How would you rank the priorities in the opening?
1) Castling.
2) Gaining control of center squares (or mantaining it)
3) Mantaining the iniciative (as white) or strugling not to get so much tempos behind (as black).
I've heard sometimes that castling shoud be the top priority in the opening, but it's clear that in certain openings you can get clearly behind in number 2 and 3 if you don't respond correctly.
How do you manage this priority assignment?
Do you have your own strict fixed rules or does it always depend on the position?
Thank you, everyone.
I will thank any kind of advice or comment related to this topic. Links, quotes, rules of thumb, links to games, etcetera.
You got it totally wrong.
Think of your objective in the opening, as of creating a favorable imbalance in the position. For example, gain space, while your oponent is packed at one place, making your king safe, while his king is in risk, having knights in closed position, while he has bishops, etc.
My opening routine:
Play prepared theory moves -> a move, then you are out of prep, stop for a little bit, and think of what your objective is and derive a plan to achieve it -> every move from now find candidate moves, and analyse them, choose one -> every 3-4 moves stop for a short amount of time and reconsider, change, create a new plan if needed.
What has this to do with opening rules? Again - imbalances. Your plan (objective) is usually trying to create a favourable imbalance. For example: I play Nimzovitch opening (e4 Nc6), position gets very closed. My plan is to exchange my bishops, for his knights, as knights are better in closed positions. I try to make this plan come true. I succeed. I start using this imbalance in the middlegame.
Next example: I play time odds game (30 sec vs 3 min). My objective is to mate him very quick. I derive my plan to be gaining initiative, making his king weak, and launching a mating attack. I play haloween gambit, which gives me center and development advenage, so after we are out of theory, I can launch attack.
Hope you get what I am saying.
the priority is to drive the game towards a position that fits your strengths. so the order of these priorities depends :p
center control is by far the most important.
yah #2 clearly stands out since you can't do anything else without that. it's quite a weird question that OP asks
@Lightsss When teaching kids, I tell them (in this order) to
1. Develop their pieces
2. Try to control the 4 center squares, and squares around them.
3. Make their king safe - castle! (this is not right, as there sometimes are other ways to make king safe, though I do not bother the beginner with that).
But 1400+ FIDE must understand that there is a lot more up to it. These 3 principles are just most common opening imbalances. That's all.
Thank
@Lightsss @TimDerTurm and specially
@sakram07 for your advice.
@sakram07, you are very generous sharing your knowledge.
@Lightsss has it all correct. I don’t want to create favourable imbalances in the game unless it is favourable to my style of play.
Castling is in there, but center control is more important.
General rule on castling is "before it's too late"