The Ruy Lopez Opening EXPLAINED!

Hi! Welcome to an opening that I play often as white! This opening is called the Ruy Lopez Opening, or the Spanish Opening. This opening is known to be popular by Magnus Carlsen, one of the world's best chess players! The idea is not to "pin" the knight but to keep it from defending the centre pawn. Here's an example where if white takes the knight, black will have no defenders for the centre pawn:

This opening is great too because you can castle after you take the knight like this:

Then, if black doesn't defend the threat of the knight, you can double blacks pawns when they take. You may know that double pawns in an opening is bad because it will be hard to defend them both. Here's an example of the damaged pawn structure after white takes the black knight: 

This is a damaged pawn structure as you can see from black. Don't forget to defend that centre pawn as much as you can! Your position should be great because of those damaged pawns, you castled already, and you can continue to develop pieces. 

Another suggestion I have not talked about yet is pushing the pawns where your opponent castles. Pushing the pawns creates an attack that will expose your opponent's king and eventually you could maybe find a checkmate threat! Pushing pawns is important and can lead you to winning the game! Here's a game where pushing the pawns to checkmate the king occurs:

As you saw in that blunderfest of a game, white started to push pawns that eventually led to checkmate! Use this in your next game and see if it works! Remember to defend the pawns you are pushing so your opponent can't just take them for free. 

That's it! Thanks for reading this post and I will see you in the next one! If you have questions, comments, or concerns, comment below!