Weekly Opening Exploration: The Bongcloud

The Bongcloud opening is generally considered to be a joke opening. It is often played when a person feels that they are better than their opponent. There isn't actually a set move sequence for the Bongcloud but it is any unorthodox king move in the opening. One of the more common variants is the king queen swap.

This has the disadvantage of stopping the king from castling and not developing a single piece. The only good thing is the check that white can give.

Here are some of the lines the analysis engine considers best against e4 e5 Ke2

-2.27 2... d5 3. exd5 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bc5 5. Ke1 Nxd5 6. Bc4 Be6 7. Ne4 Bb6 8. d3 O-O 9. Nf3 Nc6 10. Kf1 h6 11. h4 a5 12. Qe1 Bg4 13. Bxd5 Qxd5
-2.26 2... Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Ke1 Bc5 5. Nf3 Ng4 6. d4 exd4 7. Na4 Qe7 8. Nxc5 Qxc5 9. h3 Nf6 10. e5 Nd5 11. Be2 Ndb4 12. Bd3 Nxe5 13. Nxe5
-2.23 2... Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Ke1 Bc5 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Bc4 d6 7. d3 Nd4 8. Nxd4 Bxd4 9. h3 c6 10. Bb3 b5 11. a3 d5 12. Kf1 Bxc3 13. bxc3 

Magnus Carlson, Hikaru Nakaruma and Fabiano Caruana have all used the Bongcloud opening.

Please comment below what you want next week's opening to be.