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The Center of the chessboard are the four inner squares {d4, e4, d5, e5}. Pawn placement and piece control of the center is crucial. The extended center incorporates the next concentric ring around the center, including C- and F-file as well as third and sixth rank.

Bitboards

Center

The center bitboard has the hexadecimal value of 0x0000001818000000:

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 . . . 1 1 . . .
 . . . 1 1 . . .
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Extended Center

Extended center is 0x00003C3C3C3C0000:

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 . . 1 1 1 1 . .
 . . 1 1 1 1 . .
 . . 1 1 1 1 . .
 . . 1 1 1 1 . .
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 . . . . . . . .

See also

• Center Control
• Center Distance
• Center Manhattan-Distance
• Corner-Distance from KBNK Endgame
• Influence Quantity of Pieces
• King Centralization
• Mobility
• Pawn Center
• Strategy

External Links

• Chess Strategy/The center - Wikibooks
• Control of the center - Chess strategy from Wikipedia

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