The Ware opening
The ware opening is an interesting approach to the opening, one of those rare moves that we wouldn’t recommend to anyone. However, it has interesting ideas, and you might for them, even if you think the opening is simply bad.
The opening choice is something the chess players definitely gives too much attention to, but is interesting. This is what grandmasters sometimes take advantage from and play weird openings that will allow them to confuse their rivals.
It’s interesting that I am here telling you not to play the ware opening when a grandmaster like Magnus Carlsen has used it before. The thing is that the ware opening breaks the main principles of chess, and doesn’t allow you to control the center.
But, it has some dangerous ideas that might destroy black’s position if they are not careful. There is actually no much theory about this, as playing the ware opening is considered to be almost a joke.
You can play this just for fun, to see how it goes, and it should be really fun to see the result of this. If you want to become a master of pranks and learn how to play the ware opening read this post!
The mainlines of the ware opening
First, to enter the ware opening we need to play the move a4 in move one with white. And here we can already see why this opening is not too convenient for us, to put it simple, the first move is incredibly bad.
But as we have told you before, everything is relative as Einstein would say, and this move also accomplishes two objectives:
- Takes space in the queenside
- Prepares the rook to develop to a3
It’s not much, but is honest work, let’s see how the game may continue:
And you have an interesting position.
So as we may confirm the ware opening will not necessarily take you to a hole that you dug yourself. You can get decent positions out of this, probably you can get better advantage using other opening, probably not, who knows.
The thing is that you have to know how to play your cards, but you can definitely get through with this opening, we will give you another example of other variation played by a grandmaster with this move:
Once again the position offer equal possibilities for both sides.
As you can see in both variations white went for the plan of taking out the knight via a3, and it work really well for him. But you don’t necessarily have to play this way, for this you can apply certain technique.
Actually, a good way to play is accordingly to your opponent’s moves, and that alone can be really powerful. If you are playing a weird opening, something that not even you know what it is you can play for your opponent.
What I mean is that you develop a plan depending on what your opponent does. For example, is black wants to take the full center with e5 and d5 I will play c4 to undermine it.
Just a simple idea that you might come up with if you apply logical thinking to your game. Playing this way is playing prophylactically and this is how many masters play the game, even if they played the ware opening or not.
Plans and ideas in the ware opening
The ware opening also allows you some ideas, that we can explain here, and to give you a briefing, all is about the queenside. Logically, this is the side of the board that you become stronger from the beginning of the game with a4.
So it would be really consistent with the ware opening to try to put pressure on that side. As we will see in the following games, developing your pieces towards the queenside can be a pretty successful strategy.
You can combine your early a4 with b5 and start harassing the pieces that might be on c6 and other squares. Even trade some pawns to open lines.
Sample games with the Ware opening
This game is absolute proof that we can get a decent position out of a bad opening like the ware opening. Of course, there should be better ways to punish white’s early reckless play with black.
But is never clear how this can be immediately seized, remember that we can always turn things around.
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