Develop your pieces quickly

At the start of a game you have eight pieces to develop. In most games

• your Queen and four minor pieces will all move off the back rank;
• your Rooks will move to open or semiopen files; and
• your King will castle into safety in one of the corners.

You also need to move two Pawns in order to develop the Bishops (one Pawn for each Bishop)

This makes a total of 10 developing moves. If you accomplish all of this in the first 12-15 moves, you've done well.

See Positional Play (under 'Suggested Reading') for more about

• Piece activity