How to Win at Chess: 13 Tips to Guide You to Victory

Chess is the classic example of a board game that is simple to learn but takes a lifetime to master. The internet is full of Chess classes from high-level chess players. If you’re interested in learning how to win chess, the best place to start is to get some basic strategy and practice playing.

In this article, we’ll cover some basic winning chess strategies that will get you started right away. These strategies assume you know how to play chess, so if you want a refresher on the basics of how to move each piece, check out this short article.

If your king is done for in chess, the game is over. Learn to protect your king, for example by castling.

How to Win in Chess: Basic Strategy

Chess consists of three distinct phases: the opening, the midgame, and the endgame. A comprehensive step-by-step chess strategy will fully cover each phase of gameplay and include some pointers along the way.

Tip 1 – How To Win At Chess: Opening

A chess win is near impossible without a good opening strategy. Tthe opening prepares you by activating your pieces and defending your King while transitioning you straight into the mid-game with space to continue to develop your pieces while cutting off your opponent’s ability to expand. To read more about openings, click here.

Tip 2 – 4 – How To Win Every Chess Game: Mid-game

In chess, your long-term idea is called your strategy. A strategy might take place over 20 moves.

Tactics, meanwhile, are short, 2-5 move sequences that you use to help you achieve your strategy. There are two staples of tactics that we need to learn here: forks and pins.

Forking is one way to always win at chess when playing beginners. A fork is when one piece threatens two of the opponent’s pieces, forcing them to choose which piece they’d like to lose. Take the classic example of a pawn in the center of the board.

If the white player advances their pawn to e5, they will fork the knight and the bishop. If the bishop takes the pawn, the white knight on f3 will take the bishop. If any move is made, the white pawn will have at least one piece of a higher value that it can take. Forking is a winning chess strategy that can gain an advantage easily.

A pin, meanwhile, is a chess move whereby one piece can’t move because it’s protecting the piece behind it.

As you can see, the black queen can’t move away from the line of the white bishop on b5; if it does, it will expose the black king. Black must either take the white bishop and lose the queen to the white knight on c3 or wait for white to take the queen with their bishop.

With pin and fork, you have an unbeatable chess strategy that is great for beginners.

Tip 5 – How To Win Chess Every Time: Endgame

The endgame is the part of the chess game when most of the pieces are gone. It’s important to study endgames to learn how to win at chess.

Tip 6 – How To Win A Chess Game: Control The Center

How do you win at chess? Grandmasters will tell you, control the center. Controlling the center of the board (with your pawns and other pieces) will keep you in control of the game. This is why the most popular move for white to open the game is moving their pawn on e2 four spaces: 1.e4.

Tip 7 -How Do You Win In Chess: Control The Diagonals

Bishops and knights have equal point values, but bishops are much more valuable from a distance. If you can place your bishops on the corners and control the long diagonals of the board, this is one of the most popular ways to win chess.

Tip 8 -Chess Techniques To Win: Control The Files

Bishops control diagonals, while rooks control ranks and files. In chess, ranks are the horizontal lines crossing the board; files are the vertical lines. Use your pawns to open up files on the boards, then be the first to place your rooks on these files. This is how to win chess fast.

Tip 9 – How To Beat Someone In Chess: Scholars’ Mate

Scholars’ Mate is a technique that is the best way to win a chess game in 3 moves. The 3 move chess win begins like this: white opens with 1.e4. Black responds, maybe with e5. How to win at chess in 3 moves then white plays bishop 2.bc4. Black responds, maybe Knc6. Next for this quickest chess win, white plays 3.Qd3. So long as black doesn’t move to defend the pawn on f7, white has a checkmate by taking this pawn with the queen.

Tip 10 – Learn To Win: Tips For Chess

Unfortunately, very few are chess games where knowing how to win at chess in 3 moves is the quickest way to win chess. To win chess in the fewest moves possible requires an opponent who doesn’t know what they’re doing.

A great way to learn chess moves to win, though, is to hire a tutor. Amphy is full of experts armed with chess-winning moves. They can teach you to spot three and four move checkmates when you can see at any time how to win a chess game in 4 moves.

Tip 11 – Quickest Chess Win: Keep Your Queen

Of all the pieces, the queen by far has the most cheese moves. She can move up and along the ranks and files, hold the diagonals, and easily return to protect your king in a pinch. She helps with how to win chess in 3 moves and also is a great defender.

Tip 12 – Best Chess Moves To Win: Protect Your King

If your king is done for in chess, the game is over. Learn to protect your king, for example by castling.

Tip 13 – Trade Down When You’re Up

When you have more material than your opponent, don’t be afraid to trade down. Swap pawns for pawns, bishops and knights for bishops and knights, rooks for rooks, and Queen for Queen.