Chapter Seven was a lot to take in, so take a breath — this chapter is the calmer counterpart. Tactics are short, forcing sequences that win material or force mate right away; you saw plenty of those. Strategy is the opposite pace: reading a position where material is dead level, deciding who's actually better and why, and building a plan across several moves — pressuring the enemy kingside, say, or steering toward a favorable endgame — that pays off gradually rather than immediately. Neither one replaces the other. Strategic thinking is what tells you where to look for a tactic in a quiet position; a tactic is often what actually cashes in a strategic advantage once you've found it. This chapter walks through three of the biggest strategic ideas for a beginner to know: weaknesses, space, and the difference between open and closed positions.
A weakness is any piece, pawn, or square that isn't adequately defended and can be exploited — sometimes right away, sometimes only after you've built up more pressure on it. Spotting weaknesses is exactly where strategy and tactics meet: strategic scanning finds the target, and a tactic you already know (often a pin or a fork, straight out of the last chapter) is what actually wins it.
Start by scanning for undefended pieces. Remember that pawns only defend diagonally, so a piece can be completely surrounded by friendly pawns and still be hanging.
Two things are worth noticing before you even get to that combination. First, it's a bit of a trick question: Black's rook stuck in the corner on h8 is technically undefended too, but there's no way to actually get at it right now, so it isn't a real weakness — a weakness only matters if you can reach it. Second, there was more than one way to pin the c6 knight to the king along that same diagonal; the bishop just happens to be the cleanest piece for the job. Once the knight is pinned, it can't move to escape at all — moving it would expose the king to check, which is illegal — so all Black can do is bring help, and here there's no helper available. That's what makes ...Kd7 forced, and Qa4 lethal.
Sometimes a single move creates two weaknesses at once — which is just the fork idea from Chapter Seven, arrived at through strategic scanning instead of stumbling onto a tactic that was already sitting on the board. It's White's move here — see if you can spot the fork before revealing it.
Weaknesses don't need to be dramatic to matter, either. A single extra pawn in an endgame is rarely enough to win on its own, but if you can find a way to guarantee winning it, that's still real, lasting progress. It's White's move — try to find the guarantee before revealing it.
Go looking for weaknesses on every single move you consider, not just the obvious hanging queen (though if you ever do see one of those sitting undefended, by all means take it). Sometimes the entire reward is a single extra pawn, and that's still worth having.
Squares can be weak too, not only pieces. Two things make a square weak: it's poorly defended, and — this is the part beginners miss — most of the nearby pawns sit on the opposite color from that square. Since a pawn only ever defends squares matching the color it stands on, a king wrapped in pawns of one color has a hole on every square of the other color right next to it — Black's position below is like Swiss cheese, full of holes. Black is actually up a full knight here, but White has a forced mate in three. See if you can find the first move before revealing the line.
The same idea flips over to the opposite color just as easily. It's White's move again — try to find the move that starts the attack.
A single pawn move can be the entire difference between a lost king and a safe one. Compare that last position to this near-twin, where Black played ...g6 instead of ...h6:
Take that lesson forward into your own games: when you're deciding which way to move a pawn near your king, think about which color squares you're giving up, not just which ones you're gaining.
Space means the number of squares you control in the opponent's half of the board, where "control" means one of your pieces could capture anything that landed there — whether or not you actually would. A big space advantage cramps every one of the opponent's pieces while giving yours plenty of room to maneuver.
Where does that kind of gap come from? Often simply from following the opening principles you already know.
That gap isn't automatic, though — it depends entirely on how both sides actually play. Push the position into sharper, well-known opening theory and the space battle is often a lot closer than you'd think.
Space also isn't permanent — it shifts with every move and gets fought over constantly. If you're the cramped side, look to trade off specifically the enemy pieces or pawns doing the cramping; the piece you trade is worth the same points whether or not it controls half the board, but removing the one that's actually restricting you changes the balance in your favor. If you're the side with the advantage, be careful about trading just because a trade looks even on paper.
A rook is worth five points whether it controls two squares or twenty — but in practice, the one controlling twenty is doing vastly more work. Don't measure your pieces only by their point value; measure what they're actually doing on the board.
