Daily Chess

The Grob is 1.g4, named after International Master Henri Grob.

It's the worst first move.

There's a book about it that goes for £100 on Amazon.

If black plays 1...g5, it's called the Borg Defence. Because borg is Grob backwards.

The Englund Gambit is 1.d4 e5.

This completely gives up a pawn and is, objectively, what chess grandmasters tend to call "complete bullshit".

However, there's a trap or two. Making it a great way to pull a fast one over an unsuspecting victim.

First, 2...Nc6 3.Nf3 to fight over the floating pawn, and then 3...Qe7 4.Bf4 for the same reason.

Now, 4...Qb4!? begins to set a trap.

If 5.Qd2? happens, you've already won. 5...Qxb2.

And if the Queen tries to X-ray defend the falling rook, pin it to win it. 6.Qxc3?? Bb4.

If white plays the better fifth move, 5.Bd2, you still take the pawn. 5...Qxb2.

Now white is liable to try X-ray defending with the bishop, and then they've fallen into your net. Your response doesn't change from what we saw before.

6.Bc3? Bb4.

7.Qd2 attempts to defend the bishop, but take it anyway. 7...Bxc3.

Now if the knight takes, you can just goggle the rook. 8.Nxc3 Qxa1+.

On the other hand, and this often happens, if the queen takes you can checkmate immediately. 8.Qxc3?? Qc1#

Game Over.

If you are playing white, instead play 6.Nxc3. I've included white's POV for readers who are the sort of people who have to turn maps upside-down when navigating.

With credit to:

The French Defence is the moves 1.e4 e6.

We saw the move 1...e6 earlier in the Agincourt Defence, against the English. Here we see the French proper, as a response to 1.e4.

The French Defence is played often by players who want a closed, manoeuvring game as opposed to fireworks in the centre.

The game almost always continues 2.d4 d5.

White now has a few options.

The Advance French

3.e5

This continues 3...c5 4.c3 and the fight becomes all about that d4 pawn, with a variety of pieces potentially coming in later to joint this battle.

The Exchange French

3.exd5 exd5. Don't do this unless your plan is to bore your opponent to death.

The Paulsen Variation

3.Nc3 and then (usually) 3...Nf6. Now white should either attack the knight or pin it.

The Tarrasch

3.Nd2. The point here is to make ...Bb4 (Not sure I've mentioned this before but as you might have been able to guess, ... without a number simply indicates a black move.) pointless.

In the Paulsen, black can play the Winawer variation (3...Bb4), pinning the knight to the king.

In the Tarrasch this is pointless since white can just play 4.c3. So if you want to avoid the Winawer, play the Tarrasch.

The Scandinavian Defence is 1.e4 d5.

The best move for white is to take the pawn, and then black should take it back.

2.exd5 Qxd5.

Then white can develop a knight for free.

What do we mean by "for free"?

There's an important concept in chess - that of the tempo.

In this case white play 3.Nc3 and attack the queen. Black doesn't get to continue with their plans, since they have to move the queen to safety. Then white can play another move to advance their agenda, and then black gets to make whatever move they like. So white gets two moves for the price of one.

Black will now move the queen to either a5, d6, or d8.

3...Qd8 is a perfectly good move, but players often don't like feeling like they've done nothing, and keeping the queen out is just as good anyway. 3...Qa5 is the most popular.

And now black has got a good, yet simple, position out of the opening where white can't leverage their e-pawn to take over the centre. What more could you ask for.

The English Opening is 1.c4.

It presents an alternative way to control the centre of the board instead of the standard 1.e4 or d4.

It's one of the four main first moves in chess, alongside the aforementioned and 1.Nf3.

Black has many options.

1...e5 looks like the Sicilian Defence in reverse.

It's called the Reverse Sicilian.

Creative.

(It's also sometimes called the King's English, an equally creative name for an opening that combines the King's Pawn Game with the English.)

Another option is to responding to the English with the French Defence (1...e6, we'll cover that one one day).

