What's the best strategy you need to play chess and how to play chess?

I need an answer immediately. I'm participating for a chess competition in my school. So, I must win the game and I'll need the best strategy. My teacher said that we must have strategy while playing chess and I don't know what it is. This is my second time participating in a chess competition and during my first time, I lost. I really really want to win this and need anybody's help. So, to those who have experience in participating or always playing chess or expert in chess or...whatever. Teach me how.








Thank you.|||At your level, the best "strategy" is to look for tactics that you can use against your opponent.





Look for things like:





Forks


Skewers


Pins


Discovered attacks


Double attacks








After your opponent moves, ask yourself:





1) What is the THREAT? (potential checks, captures, key squares, key ranks/files)





2) What has CHANGED? (any new weaknesses emerging, is your opponent concentrating his forces, does he have any pieces that aren't defended, exposed or restricted his King, created a vulnerable back rank, etc)





Before you move, ask yourself:





1) Does the move improve my position? (activating your pieces, opening up lines for attack, seizing outposts, contesting open files or diagonals, etc)





2) Is this move SAFE?











Don't worry about learning openings at this point... they don't matter at the beggining levels . It's only at the expert level that openings begin to take on significance.





It might be a little late for you to try to learn how to win chess games at this point.. I don't know how much time you have to practice before your game, but here's a site that will take you through various steps from the beginning:





http://www.entertainmentjourney.com/inde鈥?/a>








Go to the "How to get to 800" link and work your way through those puzzles... then go to the next level.





Who knows? Maybe your opponent won't know what THEY'RE doing.





At your level, what you need to do to get better at chess is to learn and practice TACTICS (which means, you need to learn how to create short term threats and captures... good ways to do this are by forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, and double attacks).





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_(chess)





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(chess鈥?/a>





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovered_鈥?/a>








You can read about other tactics here:





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_tacti鈥?/a>








Even if going over these things won't help you in THIS tournament, they'll surely help you in the next one, once you have a chance to really go through and learn them.








Good luck to you!!.|||This is the strategy I usually use, but it only tends to work if you're the white side:





Move the pawn in front of your king forward two.


Opponent's move.


Move the free bishop diagonally three, so it is lined up with the pawn.


Opponent's move.


Move the queen diagonally two, so it is on line behind your pawn/bishop.


Opponent's move.


Move the queen directly forward, killing the pawn.





Now you should have a checkmate within four moves. However, it can be difficult to pull off if your opponent makes moves that hinder your queen, like moving the pawn you need to take out forward. :/





Sorry if this doesn't help, and good luck in your tournament! :D|||Take your time and think of what your opponent may do after your move and the results of your move. Also try to set your opponent up for a trap.|||its all about thinking ahead


try to think of how your opponent will react to your move


also setting traps is also good


the key to successfully playing chess is to try to think 3 or 4 moves ahead of your current move|||http://onlyforyou.adores.it


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