Chess and Board Game Strategy Basics: A Beginner's Guide to Openings and Tactics

The three opening principles every chess beginner needs

According to Chess.com's guide on beginner openings, new players should prioritize three things in the opening phase: controlling the center, developing pieces actively, and getting the king to safety. The site notes that most beginners do not need to memorize exact move sequences and should instead focus on these general principles rather than opening theory.

Center control means establishing influence over the four central squares — e4, e5, d4, and d5 — with pawns and pieces early in the game, according to Chess.com's instructional article on mastering openings. Occupying or controlling these squares gives pieces more mobility and more options later in the game.

Piece development refers to moving knights and bishops off their starting squares to positions where they influence the board, rather than leaving them undeveloped. The same source advises against moving one piece multiple times before the other pieces have left their starting squares, since this wastes time that could be used to develop the rest of the army.

King safety is achieved mainly through castling, which Chess.com describes as a move that both shelters the king and connects the rooks so they can coordinate in the middlegame. The guide also warns against bringing the queen out too early, since an exposed queen becomes a target and can be driven back with a loss of time.

Five openings recommended for beginners

Chess.com's article on the best openings for beginners lists five options that apply the principles above without requiring deep memorization.

• Italian Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4) — aims for quick central control and active bishop placement
• Sicilian Defense — an aggressive reply for Black that leads to central pawn exchanges
• French Defense — described by the source as one of the first strategic openings a player should learn, though it can delay the light-squared bishop's development
• Ruy-Lopez — a classical line that puts early pressure on Black's central pawn structure
• Slav Defense — a solid setup that defends the d5-pawn while keeping pieces flexible

Basic tactics: forks, pins, and skewers

Beyond opening principles, Chess.com's explainer on tactics describes three patterns beginners are told to learn first. A fork happens when a single piece attacks two or more enemy pieces at the same time; knights are especially effective at this because of how they move. Because a player can only move one piece per turn, a well-placed fork often wins material.

A pin occurs when an attacking piece lines up on a more valuable piece standing behind the target, so moving the front piece would expose the piece behind it. The source distinguishes an absolute pin, where the piece behind is the king and moving the pinned piece is illegal, from a relative pin, where moving is legal but gives up material.

A skewer works in the opposite direction: a valuable piece in front is attacked and forced to move, which exposes a less valuable piece behind it to capture. Chess.com's guide suggests that beginners improve at spotting these three patterns mainly through repeated practice with tactics trainers and by keeping pieces from lining up on open files, ranks, or diagonals.

Strategy principles that apply beyond chess

The same underlying ideas appear across strategy board games more broadly, according to Lantern Games' beginner strategy guide. The guide lists understanding the rulebook thoroughly, tracking the tempo or pivotal moments of a game, managing limited resources efficiently, reading opponents' play styles, and staying flexible enough to change plans as circumstances shift.

A separate strategy guide published by Ultraboardgames, written around the board game Risk, frames similar concepts in terms of seizing the initiative rather than only reacting to opponents, concentrating forces on defensible positions instead of spreading them thin, and weighing probability before committing to a risky move. The guide adds that overly aggressive early expansion can prompt other players to form alliances against the player in the lead.

A beginner routine for learning strategy games

1. Read the full rulebook or official instructions before the first game, since Lantern Games' guide says understanding mechanics in detail provides a competitive edge
2. In chess, practice the three opening principles — center control, development, king safety — in every game instead of memorizing long opening lines
3. Learn to recognize forks, pins, and skewers using tactics trainers, as Chess.com recommends for building pattern recognition
4. Track the tempo of the game: identify the moments described by Lantern Games as pivotal, where an aggressive or defensive choice matters most
5. Manage resources — pieces, cards, territory, or currency depending on the game — rather than spending them without a plan
6. Observe opponents' tendencies and adjust tactics accordingly, as both the chess and general board game sources recommend
7. Stay flexible and review past games afterward to identify which decisions worked and which did not

Common beginner mistakes to avoid

• Moving the same chess piece repeatedly in the opening instead of developing new pieces, per Chess.com's guide
• Bringing the queen out too early, where it can be attacked and forced to retreat with a loss of time
• Leaving pieces lined up on the same file, rank, or diagonal, which Chess.com's tactics guide says makes pins and skewers easier for an opponent to execute
• In broader strategy board games, expanding aggressively enough to draw a coalition of opponents, a risk highlighted in Ultraboardgames' Risk strategy guide