The Deadly Opening Sin.
There are many ways to go wrong in the opening and lose quickly. Today we'll talk about one of the Opening's Cardinal Sins : pawn grabbing. Everyone knows that in the opening we are supposed to develop our pieces as quickly as possible and castle. Yet one of the oldest opening mistakes is still one of the most popular ones. I am talking about pawn grabbing which, as the name suggests, is a try to win material in the opening before finishing your development. I can almost hear a chess player's thought "Yeah, I know, don't worry, I will finish my development for sure, but first let me take the tasty little pawn that my opponent left unguarded". The usual result of such a strategy is miniature games where the poor King get sstuck in the center and minor pieces never have a chance to leave the initial positions.
Games like the next one are very popular in scholastic tournaments.
(Just like in most of my articles I give you a chance to test your attacking skills, so the games are given as a Quiz. Please remember that you can always replay the whole game from the first move if you click "Solution" and then "Move list".)
