Trade when ahead
Any phase · tier 2
Every even trade helps whoever is already up material.
In the next game: Up material: swap pieces off and steer for the simplified endgame.
Scorecard habit
Trading pieces: trade with a purpose
On your Scorecard this row is called Trade with a purpose — swap when ahead; don’t wake their pieces. It grades 2 principles, each on the positions where it actually applied, and reads as clean, or a count of slips.
Why accuracy misses this
Accuracy is one number: how often you matched the engine. It cannot tell you the pattern behind the misses. This row names the habit — Trade with a purpose — and only counts a miss when Stockfish’s own line shows the principled move was better.
The principles
Bad trades
Opening · tier 2
Bad trades give up your active pieces and develop enemy pieces that were sitting lazy at home.
In the next game: Before starting a trade, look at the recapture. If it wakes up a lazy piece, keep the tension.
Frequently asked questions
Every even trade helps whoever is already up material. Up material: swap pieces off and steer for the simplified endgame.
Bad trades give up your active pieces and develop enemy pieces that were sitting lazy at home. Before starting a trade, look at the recapture. If it wakes up a lazy piece, keep the tension.
The board defines the opportunity — a position where the principle applies — and Stockfish is the referee: a miss is counted only when the engine’s own line at that move embodies the principle, so the row never blames you for a rule the position did not ask for. The row reads as clean, or as a count of slips.
See how your own games score on this habit — every analyzed game ends with its Scorecard, free, no account.
Analyze your games freeThe other habits
Is it safe?
before you let go of a piece
Checks, captures, threats
theirs and yours, every move
Develop and castle
a new piece every move, king safe by 10
Know your line
stay in theory; punish when they leave
Give every piece a job
rooks to open files, knights to outposts
March the king, push the passer
in the endgame