Fog of War: How to DOMINATE in this Incredible Variant

One of the most popular variants here on Chess.Com is Fog of War, and in it, you can only see or take material that your pieces can capture. So, basically, you're completely blind outside of the squares your pieces are on and can go to, or where your pawns can capture.

Though the idea stems from a proposal for a variant called Dark Chess in 1989, Fog of War was most popular around 3 years ago when it was a newer, cooler, and more intriguing concept to the broader Chess community. At the time, GothamChess and Hikaru made two videos of them playing the variant against each other that amassed 4.6 million views, and this was definitely the peak of Fog of War’s popularity.

However, this variant didn't die when it stepped out of the spotlight. At the time of writing, Fog of War has 22,667 active players across formats, and there are a number of awesome players at the top of the variant's leaderboard that we'll be interviewing in today's blog.

Note: This blog is divided into sections on openings, a tragic game of mine, some of my tips, an interview with excellent Fog of War players, and a joke ending. So feel free to skip around or scroll through and only look at a couple sentences and the jokes or memes.

Openings:

Obviously, in a variant where you cannot see most of your opponents pieces and win by taking their king, openings are completely different. We'll get to the interviews with some of the best Fog of War players later, but the opening choices are partially based off of what they said their preferences were.

The Queen of Power: Opening #1

This is one of the best openings for white in Fog of War, and I highly recommend you consider trying it out. Sadly, this opening has a small chance of blundering a queen if your opponent has played the bizarre move b5 for the sole purpose of stopping this opening.

So it is slightly risky, but it's definitely a neat option for a couple of reasons if the opposition doesn't know what's coming. If you get your queen to a4, then that piece may instantly see 18 squares, which is huge in Fog of War and will give you an incredible amount of information to act on. Not only that, but the only piece that can attack a queen without it knowing is the knight, and that minor piece has a near impossible journey to attack the queen. On a4, it's nested in a secure and powerful location on the board, looking down at its subjects.

Finally, there's a little trap here: If black makes a beginner mistake and moves their e-pawn without moving a knight - or better yet, a bishop - to protect their king, then you can take it and win.

As discussed in depth below, this variant is played by the current #1 Fog of War Blitz player in the world, @for_fog_of_war. Additionally, the top Rapid player in the world - FM @Zelfmat76 - mentioned that he had faced this opening quite a bit, which seems to indicate that it is one of the preferred choices among higher ranked players.

The Sturdy Fianchetto: Opening #2

The kingside fianchetto for black is a common defensive opening that's designed to let your opponent - who has no idea what your position is - walk into a blunder by overextending their pieces in search for information or dominance of the center.

The fianchetto can be played on the kingside and queenside, and with black or white. However, because you have zero idea where the opposition's been moving to in Fog of War, it's incredibly easy to stumble into the Scholar's Mate if you fianchettoed on your queenside. I may or may not have been a victim of that in a way that completely obliterated my ego of being a 1600+ rated player (I'm now close to 1630 elo in the variant!) as I lost the game just when I was buckling in for an intense and physical war on the chessboard to begin.

It was quite unfortunate: I had to sac the king just like the British people did half a billion times throughout the Wars of the Roses and all of history.

But I digress. Ultimately, as long as you guard the vulnerable f-pawn by your king, fianchettoing on either side of the board works very well in Fog of War.

After interviewing Zelfmat, I asked him a followup question about fianchettoing and he said that it was "a solid way to develop.... [where] you don't have weaknesses for your opponent attacking your g7 or h7 pawns in the case of fianchettoing the bishop to g7."

Let's Gooo D4!: Opening #3

Despite the absurd attempts of @1cbb and others to criticize one of the most beatific opening moves - 1. d4 - this move still stands strong in both regular chess and Fog of War.

In the variant, d4 is designed to control the center and punish the opposition if they play 1. e5 or 1.c5 in response. Following d4 up with the move bd2 ensures that any plan black has to develop their queen to a5 will result in a Botez Gambit, which is why the first opening we discussed should not be played with black. Not only that, but this move is crucial because it protects your king and develops a minor piece.

If your opponent plays e5 and c5, you can just take their pawn and follow it up with bd2 or nc3 and have now gained a slight advantage. Unlike some other openings in Fog of War, this can actually be played with black as long as you play the move c6 before pushing the pawn to d5.

The Boring E4: Opening #4

1.e4 is another typical opening you'll see in Fog of War, and it works well with white. Personally, I would recommend playing be2 immediately after e4, and then developing after that. That way, you have a battery with your bishop and queen any ideas black has of moving a defended bishop to g4 and hoping you blunder are now gone. However, there are tons of viable alternatives like nf3 or just alternate forms of development.