This is called the Agincourt Defence. Cute.

Another option is responding with the Indian Defence (2...Nf6). This is called the Anglo-Indian Defence.

Then there's the symmetrical variation. Guess what move that is. (1.c4 c5.)

In fact black can respond with almost anything and be fine, most of which are named after their more normal versions but with Anglo- as a prefix. (Apart from one called the "Great Snake Variation", god knows why.)

(The Jaenisch and Myers are sort of joke ones though, not really recommended unless you really know what you're doing.)

There isn't a lot of tactical lines for us to cover here, so I'm afraid this post is more of a list.

In conclusion, the English is a great way to catch your opponent off guard by not playing the two most common first moves while still being in a good position—but you have to be aware of the fact that because you haven't directly challenged the centre you've given them a wealth of options.

(No I didn't use AI, I copied that em dash from Google like god intended.)

The Russian Game is the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6.

Unlike the standard 2...Nc6, which leads into the Italian or Spanish and defends black's pawn, The Russian Game leaves black's pawn hanging with a counterattack on white's.

However, black has to be careful not to keep copying. After 3.Nxe5 Nxe4?!, white has 4.Qe2, attacking the knight.

The knight must not make the mistake of cowering back from whence it came.

4...Nf6?? is met by 5.Nc6+, and the Queen is dead. Even if she moves to block the check, the only place she can move to, the knight still dispatches her majesty.

Black should instead copy again, with 4...Qe7.

Now white takes the knight with 5.Qxe7.

It might seem like black can't get a knight back, since white's knight is defended, but it's pinned to the queen so 5...d6 and the pawn can take it next move.

White is still a good bit better though, so black shouldn't have copied white earlier. Instead of taking the pawn back immediately, the white knight can be kicked back first.

3...d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4.

And the game is anyone's

The Stafford Gambit

Black has another option. Instead of taking back or attacking the knight, black can simply ignore the fact that they're down a pawn and play 3...Nc6!?.

White can accept by taking the knight with 4.Nxc6 or decline and give the pawn back with 4.d4. Neither way is completely safe.

The eminent expert on the Stafford Gambit, Eric Rosen, can explain this opening far better than a Tumblr blog could ever hope to. I highly recommend this video.

The King's Gambit is the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3.

The King's gambit is, as you may have noticed, the mirror image of the Queen's Gambit. The name even makes sense too!

This graph (made hastily using Google sheets) shows off the key differences.

The pawn can be taken with 2...exf4 and this is probably the best move.

Now white can play 3.Nf3 or 3.Bc4.

The classical variation

The classical variation is 3.Nf3 g5

Here black defends the pawn before the bishop can even attack it.

The pawn can be immediately challenged with 4.h4 and then black will kick the knight away with 4...g4.

Alternatively, black can decline the gambit with a countergambit.

The Falkbeer Countergambit

This is far from the only countergambit chess opening. Hitting a gambit back with another gambit is very common. 2...d5.

If white makes the mistake of playing 3.fxe5??, black can win the game with 3...Qh4+ 4.g3 Qxe4+ 5.Qe2 Qxh1.

If white alternatively plays 4.Ke2 black has 4...Qxe4+ 5.Kf2 Bc5 6.d5 Bxd4+ 7.Qxd4 Qxd4+, winning the queen instead.

So white should instead play 3.exd5 met by exf4.

Where both players have a lot of attacking chances on open lines.

The Italian Opening is the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4.

(Starting today a study will be available for most days in the link below. This is mostly just because Lichess studies are convenient for making the screenshots so I may as well share them with you guys.)

The Italian is designed to put pressure immediately on the f7 pawn, defended only by the king. The Italian often leads to exciting games because of this.

Black has two main responses: 3...Bc5 and 3...Nf6.

The Giuoco Piano

3... Bc5 is the Giuoco Piano, Italian for "quiet game". It tends to lead to a less eventful game.

