We've all heard the old sayings like "a knight on the rim is dim", "develop knights before bishops", and countless more, which are good general guidelines for beginners but need to be quickly abandoned. Which of those old axioms do y'all think is the most useless or overrated?

"Develop Knights before Bishops" is probably the most useless axiom. The others all have some degree of truth, but this one is just pointless.

What about Nimzo's theory of overprotection? I think he devoted and entire chapter to it in "My System". I can't remember ever consciously using it in my play, but then again maybe I'm not strong enough to know what he means.

The idea of identifying "candidate moves" then analysing them out - unfortunately noone's brain works like that!

Because TexAg wrote about overprotection: Hans Kmoch published a brilliiant satire on Nimzowitsch's overprotection idea: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1334664

Anybody who has read "My System" (and that should be all of us...) will probably find it hilarious.

I especially like the comment after move 21: "Completing the overprotection of e5 and thus deciding the fate of the game. Black has no defence."

I'm really enjoying this. You're right, this really is hilarious. Thanks.

Honestly? Either "The center is the most important part of the board, so you should develop your pieces there", "castling", or "Don't advance your pawns too far forward in the beginning."

I like flank attacks of the center and jumbling the position up with big complications. The center, at least for me, isn't too important. Yeah, if I get a center without a fight, I'll take it and extend it. But meh, have a center I can attack at least gives me a plan and a fight.

The castling one is unique. It is important, but I ignore it far too often and far too often, my opponents look for a way to punish me for it when there doesn't exist a way. They sacrifice material and I have a winning endgame. However I have started castling more.

When I played the french or an offshoot of the colle system with white, I had one goal in mind. Space on the queenside. Advance the pawns, grab space, tear open either the a or b file, and penetrate with the rooks. And I won quite a few games this way, as the opponent just didn't have the space. If you can constrict the opponent, have your pieces ideally placed, and attack the weak points and invade, you'll win the game. I wouldn't suggest that for beginners, but yeah.

Never read my system, so sadly it's not all of us

One recurring type of comment has always struck me as odd, especially since i started playing poker:

"This exchanges a knight that has consumed 4 moves for one that just got developed."

Who cares how many moves the knight has made? It doesn't make any difference.

You lost 3 tempi. Doesn't mean the exchange was wrong, but unless the exchange (or the earlier knight moves) gained you something significant, you probably made a mistake somewhere.

Compare to capping flop and folding turn for one bet.

yes but in itself it means nothing. I exchange a knight on square A for one on square B. If my knight is active and his one is passive, it might be a mistake. But then it should be worded in this terms.

The tempi might have been lost or spent more useful otherwise, but then the knight moves might have forced some weakening pawn moves on his part or forced him to displace a piece.

Hilarious. I laughed out loud several times, that was awesome. My particular favorite was on move 22: "A good move (!) Much stronger than the obvious Bg5+ etc." Hahahaha.

Great satire by Kmoch. His writing style was virtually indistinguishable from Nimzo.

I think the concept of overprotection has some merit, at least in my understanding of it, which may be somewhat different from what Nimozowitsch meant.

For example in the King's Indian, Black usually plays e5 after Bg7, which might seem illogical, entombing the dark-squared Bishop, but in fact the dark-squared bishop is a very important piece because it adds additional protection to the strong point in the centre. Eventually, there will probably be a break in the centre, after which this bishop has the potential to be a very good piece. Or another variation of the concept is the Bayonet variation in the King's Indian, where White plays seemingly pointless moves like Re1 and Bf1, but in many variations the rook on e1 ends up playing a major role in the game.

However, I agree that this principle is not really useful for trying to find good moves, it's more a way of thinking about strategic plans in certain positions.

Not really an axiom or theory, but here goes....

I asked an FM on ICC a few years ago what his advice would be (after my beating him in a 1 0 game and him being very complimentary) and he told me that I should always try to castle within the first five (!) moves. Without always playing the King's Indian Attack, Nimzo-Indian, etc. I don't really see how this is possible; perhaps he was just trying to give me level-appropriate advice (I was about 1800 at the time), but I always thought this was the worst, if not the weirdest, idea someone has tried to teach me about chess.

However, he did give me a piece of really good advice too - to read Bronstein's book about the 1953 Zurich Interzonal (?). Awesome book that I think helped my chess thinking a lot.

i once played in a tournament where they rolled 3 dice before one of the rounds and stipulated that whoever castles on the according move number and wins the game gets a coupon for a coffee and a slice of cake. A ten was rolled, i won a queen's gambit where it was easy to delay castling for a move or two, and was the first to claim the prize.

the thing about the GM when asked "how many moves ahead do you see?" and he replies, "one". The idea being that to play at a high level, you can get ahead with only understanding one move ahead, lol. to play good chess, you need to see a lot more than one move ahead, and also look out for tactics, and themes which involve multiple moves.

+1, this is it imo


btw, this thread would of been better completed imo with a dual positive/negative axiom.

like the most overrated and underated axiom with 1 answer each !

The importance of castling as a "rule" depends a little on one's rating. Starting out, people tend to understand neither king safety nor the value of connecting rooks, so it's a great rule to have.

Among, say, Class A players, people tend to get away with not castling because the opposition is not opportunistic enough in the opening. But strong opponents will punish one for it, in my experience.

A bad rule: Avoid doubled pawns. (Categorically, I don't even know whether this is good advice for beginners. Especially if it encourages them to trade bishops or pawns.)
A good rule: Rooks behind passed pawns.

I like the idea of adding some good axioms.

Good rule: centralize your king in the endgame. Rarely is that a bad idea.

A good rule is don't start a flank attack unless the centre is blocked or under your control. I know this is a good rule because I have violated it many times and things usually don't turn out well.

well for me, the most underrated axiom is , always good to sacrifice a pawn to get the 7(1)th rank ( depending if u are white or black of course).

its amazing how powerfull this idea is to get a great game or turn a bad game into a drawy one.

In the opening, try to advance your king to the seventh rank.

I agree, that's a very good one.

Good one: Rooks belong on the 7th(2nd) rank

+1

Yet, isn't it funny how many of the HS poker forums here use precisely this method of thinking?