Understand Chess Openings & Improve Your Game
- philipewarren
- Oct 16, 2021
- 7 min read
If you’ve ever tried memorising the first few moves of a chess opening, you probably quickly realised that it can be near impossible. You have no idea what your opponent will do after each of your moves. Perhaps there are 5 likely moves he will make. So you learn how to respond to all 5 of these moves. But now there are 5 more possibilities. After a handful of moves it becomes near impossible to remember what to do!
One of the highly acclaimed chess teachers, and inventor of hyper-modern play, Richard Reti, believes that learning chess moves by rote is a ‘sham’. If your opponenet knows what she is doing, she will certainly be able to gain the advantage if you attempt to play simply by memorising moves.
What is crucial is that you understand the goals of your opening.
If you truly understand why you are playing the moves of the opening, and what your goals are in playing those moves, then Reti believes that you should be well set no matter what your opponent does.
In this article we shall take one of the oldest openings, most popular during the late 1800s when positional play first began to be explored, and the game moved away from the obtaining of small material gains. We explore the Scotch Game.
Learn More by Playing The Open Game
Reti counsels that the beginner would do well to play the open game. In the long-term, if you want to maximise your opportunity of winning, you will have to master the closed game. But the beginner must first understand positional play. In essence, in the closed game, Black attempts to delay the opening of the game whilst he attempts to secure his position. Open games enable to you to develop quickly and see the opportunities presented once you have gained an advantage in development.
1. e4 (260,000 vs d4 – 240,000)
1...e5 (70,000 vs c5 – 110,000)
The reason this is called an ‘open game’, is that it is more likely (than alternative openings) to result in an open position. This is because 1. e4 e5 is usually followed at some point by d4 and a pawn exchange, opening up the centre of the board. After 1. d4, no-one has ever played 2. e4 in the 365chess database, since obviously e4 would then be entirely unprotected. And so d4 openings typically lead to closed games. (The 365chess.com database has stored all moves in over 4 million public games. I have recorded the number of games played by chess masters that resulted in any given move in brackets after the move).
A Most Popular Opening For The Open Game
2. Nf3 (64,000 vs Bc4 2,000)
2...Nc6 (55,000 vs Nf6 8,000)
3. d4 (5,000 vs Bb5 40,000)
This is the Scotch Game: 1st sited in a treatise in 1750 by Ercole del Rio. Whilst popular in the 19th Century, it had lost favour amongst top players by 1900 since it was considered to release the tension in the centre early, allowing Black to equalise his position. As with other less popular openings, it has occasionally been used by high level players as an alternative to standard intricately-known openings, adding a surprise element to the game.
Richard Reti counsels that beginners will learn more from open games than closed games, since it is easier to see the positional capabilities of the various pieces. For this reason, I always teach open game theory to less advanced students.
3...exd4 (4,500 vs d6 – 7)
After 3. d4, Black will now struggle to protect his e5 pawn, and so his best option is to take White’s attacking pawn.
(This position can also be reached via a different order of moves
2. d4 exd4
3. Nf3 Nc6
although after 2...exd4, Black is probably more likely to play 3. Qxd4.)
Open games can pick up pace very quickly, and so it is crucial that a player develops his pieces as quickly as possible. One of the primary aims of each player, is to avoid a loss of ‘tempo’ (the chess terminology for a ‘move’). Each move, in an opening, must be utilised in developing all of a players major pieces as quickly as possible. Should a player move a piece twice, before developing another piece, this is described as a ‘loss of tempo’, since she has now, in developmental terms, wasted a move. Assuming her opponent has utilised her every move for development, then she now has now gained ‘tempo’, and obtained a temporal advantage.
With the move 3...exd4, Black is not developing a piece. However, the move does not represent a ‘loss of tempo’, since at some point, White will eventually likely play Nxe4, which is also not a developing move.
4. Nxd4 (4,000 vs Bc4 – 250)
Following on from the discussion concerning tempo, should Black respond with:
(4...Nxd4 - 12 vs Nxd4 – 4,000)
...in this instance, like White, Black has moved his Queenside Knight twice. Unless White also now moves a piece twice, Black has lost tempo.
(5. Qxd4)
In the 3...exd4, 4. Nxd4 exchange, both parties moved a developed piece for a 2nd time. However, with the moves we are currently discussing (4...Nxd4, 5. Qxd4), Black begins by moving his Knight for a 2nd time, Whist White is able to respond by developing a new piece: his Queen. Thus, the end result of this exchange is that Black has no major pieces developed, whilst white has developed his Queen.