White can play 4.d3 to go into the Giuoco Pianissimo, Italian for "very quiet game". It has an even more drawish reputation, but can still lead to some interesting games and is one of the most popular openings at the top level of chess.

The Two Knights Defence

After 3...Nf6, white can play 4.Ng5, immediately attacking the weak pawn again. This is the start of many exciting games, although white's best move here is probably playing the simple 4.d3.

After 4.Ng5, the game gets interesting for both sides. Black has to play 4...d5 to block the bishop.

White now has to take the pawn, 5.exd5, and black's best response is to attack the bishop with 5...Na5 so that it can get taken the moment the white pawn moves out of its way.

The Fried Liver Attack

If instead black takes the pawn with the other knight, 5...Nxd5, white can play 6.Nxf7!

Now, the king can and should take the free knight, but at this point the game is anyone's, even if white is favoured. The complications here are so great that even the best players in the world only risk this opening in low stakes situations.

White's queen comes out and the king has to move again, this time to save the knight.

Then more attacking and more defending happens.

The knight can't be kicked immediately, so white castles, leaving black finally free to defend with a pawn. Then chaos, will, most of the time, ensue.

The Sicilian Defence is the moves 1. e4 c5.

This immediately breaks the symmetry, giving black fighting chances. When Grandmasters need to win with black, they usually play the Sicilian defence.

The Sicilian has many variations, each of which could be its own post. It's one of the most studied chess openings.

What white usually does is knight out then pawn out so that the pawns get traded leaving the knight in the centre. This is called the Open Sicilian. (Here black is shown playing 2... e6, but there are other options for black's second move.)

Lets look at a few variations.

The Dragon

Here black's plan is to fianchetto the bishop (that's when you move the pawn one square and develop a bishop near the side of the board like that) and control the long diagonal (the "long diagonals" in chess are the two longest diagonals that go from corner to corner).

Apparently it's called that because the pawns look like the Draco constellation. Fun stuff.

The Najdorf

The point of this is to take the centre with 6... e5.

Why not play e5 immediately?

White hits back with 6. Bb5+

and you have to block with either the knight or the bishop. If you block with the knight, 7. Nf5 forces the queen to awkwardly defend the pawn after 7... a6 8. Bxd7+ Qxd7.

If you block with the bishop instead then you don't have a light square bishop for long, and thus no real way to ever really control d5.

The Najdorf prevents all of these problems preemptively.

The Accelerated Dragon

Here black plays g6 earlier, before even moving the d pawn. Black wants to control that long diagonal now.

The Smith-Morra Gambit

The Morra is the best and most fun variation of the Sicilian. White gives up a pawn and instead of taking it back simply goes for development instead. Black usually gets checkmated immediately. Fool.

The Hyper-Accelerated Dragon

Here black plays g6 even earlier, before even moving the knight. Black wants to control that long diagonal extra now.

The Kalashnikov Variation

Yes, this is a "real" opening played by "real" grandmasters. They have played us for absolute fools.

The Closed Sicilian

White plays the opposite knight to usual, which leads to closed positions rather than open ones.

The Grand Prix Attack

Here white tires to control the Senna with the bold push F 1 4.

After 2... d5,

white has the option of playing:

The Toilet Variation

3. Nc3, so-called because it was apparently invented while on the loo.

I hope you have enjoyed the first post back! I hit the image limit with this one, probably because an entire family of openings like the Sicilian is more than a single post can do justice.

The Spanish Opening is the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5.

Let's look at the reasons for each move.

1.e4 controls a central square and opens up lines for the queen and a bishop.

1...e5 does, well... the exact same thing.

2.Nf3 attacks an undefended pawn.

And 2...Nf6 defends it.

3.Bb5 threatens to trade the bishop for the knight leaving the pawn undefended (well, sort of). This is a type of tactic that hasn't had its own blog post yet. It's called "removing the defender".

However, black doesn't have to defend the pawn again with a move like 3...e6. In fact, the most common move here is 3...a6.

