If you control and/or occupy the center of a chess board, then you can move to any place of the board faster than your opponent. The board's center is the high ground of a chess battle.
If you are reading this instead of viewing a chess puzzle or game, then you must enable JavaScript on this website.
[Event "rated untimed match"] [Site "?"] [Date "1861.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Mayet"] [Black "Hirschfeld"] [Result "0-1"] [Annotator "David Hayes"] [BlackElo "0"] [FEN "rnbq1kr1/ppp3bp/3p4/8/3PPp2/1QP2p2/PP4PP/RNB2RK1 b - - 0 1"] [SetUp "1"] [TimeControl "0"] [WhiteElo "0"] 1... Bxd4+ 2. cxd4 Rxg2+ 3. Kh1 Rxh2+ 4. Kxh2 Qh4+ 5. Kg1 Qg3+ 6. Kh1 Qg2# 0-1