What is Initiative in chess?
Being the side making threats and dictating play.
The player with the initiative forces the opponent to respond rather than pursue their own plans. It's often worth a small material investment to keep it.
Spot initiative in your own games
Free. Chess2EZ finds the patterns you keep missing and explains each in plain English.
Analyze my games →More chess terms
- OppositionA king-and-pawn endgame technique of facing kings with one square between them.
- Promotion (queening)A pawn reaching the far rank becomes any piece, almost always a queen.
- Passed pawnA pawn with no enemy pawns able to block or capture it on its way to promotion.
- Isolated pawnA pawn with no friendly pawns on the adjacent files.
- Doubled pawnsTwo friendly pawns stacked on the same file.
- OutpostA square (often supported by a pawn) that an enemy pawn can never attack.