Chess Openings Guide

Openings are categorized as a specific set, or sequence, of moves that take place during the first phase of the game – the Opening phase.

The purpose of the different Openings is to help you prepare your army, so it’s ready to take the fight to the enemy, during the forthcoming Middlegame phase.

The challenge comes in picking the correct Opening moves, since your opponent’s moves may require you to adapt your chosen Opening sequence, else face getting to the Middlegame phase with a potentially fatal collection of disadvantages.

Types of Chess Openings

In what appears to be a sly stab at an introduction, this guide distinguishes between:

• King Pawn Openings;
• Queen Pawn Openings;
• Flank Openings;
• Gambit Openings;
• and Irregular Openings.

More

Seirawan Opening Strategy

Nestled throughout his Winning Chess series of books, Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan gives a rough set of 6 Rules for managing the Opening Phase.

1. Activate Your Troops;
2. Build a House for your King;
3. Castle Your King;
4. Connect Your Rooks;
5. Control the Center;
6. and Obey the Rules of Strategy.

More

COA [Beta v1.0] Analysis

The Chess Openings Analyzer (COA) [Beta v1.0] was a bit of an experiment, commissioned specifically to try and speed up analysis of Openings, based on Yasser Seirawan’s Opening Strategy
(« see left).

Openings already analyzed include:

1. Well-known ‘Named Openings’;
2. Gambit Openings;
3. Irregular Openings;

More

Opening Systems

The purpose of an Opening System is to turn seemingly random Opening moves into a more methodical and coordinated sequence, to efficiently develop both Pawns and Pieces, without violating the key principle of Time.

The current crop of versatile, fluid Opening Systems include:

White Opening Systems

• Reti System;
• London System;
• Stonewall Attack;
• King’s Indian Attack (KIA);

Black Opening Systems

• King’s Indian Defence (KID);
• Grunfeld Defence;
• Tarrasch Defence;
• Hedgehog System / Defence;

More

Checkmate in the Opening

While most games appear to transition through three roughly defined phases of play in neat order:

1. Opening phase,
2. Middlegame phase,
3. Endgame phase,

… some games are cut short by a sudden Checkmate, which occurs in the Opening phase.

This guide looks at examples of Checkmate Openings, from well known Openings, such as the Ruy Lopez and Caro-Kann Defence, respectively. There’s examples of Opening wins for White and wins for Black.

But, these aren’t ‘shortcuts to victory’. They’re presented to focus your mind on the mistakes made by the losing side.

More

Openings Terminology

This Chess Openings Terminology guide contains any additional terminology to do with Chess Openings, that hasn’t already been covered in the previous Chess Openings guides.

Current entries include:

• Acronyms for the Pawns and Pieces;
• Named Chess Openings;
• Opening v. Defence Moves;
• Transposition;
• Variations;

More