| Thank you to John Beasley for a part of the following translation - the part which is in good English, of course !
- As you might imagine, it is usually best to play unambiguous moves ; except in the case of a capture, it is rare for all the moves ending on a given square to be useful.
- Decoys are more common and powerful than in normal chess because the attacker chooses which piece will take the decoying piece. It really pays to look for decoy moves even on overprotected squares.
- Checks in the opening are very dangerous, and it can be a good idea to prepare a flight square to which the king alone has access, for example the square f2. A check should not be parried by interposition unless the resulting pin can be quickly liquidated. A pinned piece is a gross weakness ; as we saw in the second example above, it effectively prevents a friendly man from coming to any of the squares it commands.
- An important difference from ordinary chess is that it is not only pawn moves that are likely to be irreversible. This can be a potent source for blunders. For example, a move by the queen which would be quite safe at ordinary chess may well expose her to danger here, because she cannot claim the right to return to its home square as long as the king has also access to it.
- Another difference concerns local battles between a single piece and a group of pieces. The pieces in the group often tend to get in each other's way, and this favours the lone piece. Commando raids by single pieces are therefore to be taken very seriously, whereas in ordinary chess they are generally doomed to failure.
- Unlike normal chess when more-moves manoeuvres can always be parried, here three- or four-moves threats must be taken very seriously, because it can easily require more moves to organize a defence.
- Early queen adventures are sometimes difficult to assess. On the one hand, the queen can find herself in danger because of the lack of retreats, and its bigger influence can hinder the development of the other pieces (because the opponent will make the queen move instead). But on the other hand, the queen also forces the opponent to be very careful, avoid any opening in his position, and it is quite difficult to attack : indeed, only a knight or a diagonal piece defended by a pawn can attack the queen without letting the opponent choose another move. Statistically, moving the queen early rather seems to be an advantage.
- Bishops are stronger than knights, and the bishop pair is especially strong - they are the only pieces that will never hinder one another by ambiguity ! In an open position, two bishops are often as strong as one bishop and two knights.
- Forcing the advance of a passed pawn is much more difficult than in ordinary chess. Such a pawn can be effectively supported only by a rook or queen pushing rom behind ; if another piece tries to control the square in front of it, the pawn's advance will become impossible because the opponent will be able to make the piece move instead. And even with a rook behind it, a passed pawn is easily blockated by a piece (if the blockader is attacked, it simply retreats, and again the pawn's advance will be open to substitution). As a result an isolated passed pawn is of little danger, whereas two united passed pawns remain very strong.
- As promotions are a lot weaker (the opponent choosing of course promotions to bishops or knight), endgames are more difficult to win ; in fact, the leading side should strive to avoid trades instead of looking for them. On the other hand, initiative must be given the precedence over material gain.
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