Developing your pieces and contesting the centre instead of capturing pawns in the opening will always give you a playable position. Sometimes a pawn is actually free, but in general you can focus on development without being worse off. Get it wrong and that extra pawn might make the rest of the game an uphill battle.

Castle

Build diagonal lines of pawns

Take her white-squared bishop and defend bpack squares with pawns , or vice versa. Renders her remaining bishop useless.

if you always want to win, only play against yourself.

that's my rule.

Queen goes on her own color. :P

Bad bishop vs good bishop - generally the bishop that matches the color of your own fixed pawns is the bad one. Trading it tends to be for the better.

Never play F3 (or as black, F6), Finegold-ism.

Knight on the rim is dim - try not to leave your knights on the edge of the board. Or, more generally, the more squares any piece has available, the better.

Basic questions to ask yourself after each opponent move - "what is that piece doing? What is it no longer doing?" - heard this from a ChessNetwork video. It's obvious but framing it that way can force you to think through it methodically each time.

When you've pinned a piece - don't take it if you can help it. Instead, prefer to put more pressure on it by adding attackers.

If you see a good move, look for a better one.

If you are unsure what to do, playing a move that leaves you with more protected pieces is a solid option.