After 4. Nxd4, it would appear that White has an advantage, since he now has his pawn on e4, occupying a central position. However, White will not maintain this advantage, if Black consistently aims to remove this pawn. One way in which Black can attack white’s e4 pawn is by the move d5. However this should not be attempted immediately since:
(4...d5
5. Bb5)
Resulting in Black’s Bishop now being pinned.
Should Black choose to take aim at White’s e4 pawn, she will need to defend d5 (where she aims to place her pawn) and attack e4. White, on the other hand, will look to defend these squares, in order to prevent Black from playing d5 (thereby removing White’s control of d5 and f5) for as long as possible.
4...Nf6 (9,000, vs Bc5 – 12,000)
This is the Schmidt Variation of the Scotch Game which we will now be studying. Following the logic of the aforementioned aim to attack e4 by moving to d5, Black moves Nf6, thereby covering both squares at once. The slightly more common move Bc5 (the Classical Variation), takes aim at Black’s Knight on d4.
The Mieses Variation
5. Nxc6 (1,500 vs Nc3 - 300)
This is the The Mieses Variation. The only real way for White to have protect e4 is Bd3. However, White cannot play this move straight away, since prior to this move, White’s Queen is defending her Knight on d4. 5. Bd3 would leave White’s Knight unprotected and therefore Black would take it on the next move: 5...Nxc6. Therefore, White must remove Black’s Knight on c6 if she wishes to play Bd3. Thus she initiates a Knight exchange.
Nxc6 can be delayed with:
(5. Nc3 – 300 vs Nxc6 – 1,500 games)
This is the Scotch Four Knights Game. Whereby White, in response to Black’s 4...Nf6 attack of d5 and e4, White now counterattacks the same 2 squares. This is typically followed by 5...Bb4, whereby Black now pins White’s c3 Knight, thereby annulling the Knight’s attack of d5 and e4. In any event, this will then typically be followed by the same move as is played on the 5th move outlined above – only now on the 6th move: 6. Nxc6.
5...bxc6
Black has always responded with this in masters games.
6. Bd3 – (134 vs e5 – 1,200 games)
White is now able to play the aforementioned Bd3 thereby defending his e4 pawn. The most common move at this point is actually e5. But let us briefly discuss Bd3. In this scenario, Black can finally play:
6...d5
7. exd5
Black has now achieved his aim of removing the e4 pawn via exchange, and both parties have an equal position.
However, the prevailing trend now is, instead of protecting the d4 pawn, (since it is no longer able to maintain it’s position), to make an attack move, by pushing forward; thus making central development very difficult for Black.
6. e5 (1,200 vs Bd3 – 134)
White now threatens to take Black’s Kingside Knight. But Black has a response:
6...Qd7 (1,200 vs Ne4 37)
Black has now pinned White’s pawn: she cannot move it since to do so would place her in check.
7. Qe2 (always played)
This annuls White’s pin. After e5xf6, both Queens are defended by Kings.
7...Nd5 (1,200 vs ng8 – 4)
Black now parries White’s attack on his Knight.
The ostensible problem with 6. e5 was that this was not a development move, and so it would appear to create a loss of tempo for White. However, at some point, Black is forced to move his f6 Knight to safety. This involves moving his Knight for a 2nd time. And so Black’s 2nd move of his pawn is balanced by it’s forcing of Black to move his Knight for the 2nd time.
White’s e5 pawn is currently defended, and controls d6 and f6. Black has 2 pieces developed; however she has yet to advance her d pawn. White has only one piece developed but has advanced both central pawns – which is essential for development. And so both parties are even.
8. c4 (1,000 vs h4, 100)
White now threatens Black’s Knight with c4. Two moves have typically followed this with similar frequency:
8...Ba6 (492 games)
White’s pawn is now pinned, since moving it will result in his Queen being lost. Black has also responded to White’s non-development move with a development move. It might appear that Black has therefore gained an advantage, now having brought a new piece into play.
In two major games that reached that position, Black actually lost after playing 8...Ba5, which is the most played following move. Should the student wish to study this position further, it is suggested she study the following two games:
8...Nb6 (484 games)
In this option, Black responds to White’s non-development move by moving his Knight for a 2nd time, thereby evening the tempo rather than gaining a temporal advantage. Clearly this would seem an inferior move for Black, compared with the aforementioned 8...Ba6. And as might be expected, in the games played by the top ELO players, results after this point have been even.
Interestingly, Kasparov played 2 games as White in the Saint Louis Blitz Challenge in which his 2 opponents played each of the 8th moves we have discussed. The opponent who played 8...Ba6 lost whereas he who played 8...Nb6 drew. The student may therefore wish to compare this game to the one above. Of course one should perhaps not take blitz games as being highly indicative of the strength of a position…
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