Teaching strategy and planning

Imbalances, pawn structures and model games — how to make positional chess concrete.

Strategy becomes the main growth area once tactical blunders are under control (roughly from 1200). Students struggle because positional advice sounds vague. Make it concrete: name the imbalance, name the plan, show the plan in a model game, then let the student find the plan in a fresh position.

Core topics in teaching order

• Piece activity: good and bad pieces, improving the worst piece.
• Open files and outposts.
• Weak pawns and squares: isolated, doubled, backward pawns; holes.
• Pawn structures from the student’s openings (isolated queen’s pawn, Carlsbad, hanging pawns, Sicilian structures).
• Prophylaxis: what does the opponent want, and how do I stop it first?
• Good and bad exchanges; when to trade into an endgame.
• Static vs dynamic advantages; the initiative.

Guess-the-move with model games

1. Choose a game from a player suited to the level (the level pages list them).
2. Skip the opening; the student guesses the winner’s move at every turn.
3. After each guess, discuss the difference between the student’s idea and the master’s.
4. At the end, the student summarises the plan of the game in three sentences.