With black, e5 is still viable, though it could be a free pawn if 1. d4 was played by the opposition.

Deez Knights are Strong (Yes, I stole this joke from Hikaru): Opening #5

This opening is excellent, and all you have to do is move your knight out to the f-file and then your other one out to the c-file. This can be played with both the black and white pieces, and it's probably the most effective way to control the center without blundering in Fog of War.

This lets you see if your opponent has moved to d4 or e4, and it lets you take the latter of those two pieces if it's brought out early on before it might be protected. Additionally, your f-pawn next to your king is immediately blocked, and you can move pawns and other pieces to the center after castling.

How To Destroy an Opening:

Recently, I played a beautiful game where I lost in 10 moves. This humiliation has a number of lessons on how to protect your king and a great method for how to punish a solid opening, so we'll analyze it here.

In the game, I fianchettoed on the kingside and had no idea where any of my opponent's pieces were until their knight suddenly galloped nobly into my position and took a pawn. See if you can find the correct move here, which is of course the one that I played.

If you said rxf7, then you're correct. The likelihood that white would just randomly blunder a knight by taking a pawn that's clearly going to be defended is low, and those odds were lower because my opponent was 1800 elo in the variant.

Regardless, unnecessarily exposing your king is pointless due to the fact that you can take back with the rook. In Fog of War, when you have a choice of taking material back with a less important piece or a more important one, the former one is almost always better.

After I took with the rook, white's bishop swooped in from out of nowhere. I took back with my king before moving my d-pawn forward to control the center. Then, my opponent pushed their pawn to a5 and I blundered the game away. See if you can find the right move here instead of the garbage one that I played.

Here, I made one of the best decisions of my life. It was a terrible decision and cost me the game, but I'm terrible at decision making so that's why this depressingly classifies as the best one ever for me.

I should have taken the pawn with my pawn. The pawn structure would be a bit goofy, but my king wouldn't have any angle at which it could have been taken and that is a thousand times more important than pawn structure in Fog of War. Foolishly, I took with the knight and opened up my king. White took it with the queen they had planted on f3 and won the game.

Here's the game without fog, so that you can see what both sides played.

As mentioned in the annotations, it wouldn't let me add the part where I moved my king into check and it got captured, Huh... I have zero idea why. We need a variants analysis board.

Anyways, white did a good job of recognizing that I had fianchettoed and must've castled kingside, and they punished me for it. In hindsight, they should have played e4 instead of e3. That way, they could have just pushed the pawn forward once they saw my knight. I would have seen the piece move forward, but moving my knight would allow my f7 pawn to be captured before I castled and that would lead to mate.

Like this:

But still, this is a pretty good example of how to attack early on in the variant, and how not to guard your king. Sadly, I wasn't the great role model here, but I think it's absolutely very instructional.

Tips:

Before we get into the interview with experts, I would like to offer a few pieces of advice on how to play Fog of War. I may have gotten crushed in the above game, but I'm overall pretty decent at the variant and listening to me could possibly be beneficial in a parallel universe so why not?

• After you play a match, click the fog button in the bottom right corner several times until you can see both sides of the board. Then, you can review what opening they utilized and set a trap if you get paired against them next. This is also why you should change up your opening repertoire in Fog of War.
• Not every "free" piece is free, but it's probably good if you're capturing a more powerful piece with a weak one because you're still gaining material even if it's taken back. Just be a bit cautious about taking things if your king is exposed in doing so.
• Almost never resign because your opponent is completely blind in Fog of War, and it's very likely they will bring their king up the board and get captured or just accidentally walk a piece to the wrong destination, so it ain't over till it's over and resigning usually ends thing unnecessarily here (gosh that word is hard to spell).
• Try and promote your pawns in the ending, and keep a rook back to stop your opponent from doing that and to protect your king if you can and are in what you think is a winning endgame.
• Chess.Com lets you go back moves to see what pieces were on what squares when you could see them, and you can understand what material has been captured by looking to the left of the board. Use these tools! Or else I'll know you didn't because of my psychic mind powers and will be extremely disappointed (unless, of course, you're playing against me).😭😜😭 And if your opponent has less vertically moving pieces than you (rooks or queens), line yours up and move them to the opposite edge of the board to begin the treacherous kinghunt.

The Interview:

And now we've arrived at the part people actually might be interested in! Here, we hear what Fog of War experts wrote instead of what I wrote. And that pesky little user @SavageOppress will be adding some commentary on the side.

