Chess Middlegames - Essentials Training Course

Here we'll study how to apply this principle in the most direct way, attacking the opponent's most important piece.

Whenever we can't attack our opponent's king, we can still try to use this principle attacking other pieces.

There is no strict definition about what the middlegame is. On the other hand, having some general criteria will help us understand what we'll study on this course.

What's the main goal in the middlegame? Having a goal is always useful to know where we want to go.

Although it is very nice to attack our opponent's king to win the game quickly, sometimes playing active moves can backfire.

On this video we'll study what's the main point behind any attack.

When kings are castled on opposite side, this can lead to very sharp positions where attacks against the king are common. Here we'll study how to deal with such positions.

What is a weak square and how can we benefit from them?

Here, we'll analyze if isolated pawns are bad and we'll also study if they can be used to our advantage

Doubled pawns are normally seen as a weakness, particularly when they are isolated. But, is this always the case?

A pawn majority can be used to our benefit. Here we'll analyze how to benefit from them but also how to attack them.

A more advanced idea is to sacrifice material to get one or more of the strategic advantages that we studied.

Here we'll learn when it is favorable to force an ending when having a position with material equality.

In this video, we'll study if reaching an ending when having a material advantage is favorable or not.

Here we'll study the most important principle that you need to know when defending.

In this video we'll study common defensive ideas, such as fortresses, perpetual check, giving back material and defensive sacrifices.