Whether a position counts as open or closed comes down to exactly one thing: where the pawns are. Picture each side's eight pawns as a fence. When both fences are still mostly intact and pressed up against each other, almost nothing can get through, and the position is closed.
That's the extreme case just to make the picture vivid — real closed positions are rarely quite that frozen, but the principle is the same: pieces struggle to cross the center, and progress comes from slow maneuvering and pawn breaks rather than direct confrontation. The King's Indian Defense is the classic real-world example.
The more pawns remain locked on the board, the more closed — and usually the slower and more maneuvering-based — a position tends to be. Beginners often find closed positions frustrating because there's no obvious line to charge down; the fix is almost always the same idea from the space section — find a pawn break or a trade that undermines the opponent's chain, rather than trying to force pieces through a wall that isn't going anywhere on its own.
The French Defense's Advance Variation shows a closed structure actually forming, move by move, and how it immediately gets challenged.
If White ever captures on c5, or Black captures on d4, the e5 pawn loses its defender and becomes a genuine target — exactly the kind of undermining trade that cracks open a closed structure. An open position is the opposite state entirely: pawns have been traded away, and pieces can see and capture clear across the board.
Neither type of position is better than the other on principle — the skill is recognizing which one you're in and adjusting your plans to fit. Bishops in particular care enormously about this: they need open diagonals to do anything, so if your opponent has the bishop pair and you don't, keeping the position closed blunts their biggest advantage; if the bishops are on your side, opening the position lets them do their work. In a closed position, hunt for the pawn break or the trade that undermines the opponent's chain. In an open position, stay alert — beginners get caught out constantly by forgetting that a piece across the board can still reach them with nothing at all in the way.
Strategy is about reading a position and building a plan across many moves, rather than cashing in something immediate. Weaknesses — undefended pieces you can actually reach, or squares that are poorly guarded and sit on the "wrong" color relative to the nearby pawns — are worth hunting for constantly, since exploiting one is often just a tactic you already know from Chapter Seven. Even a single pawn is a weakness worth winning in an endgame.
Space, the number of squares you control in enemy territory, restricts the opponent's pieces and expands your own options; it comes naturally from following opening principles, though well-known sharp openings can leave it close to even on both sides. Defend a space advantage by avoiding trades that simplify it away, and fight for space you lack by trading off specifically the pieces or pawns doing the cramping. Finally, recognize whether a position is closed (pawns locked, slow maneuvering, look for breaks) or open (pawns traded away, long diagonals and files, danger from across the board) and adjust your plans — and which pieces you value most — accordingly.
Tactics are short forcing sequences that win material or deliver mate immediately. Strategy is a longer-term plan built from reading who stands better in a position, even when material is level and nothing is immediately forcing.
Pawns only capture and defend diagonally, one square forward. A piece directly in front of, behind, or beside a pawn isn't defended by it at all.
A weakness only matters if you can reach it. The rook is undefended, but there's no way to attack it right now, so it isn't a usable target — unlike the knight on c6, which White can immediately pin and pile pressure onto.
It's poorly defended by pieces, and most of the nearby pawns sit on the opposite color — since pawns only guard squares matching their own color, that leaves holes of the other color that enemy pieces can walk straight into.
Na5 attacks b7 directly. If Black pushes the pawn to b6 to save it, that same push removes the defender of c6, so the knight simply captures c6 instead.
Space is the number of squares you control in the opponent's half of the board. If you're cramped, trade off specifically the enemy pieces or pawns that are restricting you — removing the culprit shifts the balance in your favor.
A lopsided space advantage like Board 8's usually means one side is playing worse, often by ignoring opening principles. In sharp, well-known openings played accurately by both sides, the space fight is often close to even instead.
Trading pieces one-for-one is materially even, but it can hand back your positional advantage — a piece is worth more when it controls a lot of space, and fewer pieces on the board means less for your space advantage to constrain, as Board 12 shows.
Where the pawns are. Intact, mutually blocking pawn chains make a position closed; pawns that have been traded away open up the files and diagonals.
Keep it closed. Bishops need open diagonals to be effective, so locking the pawn structure limits exactly the advantage your opponent is holding.
The e5 pawn is defended by the pawn on d4, so there's nothing to attack yet. ...c5 undermines that defender instead — if a capture happens on c5 or d4, the e5 pawn loses its support and becomes a real target.