We've interviewed the number one Fog of War rapid player and titled player, @Zelfmat. @for_fog_of_war, who is 2297 elo in this variant's blitz time control and is the 5th highest ranked player in that format. And we also interviewed another one of the best Fog of War blitz players, who decided to remain anonymous. We will now refer to him as "He who shall not be named".

Note: The interview has been edited slightly for clarity and stuff. I also didn't include one question... Totally not because it made me look bad. My views on these responses are the stuff in the parenthesis.

Question #1: What got you into Fog of War?

@Zelfmat: "Somebody at the chess club told me about it. I immediately wanted to try and I got addicted...".

(Makes sense, things still pass on through word of mouth all the time.)

@for_fog_of_war: "I watch streams of Samay Raina, an Indian Youtuber and Chess Player. He once invited Anish Giri to his stream and they played this variant. Watching them play got me curious."

(You see! Fog of War may have peaked years ago because of Youtube, but many people - or at least one person - who started playing then still continue to do so now!)

He Who Shall Not Be Named: " I started playing variants a long time ago, first with 960 and King of the Hill, then started 4-player, horde and finally Fog of War after playing some Risk Fog of War. Inserting some imperfect information in a variant of chess seemed interesting."

(When you're in the variants community and the variants page, it's very easy to see when a new variant comes out.)

Question #2: What openings do you play in Fog of War, and what ones do you think are terrible to use in the variant?

@Zelfmat: "With white I play many things but 1. b4 and 1. d4 are the most used opening moves; with black I can also play many things. 1...c5, 1...d5 and 1...e5. I play 1...d5 the most. responding 1...f5 on 1. e4 is the most terrible start."

@for_fog_of_war: " I usually open with 1.c4 ... 2. Qa4 and then decide on lines as per the opponent's moves. I think this may be the best line. I mean, if someone develops an engine for this variant, it should be showing something like this as the first preference. As black, I pretty much go c5 every game and the following moves always depend on the opponent's moves. Sometimes, it requires us to play e6 if Bc4 is played. Else d6, e5 is a decent setup to start with. About castling, it again depends a lot on my mood to be honest."

He Who Shall Not Be Named: I try to control as much of the center as possible with white, so c4, d4, e4, etc. With black I try to place the pieces in an unconventional way while still maintaining good coordination. No specific openings.

(You'll note that a lot of these people play c4 likely so they can slide their queen out. They also play e4 and d4, interestingly enough. As we discussed above in the openings section, it's almost as if I based what I put up there on the expert's preferences lol. )

Question #3: What do you think of the use of traps early on in the game in Fog of War?

@Zelfmat: "A well known trap is the scholar's mate of course. But mostly used by beginners, sometimes also stronger players. Further you see many people play 1. c4 and then 2. Qa4. 1. c4 d5 2. Nc3 is something I got on the board many times. I have to give a pawn, but there are many gambits in this game. Looks like FOW gets its own theory :-)"

(I definitely see why He Who Shall Not Be Named chose to remain anonymous. These guys are teaching us a lot of theory... That they use!)

@for_fog_of_war: "Traps are really nice if they work. And actually the opening choice is meant for that. Restricting the d-pawn and also it reveals a lot about the opponent's setup. But I actually don't want to go fully for traps. I take calculated risks."

He Who Shall Not Be Named:  "Early traps can catch aggressive players but rarely work right away on players above 1800-1900. They could come in handy in the middle game if one forgets about them."

(Both of these last two players seemed to have similar approaches, which makes sense considering the fact that it's very rare to get matched against someone with a similar rating against you if you're at the top of a variant, and you can't maintain that rank on the leaderboard if you go for an overly aggressive trap and lose to a way lower rated player. This is discussed more in the part where these guys give tips.)

Question #4: Do you believe in playing defensively and waiting for your opponent to walk into the line of sight of one of your pieces, or do you think it’s important to fight for control of the center and use your major pieces actively?

@Zelfmat: "When I first played this game I played defensively with pawns till the 3rd or 6th row. But it has some disadvantages: you cannot see the enemy pieces and in this game information is very important. Look at JackAces' games. He always plays his queen into a position that she sees many enemy pieces. It gives a lot of control. He does it in a way that he knows his queen cannot be attacked without seeing the enemy piece. There are some (strong) players who just don't do anything and wait for mistakes from their opponents. It's a bit of a boring style. I like to be aggressive. When I play aggressively too often my rating will go down, but then I had more fun. When I'm playing solidly my rating will go up in general."

