When Should You Trade In Chess?

I have many chess lessons for beginners on openings, middlegames, tactics, and so on, but trading pieces in chess is super important.

⭐️ Follow Me If You Are Amazing:

[legu]

Me who gets 1 pawn advantage in the opening : *proceeds to trade everything.

[thecrystaltide]

I only trade when:
1: I've blundered by queen and I'm tilting
2: I've got nothing else to do
I *don't* trade when:
1: it gives me any kind of tactical or strategic advantage

[chrismacku]

"Everything's a trade if you're brave/stupid enough."
-Hangnus Blunderson

[not]

I usually trade my king as it is pretty useless

[lucasimonelli]

1. don't trade your active piece for a passive piece of your oponnent.
2. don't trade when you're down material
3. trade when you are up material
4. don't trade when you have an attacking tension on the board except when it helps your position or your attack.
the reason for this is that you want to keep your oponnent as long as possible in a defensive/passive state.

[tankoteemusic]

You should trade when:
1. You're up in material
2. To get rid of a strong opponent piece
3. When you will achieve a better position.

[bluetube]

*"You're the only guy with the dark square bishop on the girl"*

-Gothamchess 2021

[spacehighway]

Levy: in this position, you shouldn’t trade
Me when There’s a possible trade: I’ll take your entire stock

[nathancahill]

“Do you see this key move, f6?”
Somewhere, Ben Finegold just got a migraine.

[knino]

I have a love hate relationship with chess, sometimes I'm winning and start thinking I'm gonna be the next GM, then the next day I'm losing and i just delete the app...

[jatinsachdev]

Trading is the only game plan us plebs can think of.

[henry]

me, a 900: trades all my pieces immediately since I'm probably better at endgames than my opponent

[pipodrankje]

I once saw two kids trade their kings and it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen

[LeClarinetBoy]

Who's this noob to tell me that trading my queen for a pawn is bad.

[adcyuumi]

I've said this in a few other videos:
...
Learn endgames if you want to know what to do in the middle game. Learn how to win with Rook + Pawn vs a Bishop. Learn how to win with Bishop + Knight + Pawn vs a Rook. You can basically memorize opening moves and how to win different endgames -- that part of chess is "easy" compared to what happens between openings and endgames. The chess played in the middle game is an effort to get a winning endgame, or at least avoid getting a losing endgame. If you don't know how to win endgames, you won't recognize a good middle game move that's right in front of you.
...
I would actually advice anyone who is learning chess to START by learning endgames. It teaches you how the pieces move and interact, it teaches you how to win a game once you are ahead in pieces, and it builds confidence. Then, and only then, look at some chess openings. Try ones that look cool to you out, 3-4 games each. Pick the ones that are least confusing, learn them, and try to memorize what you do when so that you aren't burning brain cells every time you play. The middle game will not come naturally -- you'll need to learn tactics. Tactics are things like pins, forks, binds, revealed attacks, double attacks, etc etc. Getting good at chess is largely a matter of seeing tactics, setting up tactics, and knowing which tactics are good to use in a given position. Sometimes pinning that knight with your bishop is a bad move. Sometimes it's the winning move.
...
Finally, LASTLY, you are ready to learn positional chess. You see that you can trap the opposing Queen on one side of the board for a number of moves, allowing you to rotate your own Queen to the opposite side and operate there unopposed for at least two moves. Will it win some material? Is there a downside to it? If the opponent doesn't even try to maneuver their Queen to do damage control, what might they do instead to undermine your plan? Are ALL of the possible board positions favorable to you, meaning that the plan is good? None of these are things you should be thinking if you are new to chess -- you should be learning endgames, openings, tactics, and judgement of when tactics are good/bad to use. Only once you have these basics down will you have the tools to think positionally.

At 8:11 in the video, Levy bemoans BxN (Bxc3). But actually, that move is repectable chess. Were there other good moves, better moves? Yes. But that particular trade was good. The weakness created in White's position is exploitable... and more importantly permanent. White has no way to repair the damage or make the damage meaningless. That's exactly the sort of situation where you might opt to drop your bishop for a mere knight. I do 100% agree with Levy that you should not just hip-shot this move off carelessly. There are sometimes better moves available. But I'd point out that Levy can sometimes get himself into time trouble looking for perfect moves (sorry to throw you under the bus here Levy; <3u man). The BxN move is sound. If you want to get ahead on time or just not fall behind, this exactly the sort of move that you can semi hip-shot against an opponent who likes to think a bit before every move (something almost every player does). The wrong time to fire off BxN is if both you and your opponent have tons of clock time left. Here, you should think and realize there are two stronger moves available.
...
At 11:24 in the video, Levy says don't play RxR (Rxb1). But this actually goes against something he preached elsewhere in the video -- NEVER just make rules of thumb for yourself and operate on them without looking at the position. Look at White's pawn on a5. If Black just trades pieces with RxR and plays R-b5 afterward, it simplifies the position. Black's king is closer to the b5 pawn. Black's king can walk over, gobble the pawn, and push for a Queen. There is nothing White can do about it. That BxN trade earlier has boxed out White's bishop from coming to help defend. Trades don't have to be advantageous. They just have to give you a winning endgame that you know how to play. Especially when clock time gets low, it is better to simplify the position into something where you can't really miss anything or make a mistake. Levy is of course right that as a general rule, you don't want to trade rooks that way and give up a contested file. The example game he used just wasn't right for that lesson.
...
Both examples above are positional chess in action. BxN creates the long term weakness. Later, RxR then R-b5 would have cashed in on this weakness to force White to give up their last rook for Black's a4 pawn before it could promote. The game was potentially won for Black on that BxN move; it just took a while for that advantage to bear fruit.

[daxshell]

"the board doesnt care what you want" ~levy, 2021

[RoTheBro]

"you're the only guy with the dark squared bishop on the girl"
how to get your crush to love you 101: tape dark squared bishops on them, it sounds weird but trust me, levy rozman is a master at this stuff

[mahsincast]

"You will be the only guy with the dark squared bishop on the girl"

Levy rozman
March, 2021

[speedup]

Instructions unclear, traded every pieces on move 17

[kritmukhshukla]

Actually gothams fans are now doing hate comments for getting pinned.