Never develop your pieces in the opening with the intention of looking for a plan later. When “later” comes, you are usually on your way down.—Jeremy Silman, The Amateur’s Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions into Chess Mastery Chess masters often speak of the game as having three phases: opening game, middle game, and endgame. Opening game consists of the moves on both sides that enable the players to develop their pieces. In a normal chess game, this might mean moving pawns forward to try to control the center of the board; moving the knights and bishops into position; and castling, which protects the king and unites the rooks. Of course, there are thousands of opening game strategies that include different priorities and piece movement, but the outcome of every opening game is the same: to clear the way for back rank pieces; to move crucial pieces into position on the board; and to try to gain an advantage by controlling the center, creating an open file through a pawn capture, or establishing a material advantage by capturing an opponent’s knight or bishop. Opening game generally ends when the opposing forces attack on each other’s sides of the board.
Never develop your pieces in the opening with the intention of looking for a plan later. When “later” comes, you are usually on your way down.—Jeremy Silman, The Amateur’s Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions into Chess Mastery
Middle game occurs when the battle is fully enjoined. It features a sometimes-dazzling combination of feints, attacks, sacrifices, pins, skewers, captures, and assaults on the king’s position. Whereas opening game reveals the aspirations of both opponents, middle game is the triumph or ruin of their plans. Here, strategies can be dashed by a single blunder, and the craftiness of the opponents is revealed in how they search for weaknesses, exploit opportunities, and lay traps for the other to stumble into. The art of chess is nowhere more evident than in middle game.
Endgame arrives when there are few pieces remaining for either side. The battleground has been laid nearly bare. The kings take refuge behind the remaining defensive pawns, perhaps guarded by a single bishop or knight. The queens, if they have survived, are usually on the attack. Endgames are sometimes almost mechanical in their calculated piece movements. They rely far less on cunning and insight than they do on deliberation and precision, and when one admires chess players for their endgame play, it is usually because they are masters of economy and efficiency.
Business development is like chess. It also has a clear opening, middle, and ending. It demands a thorough knowledge of the rules of the game and of the opponents. To win, you have to understand the situation as it changes from one move to the next, and you must develop and execute an effective strategy that develops dynamically as positioning leads to opportunities and opportunities become contracts. Austrian international grand master Rudolph Spielmann once advised chess players to play opening game like a book, middle game like a magician, and endgame like a machine. He could have been talking about business development as well.