#Chess openings professional#

Measures must be taken to reduce his vulnerability. King safety: The king is somewhat exposed in the middle of the board.This leads to openings such as Alekhine's Defense – in a line like 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.f4 (the Four Pawns Attack) White has a formidable pawn center for the moment, but Black hopes to undermine it later in the game, leaving White's position exposed. The hypermoderns instead advocated controlling the center from a distance with pieces, breaking down one's opponent's center, and only taking over the center oneself later in the game. However, the hypermodern school showed that it was not always necessary or even desirable to occupy the center in this way, and that too broad a pawn front could be attacked and destroyed, leaving its architect vulnerable an impressive-looking pawn center is worth little unless it can be maintained. The classical view is that central control is best effected by placing pawns there, ideally establishing pawns on d4 and e4 (or d5 and e5 for Black). However, control of the central squares allows pieces to be moved to any part of the board relatively easily, and can also have a cramping effect on the opponent. Control of the center: At the start of the game, it is not clear on which part of the board the pieces will be needed.The queen, and to a lesser extent the rooks, are not usually played to a central position until later in the game, when many minor pieces and pawns are no longer present. To this end, knights are usually developed to f3, c3, f6, and c6 (or sometimes e2, d2, e7, or d7), and both players' king and queen pawns are moved so the bishops can be developed (alternatively, the bishops may be fianchettoed with a maneuver such as g3 and Bg2). Development: One of the main aims of the opening is to mobilize the pieces on useful squares where they will have impact on the game.Whether they are trying to gain the upper hand as White, or to equalize as Black or to create dynamic imbalances, players generally devote a lot of attention in the opening stages to the following strategies: Īims of the opening Common aims in opening play When kept secret until used in a competitive game, it is often known as a prepared variation, a powerful weapon in top-class competition. Ī new sequence of moves in the opening is referred to as a theoretical novelty. The study of openings can become unbalanced if it is to the exclusion of tactical training and middlegame and endgame strategy. Players at the club level also study openings, but the importance of the opening phase is less there since games are rarely decided in the opening.

#Chess openings professional#

Professional chess players spend years studying openings, and they continue doing so throughout their careers as opening theory continues to evolve. In some openings, book lines have been worked out for over 30 moves, as in the classical King's Indian Defense and in the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense. When a game begins to deviate from known opening theory, the players are said to be 'out of book'. Opening moves that are considered standard are referred to as 'book moves', or simply 'book'. The Oxford Companion to Chess lists 1,327 named openings and variants, and there are many others with varying degrees of common usage.

Many opening sequences, known as openings, have standard names such as ' Sicilian Defense'. The other phases are the middlegame and the endgame.

It usually consists of established theory. The opening is the initial stage of a chess game.