Understand Chess Openings, Ruy Lopez

Dear friends, opponents, and viewers! 

Welcome to the new series on Understand Chess Openings! This blog series will uncover why we play openings and help you understand the reasons behind the moves. We will go over common openings and slowly go deeper into different openings.

In our first beginner series we'll go over the 

• Ruy Lopez, 
• Italian Game, 
• Fried Liver Attack,
•  French Defense. 

We will uncover why we play specific moves in the specific order that they are played.  

Never in the history of chess have so many moves been repeated so often so quickly by so many people who didn't really understand them. - Michael Stean

The Ruy Lopez or Spanish game was first published in the Gottingen Manuscript around 1490 and has been popular due to the common themes and basic ideas. The Opening starts with the following moves:

In the Ruy Lopez Black should try and use his advantage of the bishop pair and ruin White's chances of winning by attacking his king in the middle game and trying to get his queenside pawns promoted. White should try and set up for the endgame and get his central pawns (C, D, E pawns) and should also get his rooks to challenge the center. Here's a game that will tell you what to do with the E pawns. 

I hope you know understand why we play those developing moves and why Black should not have captured my undefended pawn. It's amazing how many moves we can play and yet not no what the meaning to those moves are. If you have any questions on the Ruy Lopez please comment below and I'll see you soon in the next blog! -KH