Middlegame
The phase of the game between the opening and the endgame, where plans and tactics are carried out with most pieces still on the board.
The middlegame typically begins once both sides have completed development and castled, and it ends as material is reduced enough to enter an endgame.
Etymology
Middlegame is a transparent English compound naming the game's central phase, formed on the same model as endgame. Game descends from Old English gamen meaning joy or fun, with the sense of a contest played according to rules recorded from about 1200 and attested in reference to chess. Wiktionary gives no etymology for the compound beyond its parts and defines the board-games sense as the period in a game between the opening and endgame. The glossary definition is the part of a chess game that follows the opening and comes before the endgame, usually roughly moves 20 through 40. The boundaries are famously unfixed: Alexander Alekhine remarked that we cannot define when the middle game ends and the endgame starts, and the phase is the subject of classic literature such as Reuben Fine's The Middle Game in Chess. No source located in this session gives a first documented year for the term.
First documented: n.a. — n.a.
Translations
Translations for this term haven't been added yet.