Playing White Chess Pieces

There are two teams of chess pieces against each other in chess. One is the white team of white chess pieces and the other is the black team of black pieces. Here are some tips to remember when playing white chess pieces.

Setting up the pieces is always an important consideration. Setting up is not just the correct placement of chess pieces in the preliminary chess formation, though this is important. All 8 pawns should be arrayed in front along the second row of the initial formation.

Then, all officials or major and minor pieces should be lined up at the back of the pawns or along the last row. Official play pieces should be positioned in the following order starting from the extreme right square: rook, knight, bishop, king, queen, bishop, knight, and a rook again.

But there's more to setting up than just correctly placing them in the starting formation. Setting up is also planning on how to position them on the board for an attack or defense strategy. This setup includes knowledge about the areas on the board vital for a strategy, and especially what areas on the board we should initially take over prior to a territorial conquest.

Playing white chess pieces sometimes gives us an edge at the start of the game because we get to act first. When we act first we often get a control of the game. If we know how to exploit the advantage of being a step ahead of the opponent, we may be able to have control. One way of gaining an advantage is occupying the center of the board first. Our privilege to act first gets us a slight lead in placing more major pieces on the central squares.

Being the "white" player often makes us play in the aggressive mode. Remember that a strong attack strategy is often launched on a second launch base—which is the center of the board. Launching an attack direct from home base takes tedious processes that make a quick retreat equally difficult.

But if we have invaded the board's center and have fortified it with our pieces, it may serve as a secondary launch center or a satellite from which a short-distance assault may be done. This makes assault and recovery easy and fast.

Thus, when playing white chess pieces we have the advantage of getting to the center of the board first. If we make this a priority we control the board and the game—and our win.