To win battles you need to understand both TACTICS and STRATEGY.

Tactics are moves or ideas which help you kill enemy soldiers and win the battle by trapping the enemy King.

Strategy is the art of deploying your forces to their best advantage.

What generals like me - and like you - have to do is to make sure you send your troops to the squares on the battlefield where they will be best placed to influence the future course of the battle.

Sounds complicated, doesn't it?

Play fighing with your friends is great fun - as long as you understand it's a game and stop before anyone gets hurt. But you should NEVER fight your enemies. Learn to use words instead.

Before we start you need to take the lesson on notation if you haven't already done so elsewhere. ****Click here to take this lesson now.

Your first lesson is that it's usually best not to bring your queen into battle too soon. She is the most powerful member of your army and can easily be chased around by weaker enemy forces.

*****Click here to watch a battle in which the Black Queen came out too soon.

Although the Pawns are the weakest members of your army it is very important to know how to use them. Pawns can be strong or weak depending on where they are in relation to each other. *******Click here to learn all about the best ways of using your Pawns.

Of course you also need to know how to deploy your other pieces.

********Click here for a further lesson on strategy.