English opening

The English opening is one of the most interesting openings in chess there are, and one of the most flexible. This opening can lead to infinite variations, and there are so many transpositions that it seems to be a labyrinth.

Playing the English opening means that you will normally go into positional and highly precise variations. However, if you know the plans and ideas, the English opening becomes so easy to play, you can confuse your opponent really quickly.

Plays with one of these long term ideas of giving up a little of central control for a better … Read more

The Mieses opening

The Mieses opening is one of those openings that look questionable, but actually involves a lot of ideas. This is included as an irregular opening in the chess openings encyclopedia.

It starts with a weird movie, and so many players, masters or not, could say there are better moves to go on the position. But this didn’t stop so many popular players to try it out against other masters of great caliber.

Garry Kasparov himself tried out the Mieses opening against Deep Blue in the famous “man vs machine match”. The Mieses opening can lead to other … Read more

Saragossa Opening

The Saragossa opening is one of the most interesting openings there are to try out. It may seem normal and simple, but it has a little hidden trick that you can use to get some advantage.

As always, we have to understand that every opening in the book has value, and can be pretty useful to know. We have given too much importance to chess openings in contemporary chess, and that can play against us or without us.

We can simply play the normal variations that we see, the regular Sicilian, queen’s gambit, and etcetera. But if you … Read more

The Colle system

The Colle system is an interesting opening idea that involves White playing in the center slowly but surely. You can assure very good attack chances with this opening if you know what you are playing for.

The curious thing is this is not too much like an opening, this is more like an idea or setup that allows you to achieve a certain position. Having to play logic and simple moves in the first stages of the game, this system is easy for everyone.

It always sticks with the principle and is one of those openings that … Read more

Bogo-Indian Defense

Bogo-Indian Defense is an interesting variation Black can play against Queen’s Pawn. It is named after the strong master Efim Bogoljubov. Since the beginning, the second player develops the pieces on the Kingside very quickly, and very often they can misplace some white minor piece on the Queenside.

We have Bogo-Indian Defense on the board after the moves

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Bb4+

This is the main position in the theory of Bogo-Indian Defense. When White plays 3.Nf3, they intend to avoid Nimzo-Indian Defense, since after 3.Nc3 Black can play 3 … Bb4, … Read more

Réti Opening

Réti Opening is a solid, flexible, and interesting system for White. It is named after the great master Richard Reti. Something good is that as this is not such a popular variation, very often Black does not know the theory and it could be confusing for the second player.

We have Réti Opening on the board after the moves

1.Nf3 d5 2.c4

Usually, this is followed by a Kingside Fianchetto, although, in general, it is said we are in Réti Opening when White plays Nf3 and c4 to face d5 by Black, and in the next moves … Read more