When your happy with your position and don’t want to move

[Kevin O'Rourke]

In early middle game when I’ve moved each piece once or twice, happy with everything on the squares they are on, what do you do when you don’t want to move anything? Move the king the corner ?
What do you do if you don’t really want to move anything.

This happened to me in a game and the only I wasted a bit of time looking around the board before finally moving a pawn forward one square so as not to disrupt the well placed pieces.

[IM Jack Rudd]

If I'm in a position where I don't want to move anything, I'm probably not happy with the squares my pieces are on.

How did the game go up to that point?

[Kevin O'Rourke]

I liked the position of each piece because I liked the squares they were aiming at. They were also nice and central ready to get to both sided of the board if need be. Rooks connected, king safe, bishop on long diaginal, knights conjoined, queen ready but not in striking distance.

The game was a draw with White against a higher rated player. I ended up being 2 pices up at the end but had no time so luckly reoffered a draw after declining it when still had a few mins. He accepted.

[IM Jack Rudd]

I can't do anything with a vague description like that. Could I have the specific position, please?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

If you and your opponent are evenly matched, or thinking the same way about the position and making the right moves, then you may end up with an evenly balanced position where your pieces are on good squares and you don't want to move them. Both you and your opponent could make waiting moves at that point (and then agree a draw?), but to make progress from that sort of position, one of you will need to do something to unbalance the position.

This will probably involve a trade-off, for example some positional concession, giving up something like a bishop for a knight, or a change in pawn structure, for an initiative that might later give you a material advantage. An exchange sacrifice is another way to unbalance a position, as would a pawn sacrifice. Giving up the right to castle, or doing something that meant it was no longer safe for your opponent to castle. Things like that.

But in all likelihood, the position won't actually be that balanced. There are likely already weaknesses that can be exploited. It may turn out that you could have positioned your pieces to exploit a weakness. If they are optimally placed, they should be ready to take advantage of such a weakness. To swing over to an area of the board where your opponent can't defend quickly, to support a pawn push (e.g. to break up defence around your opponent's king) or to created a passed pawn and push that forward to win material.

That is really the sort of thing to be looking for and planning, though in the early middlegame it won't be easy to see exactly what needs doing.

One final point. If each piece has only moved a few times, you may still really be in the opening, not yet the middlegame.

[Kevin O'Rourke]

Thank you. I’d say the rooks are connected you are in the middle game. Had actually already lost a bishop for Knight but with all pawns still on the board.

I can post the position when I get it but my point was what would you do when this theme occurs. (not wanting to move)

[Angus French]

...knights conjoined...

What are conjoined knights? Are they knights on adjacent squares? Or are they knights protecting each other?

[Kevin O'Rourke]

Knights protecting each other. Formally known as siamese

[NickFaulks]

I'm with Jack. Chess is a dynamic game, so your pieces are not all on good squares unless they are plotting to go to better ones.

This is in fact a problem with computers. They often assess a position as plus something because they like the look of it, but then just fiddle around, essentially repeating the position because they still like the look of it.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Knights protecting each other. Formally known as siamese

Knight protecting each other can be good in some positions, but bad in others. Sometimes they get in each other's way, sometimes they don't. Knights adjacent to each other can be really powerful and cover a lot of squares.

[Angus French]

Knights protecting each other. Formally known as siamese

Ah, that's not always a good thing. See Dvoretsky and the "superfluous knight" - e.g. here.

[Kevin O'Rourke]

I had played Nf3 and my 2nd Knight was on d2. It was a Reti opening or possible an English opening. Do the Reti and English opening overlap somewhat?

[IM Jack Rudd]

I can post the position when I get it but my point was what would you do when this theme occurs. (not wanting to move)

And my point - which I probably didn't explain very well - was that the assumptions underlying your question are wrong, so I can't sensibly answer it.If i consider my pieces well-placed, it's because there's some specific aim for which they are well placed, and that specific aim will guide my next few moves.

[Roger de Coverly]

It was a Reti opening or possible an English opening. Do the Reti and English opening overlap somewhat?

Depends on how you play them. You can reach the same position from both move orders. If you cannot find any moves to improve your position, you are in a form of Zugswang. But there's usually something.

Perhaps you had an opening similar to this one.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1859583

Rapport came up with the idea of playing b4. It looks as if it just loses a pawn, but there are some tactics that seem to work.

[NickFaulks]

Rapport came up with the idea of playing b4.

I intend no offence to Kevin, but advising him to play like Rapport probably isn't helpful.