Piece activity is at the heart of chess strategy. It is connected with everything else. If you want to give an early check mate, you need active pieces. If you want to win material, in order to give check mate at a later stage, after a war of attrition, you need active pieces. While piece activity is the key for achieving these concrete goals, it is also a goal in itself, as it is necessary for everything. It resembles a medal with two sides. On the one side, there is the activity of my pieces, on the other side there is the activity of my opponent’s pieces. The opponent’s pieces have to be looked at from a negative perspective, which is called restriction. Naturally, we will start with the ego-perspective.
THE ACTIVITY OF MY PIECES
75. What is the most active move?
The most important single word in chess is “activity”. In case of doubt, always play the most active move. Putting your opponent under pressure comes with many advantages:
1) You create tactical chances.
2) While your opponent has to react, he can hardly become active himself.
3) Your opponent makes the most mistakes, when he is under pressure.
76. Can I scare my opponent by attacking or by threatening to attack?
Generally, people don’t like to be attacked. Many play too cautiously in this situation and leave the path of objectivity. Whenever someone plays with a bias, the evaluation of your position rises.
77. Do I have passive pieces?
Pieces are like batteries. They have a maximum filling potential, and are normally filled somewhere between zero and their maximum. Sometimes they even have a negative value and it would be better for you, if they didn’t exist. This is the equivalent of a battery spilling acid. Passive pieces are very low on energy. They are a burden for your position. It goes without saying, that your goal must be to fill them up and bring them near to their maximum potential.
78. Which is my worst placed piece?
You can make the base effect work for your. Improving your worst placed piece to an average location is much easier, than improving an average piece to a premium position, as premium positions are rare to find. Of course, the jackpot would be to change your worst placed piece into the flagship player of your team. Hence, it is a good idea to have a special focus on your problem pieces.
79. Where are the ideal squares for each respective piece? How can I maneuver a piece to it’s ideal square?
The key to piece improvement is to identify the best square for each of your pieces. This is a routine background operation of experienced chess players.
80. Can I occupy a line or diagonal?
To a large extent, chess is a logistical problem. Often, there are important avenues present in the form of open lines or diagonals. Obviouslly, whoever manages to control these traffic routes can increase his overall chances. Of course, the most natural way to activate a rook or bishop is to place them on these important lines and diagonals. Sometimes, such a control can be neutralized by the enemy counter party, but sometimes not. First come, first served!
81. Should I change the pawn structure to improve my pieces?
To a large extent, chess is a logistical problem. You have to think about where your pieces have the biggest impact and how to get them to their perfect location. The problem is, that maneuvering alone doesn’t do the job. Sometimes you have to change the pawn structure to increase their mobility. Building a new road often is the key to the position.
82. Can I open lines or vacate squares for my pieces by sacrificing pawns?
Altering the pawn structure by moving pawns is one thing, doing the same by sacrificing one of them is taking the game to another level. It’s definitively above the pay grade of many ordinary club players. But sometimes such a sacrifice would be a no-brainer for every master. If one pawn hinders many pieces, it normally is a small price to pay to get rid of it by a clearance sacrifice, so you can upgrade all of the big guns. If you add together all of the gained pawn units (or fractions of them), you will normally overcompensate the loss of the sacrificed pawn.
83. Can I penetrate my opponent’s position?
Besides a direct mate attack or material gains by means of a combination or strong pressure, penetration is one of the big goals of piece activity. After a penetration, the defender is often paralyzed and material gains are just a question of time. Sacrificing a pawn is often a small price to pay for the possibility of a penetration.
84. Are there alternative methods of development for my rooks?
Rooks don’t necessarily have to be placed on an open file. Sometimes an open file is what I call an “empty file”, meaning there is nothing of value to be found there for our rook. But often, there are alternatives. With black pawns on b5 or g5, you can play a2-a4 or h2-h4 with the idea to activate your rook by capturing these pawns. That way, rooks are the only pieces that don’t have to move to be developed. Another possibility to develop a rook is to push a rook pawn far down the board. Imagine, you as Black lost the right to castle with your king being on f8. In some positions you can play …h7-h5-h4(-h3) and then develop the rook to one of the squares on the h-file, taking control of a rank. In other cases, you want to conduct a rook lift in order to transfer the rook to the other wing. A classical example would be to play a2-a4, intending Ra1-a3-g3(h3), adding the rook to your attack or creating the conditions for an attack, in the first place. Even if there is no attack possible, this might be a good alternative way to develop your rook, if there is no square for your Bc1 to go.
85. Are there alternative ways of development for my bishops?
Bishops have two options: They can be developed in a classical way or placed on the long diagonal, right? Wrong! There is a third way. As White, you sometimes play Bf1-h3, instead of Bf1-g2. Likewise, there is the option to move your queen’s bishop to a3 instead of b2.
86. Are there alternative ways for me to deploy my knights?
Most of the time, we try to develop our knight to f3 and c3 (f6 and c6). Sometimes we will place them on the second or seventh rank. The option to develop them on the edge of the board, however, is not that present in the consciousness of many players. Let me give you two examples for the development of the knight to h3.
1) You play against the Dutch Stonewall where Black wants to play his bishop to d6. With Nh3 you can prepare the exchange of Black’s most important minor piece by Bc1-f4.
2) Following pawn structure: a2, b2, c4, e2, f2, g3, h3 versus a7, b7, c7, d6, f7, g6, h7. On f3 the knight would block the Bg2. If you play it to h3, instead, it will continue to f4, from where it could hop onto the outpost d5.
87. What piece overperform in a given structure? Which underperform?
These questions are connected with subjects we have already covered above, but also with the topic of exchanges, which is still to come. We should always have a good idea of what pieces we want to see leaving the board or which have to be preserved, if possible. The same applies for the pieces of the opponent, of course.
88. How can I improve the coordination of my pieces?
Within systems the whole is usually more than the sum of its parts. When evaluating pieces, we also have to consider their function as part of a team or their value as part of a project (accomplishment of positional goals). What makes a piece a good team player depends on the specific requirements of a position. In some positions it is all about attacking a weak point in the opponent’s camp. Here, the pieces have to focus on that point. In other positions, the pieces have to work together in a more complementary way, with everyone controlling different sectors or color complexes of the board.
89. Do my pieces obstruct one another?
Sometimes the pieces interact in a negative way, by obstructing each other. Good players try not to let this happen in the first place, but sometimes it cannot be avoided. If any kind of jam in the energy flow is present in your position, try to figure out how it can be dissolved. Sometimes, there are subtle maneuvers with exactly this aim in mind. Imagine a Sicilian position with Black’s bishop on e7 and his rook on f8. The rook stands in the way of the bishop and the bishop stands in the way of the rook. The bishop wants to overprotect the soft spot g7 and the rook wants to become active in the e-file. Hence, Black plays …Re8, followed by …Bf8. Now, Black’s king is safer and the rook can be activated after a subsequent …e6-e5 or …d6-d5. It is a good feeling for harmony, which distinguished Karpov from man others back in the days. Nowadays, it is a necessary quality of every elite player.
