The Cochrane Gambit (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 Nxe5 d6 4 Nxf7) is, perhaps, not well known by its name, but is a playable early assault on the Black King's position, which leads to dynamic positions with chances for both sides. John Cochrane was bor...
The Grünfeld defence relies on one of the main principles of the hypermodern school: a large pawn centre could be a liability rather than an asset. The opening is named after Ernst Grünfeld, the player who first employed the defence in t...
The Queen's Indian is one of Black's most respected defenses to the queen's pawn opening. It's an established favorite among top GMs such as Kramnik, Anand, Adams, J. Polgar and (when he was at his best) Karpov. The opening is cons...
Dragon variation of the Sicilian defence has always been regarded as one of the sharpest variations of all chess openings. The name "Dragon" comes from the resemblance of Black's kingside pawn structure to the constellation "Dra...
Here is another King's Gambit miniature.
The King's Gambit probably has more traps than any other opening. Here is a recent game that White wins when Black tries a new move in the opening and gets greedy.
The Dutch Defense (1.d4 f5) is a good alternative to 1...d5 and 1...Nf6 when faced with 1.d4. Here is a recent example in which Black wins in the Dutch and White doesn't follow best opening theory. It leads to a back rank mate in j...
I did a little survey of chess opening frequencies from several chess databases. After looking over a million games or so and keeping tabs of the first few moves, these are the results. 1.e4 was the most common opening, representing 70...