What if white tries to win the pawn with 4.Bxc6 exc6 5.Nxe5?

Black has 5...Qd4!, forking the knight and pawn.

So if you do decide to play the Spanish, 4.Ba4 is a better move.

That was the basics of the Spanish Opening. Of course, there's more to be said. Entire books have been written on the Spanish! But this feels like a good bite-sized look ideal for this blog.

That's one opening done!

Chess openings are the moves that you make to start a game of chess.

Chess openings are arguably the least important part of chess. Often players can make completely random moves for the first few moves and as long as their position isn't lost they'll be fine.

However, sometimes games are decided in the opening, especially in tricky openings or with opening traps. We saw before how for beginners Scholar's Mate can be hard to defend against.

Playing a good opening is also a great way to maximize your chances, and you have nothing to lose by learning some.

As players improve openings become more important, especially in slower games.

The reason I mentioned them being relatively less important is because many players spend too much time studying openings without winning many more games.

With that out of the way, let's talk about some opening principles.

The main thing you want to achieve in an opening is to control the centre of the board. This is why 1.e4 and 1.d4 are the two most common first moves.

The next thing you want to achieve is minor piece development. Most of the time you should move knights out before bishops. This is because knights only really have two good squares to go to, and most of the time they only really have one. Bishops, on the other hand, have many squares they can move to and so you should wait and see what your opponent does before committing them.

The next thing you want to do is castle. If you're in a position where you would prefer to castle long you will of course also need to move your queen first.

The final stage of the opening is connecting your rooks. This happens once you have castled and the queen, bishops and knights have all moved. The rooks defending each other is very often useful.

Now let's talk about how openings are named. If an opening name ends with the following:

Attack: (eg. Horwitz Attack) This is an aggressive opening for white.

Defence: (eg. King's Indian Defence) This is an opening for black. This is just convention because white goes first. Many "defences" are still quite aggressive. It's useful though because you can immediately tell which side an opening is for just by its name.

Counterattack: (eg. Traxler Counterattack) These are black openings that are definitely aggressive. Usually in response to an attack by white.

Opening: (eg. Spanish Opening) This is an opening by white that isn't quite so agressive.

Game: (eg. Italian Game, not to be confused with the Italian Job) Used to refer to openings for by either side. For some white openings it's used interchangeably with "opening" (Spanish Opening/Spanish Game, call it what you like).

Gambit: (eg. King's Gambit) This is used as a name for openings where one side sacrifices something (almost always a pawn, but sometimes a knight or even more rarely a bishop). This is mostly white openings but not always.

Countergambit: (eg. Falkbeer Countergambit) This is when one player plays a gambit but the other side not only declines the gambit but plays one of their own. It's the Uno reverse card of chess openings. This is mostly black openings but not always.

Now that we've covered the basics of openings, it's time to look at some.

Discoveries happen when one piece moves out of the way of another piece. Like pins and skewers, only bishops, rooks and queens (the proper term is "line pieces") can have their attacks be discovered.

This move is a discovered check - a discovery on the king. This particular example is also a double check - check with two pieces at once.

The most pieces that can give check at once in chess is two, although in some variants a triple check is possible.

The power of double check is that the checking pieces cannot be blocked and they cannot be taken by anything other than the king. This is because if one piece was taken or blocked the other would still be attacking the king. If you want to get out of a double check, you king has to move some way or another.

And excellent illustration of the power of double checks is the classic game Reti - Tartakower, 1910.

Here Richard Reti played the incredible 9.Qd8+!! and 9...Kxd8 is the only legal move.

And now Reti has the double check 10.Bg5+.

Black now has two legal moves, 10...Kc7 and 10...Kd8. In the game black played Kc7 and this was met with 11.Bd8#.

But what if black had played 10...Kd8? Well, that's our fifth puzzle. Good luck!

That's the last tactic we'll be covering for now. Time to move onto openings!