishop for a knight. I did not see that moving to g-2 would have opened my rook. As for the black-square bishop, I fully intended to develop it by moving the kingside pawns out as you covered. The risky manner in which I did was due to the white queen being blocked, forcing the knight to retreat, and preparing longside castling. Your input on that castling was premature is greatly appreciated. The fatal flaw was forgetting about the passed pawn the a-file. My idea was to activate my king to pick-off pawns to free mine to promote, but where I moved allowed an unchallenged pawn to promote first. I was up a pawn and bishop. If I eliminated that pawn, my king and bishop would have easily overwhelmed the white king, allowed a pawn promotion, and won.

These are excellent strategies for beginner and intermediate players. Thanks for doing this

When I was a beginner I had no idea that developing pieces was so crucial. My whole concept of using pawns to open is that they are generally a low risk move. I thought they were strong almost like a barrier for my other pieces

16:04 you can play Ke6 Kd8 d7 Kc7 Ke7 wtv and d8=Q, wins much faster and cleaner

3:23 the Greek gift is what I was curious about with bishops 11:43 en passant and castling are still something I am not comfortable doing but too move up I think I gotta learn them 13:14 smh I love doing this, gotta remember this rule I love these tutorialz

Nelson! Please be more encouraging as you tutor! Your wealth of knowledge is life saving for those of us who struggle. You should instruct without being so personally critical! Instead of phrasing your advice by saying "i dont know why you made that move" or "if you would have made this move like ive been saying," try to share your tips without harping down on our mistakes! You actually do teach exceptionally well, but as someone who can get easily discouraged i feel like we can all learn best by continuing to encourage each other! That being said, keep up the great work man! We appreciate the time you take from your daily life to make all these incredible videos!

Principle 7: don't untangle their pieces. Such an obvious point, but sometimes in a difficult position I just let it go because I don't know what to do, and want to release the tension

Hands down the best chess channel on RU-vid. Keep it up!

6:31 the solution of moving the queen to D5 I think is a blunder of the bishop. Because white could then move queen to A4 giving check and then take the free bishop. Right?

On principle 6 could black checkmate white after white played pawn forward and black could play the queen diagonal to the left and checkmate the king because the king can only move on the diagonal row where the queen was and also nothing could block it or protect it so it’s instant checkmate, just thought I’d mention it

Amazing video, so clear ! Hey, what's the process to be coached by you like these guys in the video ?

Nice

I am 1300+ rated in longer time controls but have a hard time breaking 900 in 3 minute blitz. Many of my games are lost due to time (much more often than my opponents) so a video on improving at speed chess and faster calculation would be helpful. I don't know if ratings are lower in blitz in general or if I'm just a bad blitz player relatively speaking.

you are my favorite chess vlog here in youtube

Underrated video

Another great video for us beginners! I've been playing for a couple years, currently around 1000. In your Greek Gift example, if the queen on h4 targeted f2 instead of h2, it looks to me like you've got a free rook. I may be missing something, though.

nICE!

can anyone explain 9:24 where queen goes to d4 seems like giving up a queen and white would take it with pawn e3 to d4

I’m still stuck at 800 and it’s very frustrating. Just lost to a player who played the goldsmith opening and I’m like, “what the freck?”

Are those 4.4’ Dragon Luxury Staunton - triple weighted Chess pieces I see in the background?

Im gonna play against my physics teacher in chess for free exam, and this video definitely what i needed rn. Thank you so much!

3:00 You can also have pawn to e4, right? It's backed up by the pawn and the knight.

At 3:22, is this better than pawn to E4?

4:50 I would play Bd6 to threaten mate, if only Ndf3 want a move. it gives me an extra move. Sometimes my opponents don’t see it, but i see opponent

Manure the bishop tactic. Noted.

I use to have the mind set "when in doubt push a pawn"

This was helpful, because whenever my pawn is attacked, I forget I can just move it forward.

I dont know what my ELO actually is, I am solving 1900-2000 puzzles with ease, and been randomly playing 1600+ 1700+ rating, My biggest problem is that I like to play 'out of the box' style, no theories or traps, I want to create my own games. I still want to learn.

21:37 isn't it the case that White actually can't ever open the a-file either way because a6 runs into b6? Then just Ka7 and there's never going to be an attack in like the next 8-15 moves

👍👍👍

3:50 greek gift is good but it won’t be a mate. King runs f1 and then e2 and so on.

@3:52 how would that be checkmate wouldn't the king just move f1

While I feel bad for black, I have never seen the bar go from so black to so white as it does at 22:02. :D

what chess app is this?

Nice I'm early

His expressions are all off the chart 🤣🤣👍🏿

The thing with me is if I have a good position with everything I don’t know what moves to do

Chess is making me insane

at 6:35, white is hanging a knight bc the other knight is pinned to the king.

Do you analyse these games live? Can you analyse one of my games? I'm 1100 and really wanna go up.

I’m about to smoke Martin on chess learn and play from this video

I like you a lot- no frills and you talk at my level. Sorry to be a typo-Nazi: you misspelled “squares” just past the two minute mark.

These priniciples are good maybe for players below 500. For players above 1000, these kind of mistakes very rarely happen. Even blundering a whole piece might happen more frequently than those bad moves you described. Like all titled players, since you are not constantly playing at lower ratings, you don't really know what is happening in such games. Of course, it is not your fault and it is like that for all titled players.

Garri kasparov lol 2:07 sqaures 💀

Thumbnail telling me to move the pawn out of danger instead of protecting it French move: my time has come

4:43 Qh4 was checkmate tho😂

I’m confused on the en passant move. How could he have put his pawn there?

3:23 he talks about moving a bishop but uses his pawn instead

When I was starting chess i do this mistakes very often i know like the second one Literally i just make a pyramid like structure with pawns Don't know why??

How about a beginners book for the novice.

Chess tournament tomorrow wish me luck guys 😇

Nelson, we want "Guess the ELO" as Levy does (minus his drama). We would love to see a guess the ELO without Levy's unnecessary comments...

As a checkers player, I am lost.

That ending was so painful 💀

10:14 there was a fork with knight

Teehee, just watched the game where the GM only played pawns until move 18!! Obvs, these rules don't apply to GMs... :)

The most common mistake I see in beginners is not developing all their pieces as soon as possible.

I’ve never even heard of en passant before..

Im early lol

Bruh, you can't make a video for casual and just say 'don't forget en pessant' I didn't know this rule existed.

This is a interesting video though there is a opening where white doesn't need too much development to be at a massive advantage which is the Austrian Attack

beans

Excellent content, but you need to say "with that being said" rather than "having said that".

I cannot believe some people have 200-300 rating :)

4:28 not a good tactic at all