Understand Chess Openings, Italian Game

Welcome friends, opponents, and viewers to another blog on the series "Understand Chess Openings" Today we will be going over the extensive opening called: The Italian Game.

Let's go over some popular variations and lines that you may see when playing this wonderful opening:

• Nf6, White can reply to this move in many ways, my favorite variation and the only one I play the most is Ng5 going into the fried liver attack which we'll cover next blog. Nc3, c3, and 0-0 are also choices that you will have depending on what your ready for.
• Bc5, Black's trying to ready an early attack on White's king in the middle game so white should just simply castle and continue with moves like Nc3, c3, and d4. 
• Be7, Black doesn't know the theory that most do so if your black black is simply playing a drawish move to prevent the hard and complex variations. White should just continue developing like Nc3, c3, 0-0, and castling.
• d6, Black's wanting to play a very easy game with castling and moving his bishop to attack white's knight on f3. White should just play c3 or castling in this moment waiting to see how black moves. 

As you can see most of these moves are simple and easy to understand. If we were to go over every line like the Even's Gambit and others then we'd be lost in what to do. All you need as a beginner is to understand the key concepts.

Unlike other openings, I don't play the common variations and go for the Fried Liver Attack which we will cover next blog, it's a very fun and easy variation that's exciting and aggressive! Hope you enjoyed this blog and I'll see you in the upcoming Fried Liver Attack Opening, -KH