#chess openings

[souvlakic]

new aesthetic: female chess grandmaster

[minecraft-llama]

Chess Blog Day #31 - The Sicilian Defence

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.

How was this post?

Too jokey, more just chess please

I liked the style but some of the puns were terrible

Perfect post

Voting ended onMar 7

[e4pawn]

Whats your favorite chess openings? I want to practice some new ones.

[thatbrownchic]

Can Tumblr find me a chess mate close to my rating? 😬 My rating is 1300.

Drop your rating in the comments maybe? 🌼💖♟️

[w1ng3dw01f]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I Present:

This fuckin thing

[antigoneprogone]

So, idk if many people on tumblr care about chess much, but I was studying some openings today and I found a very funny trap.

This is for the Ponziani Opening, so you already know some hijinks are going to be afoot, and specifically, this is for the Jaenisch Counterattack. Obviously I can't have pictures for every position, but I'll put them in for the ones that matter.

It goes as follows:

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3 Nf6 4.d4 Nxe4 5.d5 Ne7 6.Nxe5 (pictured below)

Now, if you're a fan of the Ponziani, you know that 6...d6 is a losing move because of the brilliant 7.Bb5+ and the gobbling up of pawns and eventual loss of the knight on e5 by Black. But, what I'm going to show you stems from the slightly better move 6...c6. The idea, in short, is going to be to use the light-squared bishop to defend d5, trade it off for a knight, and then enter a position where you're down material but still have a winning chance.

6...c6 7.Bc4 Nd6 8.O-O Nxc4 9.Nxc4

Now, as you can see, Black has two different attackers on the pawn on d5. If Black plays, 9...Nxd5, then you don't get to do the trap, but you can play

10.Re1+ Be7 11.Nd6+ Kf8 12.c4 Bxd6 13.cxd5 cxd5 14.Qxd5

and now you have taken away Black's ability to castle, and even though you're down a pawn, you have the open e-file, your bishop has a short diagonal, your knight is ready to leap into action, and Black's kind of just sitting on their hands in terms of development.

But, here's the hysterical part. Remember when I said Black had two things attacking d5 all the way back on turn 9? If they chose to not play 9...Nxd5, then this happens.

9...cxd5?? 10.Nd6#!

Isn't that the silliest thing you've ever seen? The king is about to die surrounded by loved ones and family. You are untouchable and unstoppable. You're about to do an Agent 47 maneuver and assassinate the one guy surrounded by a swarm of body guards. It's beautiful.

[touhouuuu]

Chess opening's absurdity of their names are determined by their practicality.

The mainstream ones per se, 1. e4. The Kings Pawn because it's the King's Pawn. Of course. 1. d4 d5 2. c4 is the Queens Gambit because it's the Queens Pawn (or an Anglo-Scandinavian transposition if you're like me) and gambiting a pawn for center space. And of course, regions like the Scandinavian and French.

Less practical but used have weird but still common names. Reverse Rat Defense (1. d3 e5), Agincourt Defense (French + English, 1.c4 e6), and so on.

But once you go on, it's crazy. Bongcloud is quite popular, but I can't get over that there's a damn Coca-Cola Gambit. (1. g4 f5 2. f4.) I don't care if it's a joke opening, why would you name it that??? What's next? Moving every pawn for each side is the Skibidi Attack or something????

QED

[useless-catalanfacts]

Did you know?

The oldest document of the existence of chess in an European text is found in the will of the Count Ermengol I of Urgell (Catalonia), written in the year 1008.

In his will, the count specified that he left his chess pieces to the Abbey of Saint Gilles in Provence, which back then was politically Catalan territory.

Some years later, in 1058, chess would be mentioned again in the will of Ermessenda de Carcassona, the Countess of Barcelona.

As a homage to Europe’s oldest witness of chess, the Polish chess Grandmaster Savielly Tartakower opened the chess tournament of the 1929 International Exposition (held in Barcelona, Catalonia’s capital city) with his creation called the Catalan Opening.

(Source)

The photo in this post shows the quarz chess set that belonged to Arsenda d’Àger, Lady of Àger. This chess set was sculpted between the late 10th century and the early 11th century, and is known as the Sant Pere d’Àger chess set. It’s kept in the Diocesan Museum of Lleida (Ponent, Catalonia).