(I couldn't find this JackAce guy and have zero idea who he is, but this reply makes a ton of sense. Being too aggressive in Fog of War seemingly is a certified method to tank your elo if you're a top player, but we do play variants for fun after all so that's something we ought to consider.)

@for_fog_of_war: "I decide that based on my opponent's rating and strength. I think I take risk-free decisions many times. With high-rated opponents, I prefer playing a bit defensively. Of course, sometimes the bluff and all won't go our way."

(So he plays more carefully against the good players... Alright I get that.)

He Who Shall Not Be Named: White can play quite offensively and I tend to do so. With black, I am ok to defend in the early game and then counter attack.

Question #6: Because you specialize in Rapid Fog of War and you have much less information to go off of than in regular Chess, do you spend a lot of time thinking about your moves or do you do them much faster than you would in a standard rapid match? 

@Zelfmat: I'm not specialized in rapid. I just play only 1500-players to get a high rating. It was funny to try that, but the games are boring and not satisfying. With blitz I play anyone, but have the settings that I will only play against players max. 400 elo less than I have. If I have to wait a long time I can play a lower rated opponent. I play in rapid just about as fast as in blitz. There is really no need to think when you cannot see your enemy pieces. Just develop. At the moment you see your enemy pieces you start to think. I try to get as much information as I can. Sometimes I have a good idea of where my opponent's pieces are, but sometimes totally not. Sometimes you have to gamble, sometimes you can bluff, that makes it a nice game.

(This question was only for Zelfmat, since he's the best rapid player of the 3 and of the 3 thousand plus that play rapid Fog of War consistently. I find it a bit funny that this is how he has an ultra high-rating, but he's still clearly very good at the variant if he's winning enough against lower ranked players to maintain this elo, and it's not my choice who he plays. Anyways, it makes a lot of sense that he doesn't spend wackily long amounts of time on moves when there's incomplete information compared to the goofy regular game of chess.)

Advice and additional comments from the experts:

@Zelfmat:

• *Make sure your pieces are protected by your own pieces as much as possible. 
• If you can trade pieces don't do it too often when you cannot see how your opponent will take it back.                                                                                               
• If you think your opponent cannot see how you take back, it's often good and surprising to take back with the piece he cannot see. E.g.: if he takes your piece with his bishop and he sees a pawn or a bishop of yours then take back with a knight. If you think your opponent has more pieces that attack yours then take back with the piece he can see; maybe you got him outnumbered, but he doesn't know.                      
• A free pawn is very strong, much stronger than in a normal game
• A knight is much stronger in a knight vs bishop ending (but not in a double bishop vs double knight-ending
• Remember what color bishop your enemy has if he has only one bishop left.
• Try to remember on what file your opponents pawns are, which is very important in a pawn-ending. Admittedly, I'm very lazy with this....
• Try to get as much information. If something blocks your pawn try to find out if it's a pawn or another piece. In this game you have time enough and wasting tempo's doesn't really matter  
• Doubled pawns can be very strong. Many players forget it and they only see the front pawn, then they think it's safe to put a piece next to it, but it can be captured by the backpawn. doubles pawns also give an open file where rooks can attack.

(W advice)

@for_fog_of_war:  This is the best variant in my opinion. I personally prefer this over the standard variant too. It's really great fun.

For newbies, "just have fun and bluff your way to the top."

(Wow! It's also my favorite variant omg it's almost as if that's why I created a blog about it???)

He Who Shall Not Be Named: For higher ratings, it is necessary to play in a way that brings consistent wins against 1900s and 2000s. If it is +2 for win and -14 for loss, you need to win 85-90% of the games just to maintain rating. Reckless attacks might work but will lead to a lot of rating fluctuation. Newer players that don't need to worry about rating can experiment and find their own style. they could also annotate on the board to remind themselves where the opponents' pieces and pawns are.

(This is honestly genius and He Who Shall Not Be Named probably just gave the best advice out of all of the responses from the three I interviewed. This is where I stole my commentary above on the aggressiveness of players.)

Brief Interview With @SavageOppress

To wrap things up for this blog, we've brought on a special guest: The user SavageOppress! He's an excellent blogger - like me -and a fellow lover of the variant (also like me), and I'll be asking him a couple of questions today!

Q. What is the best variant on Chess.Com?

A. Fog of War, duh!!!

Q. What a brilliant answer, you seem like an awesome person! Who do you think is the greatest blogger of all time?

A. Recently, I read a post by @SavageOppress on How to Find and Play Brilliant Moves, and it was fascinating. He's clearly a w-blogger, @HornetCruise stands no chance of beating him in Blogchamps! 😎