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Chessville
From the
From the
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Basic Opening StrategyGeneral Principle #3: "Develop the Minor Pieces before the Major Pieces."and General Principle #4: "Don't Develop the Queen Too Early."At the beginning of the game, the pieces lie dormant behind a wall of pawns. They need to be developed, but which ones should be developed first? As a general rule, it's usually best to develop the minor pieces before the major pieces. ("Minor pieces" refers to the Knights and Bishops. "Major pieces" refers to the Rooks and Queens.) But why should the minor pieces be developed before the major pieces? One reason why they should be developed first is simply that they can be developed first! The Knights can jump over the wall of pawns and the Bishops only need two pawns to move before they can develop. Furthermore, the Knights and Bishops can move around the board with relative ease during the opening phase of the game even though the board is crowded with pieces and pawns, because the Knights can jump over other pieces and the Bishops can slide between other pieces along the diagonals. In contrast, the Rooks cannot be developed as easily and have limited mobility during the early part of the game. This is because Rooks need open files in order to move up the board and open ranks in order to move across the board from side to side. Open files and ranks are not typically available until several pawns and pieces are exchanged, and this doesn't usually happen until later in the game. "What about the Queen? Can't she be developed fairly easily? After all, she only needs an open diagonal, just like the Bishops." Well, that's true: the Queen can be developed early. However, she's an exception to what I said before. Just because you can develop the queen early doesn't mean you should. In fact, it's usually a bad idea to develop the Queen too early. The reason why is simply this: the more valuable a piece, the more dangerous it is to develop it during the opening. The board is a very crowded and there are lots of pawns and Knights and Bishops guarding the center squares and casting nasty glances in every direction. If you were to develop valuable pieces like Rooks and Queens (or even the King) too early, you'd be putting them in danger of harassment or capture by your opponent's pieces (or even checkmate, in the case of the King!). A couple of examples will help clarify when it's "too early" to develop the Queen. Consider the following sequence of moves (click here for an interactive board): 1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. Qxd4. White has played an opening sequence which forces the Queen to develop too early. This is a mistake because after 3...Nc6 Black's Knight is threatening to capture White's Queen. This forces White to waste a turn moving the Queen to safety. After 4. Qe3 Nf6, Black is ahead in development. In contrast, consider the following sequence of moves (click here for an interactive board): 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nxd4?! 5. Qxd4. Black should not have played 4...Nxd4. Perhaps Black thought that this was a good move, since it "forces" White to develop the Queen "too early." However, in this case White's Queen is perfectly safe in the center of the board. Black has no good way to threaten White's Queen, (Black could play ...c5 but it's not a developing move the way ...Nc6 was in the previous example; also, ...c5 does nothing for Black's development and only serves to weaken Black's pawn structure). White's Queen has safely taken up a dominating post in the center of the board. Therefore, the key to determining whether or not it's "too early" to develop the Queen is safety. If the Queen can take up an active, influential, and safe post somewhere, then it's probably okay. Otherwise, it's probably a mistake. Parting Thoughts One way to think of all of this is to use a military metaphor. In battle, you wouldn't send out your best warriors first. Instead, you'd send out a bunch of common foot soldiers (like the pawns) and the highly mobile (but still expendable) scouts and cavalry (like the Knights and Bishops) and let them do most of the dirty work. Only later after most of the battle is over, would you send in the elite troops (like the Rooks and Queens) to finish up. By the way, there's a related but old-fashioned "opening rule" you might come across: "Knights before Bishops" (that is, "You should develop your Knights before you develop your Bishops."). There is a grain of truth to this. In many of the established openings, Knights are indeed developed before the Bishops. One reason for this is simply because they can be. Another reason for this is that it's often just more obvious where you'll develop the Knights than the Bishops. In most openings, White's Knights are best developed to c3 and f3 and Black's Knights to c6 and f6 because those are the squares on which they have the most central influence. In contrast, it is not always so obvious where to put the Bishops. It very often depends somewhat on what pawns and pieces your opponent has moved and what central squares they control. Once that becomes clear, then it's easier to decide what squares will be safe for the Bishops. As you become a more sophisticated and experienced player, you'll see that there are plenty of times when the Bishops need to be developed before the Knights, so I wouldn't pay to much attention to the "Knights before Bishops" rule. Copyright 2002 S. Evan Kreider. Used with permission.
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