The Lighthouse Opening

This blog is an introduction to my signature opening as white: The Lighthouse Opening.

I am rated around 1600 and have my highest winrate with this opening. (Around 55%) This opening is centred around the early development of the rook, which will act as the centre piece for the rest of your development and overall gameplan, much like a lighthouse.

► When accepted - opponent plays any other move than d5 - you want to develop your rook on the enemy king's e file, creating a threat that will help you pin, discover attacks, and generally develop your board with an ominous control over the centre.

The board should look something like this:

1. h4 e5      2. Rh3 d5      3. Re3 Nc6      4. d4

► When denied - opponent plays d5 - you want to push the h pawn again to create a flanking pawn that will greatly augment your midgame and practically disable the opponent from castling king-side. You can then continue the development of the centre with a slight tempo disadvantage but a midgame positioning advantage that can weight in much stronger.

This might look something like this:

1. h4 d5      2. h5 e5      3. d4 Nc6      4. c3

► To get back to the main line of this opening, we can see the rook helps regain control of the centre, while threatening the king. Most times, the opponent will try to take this rook down, but most options as black will end up losing tempo and help you develop your own pieces and board. 

Your goal in this opening is to activate your queen-side pieces to castle long as soon as possible, while defending your rook and any king-side threats. This means you should almost never move your king-side pawn structure prior to castling. Another common mistake can be trapping the rook in your own pieces, which can result in embarrassing loss of material, so make sure you are giving space for your rook to go to whenever possible. In this opening, Nc3 is more often than not a mistake, and you prefer Nd2 or Na3.

Given this opening's unconventional nature, there are many ways both sides can get trapped, lose material or even the game, which is undeniably one of its strength. This opening can be hard to really grasp at first so make sure you really understand the goal, practice variations, and get some experience playing it against others. Forcing opponents off the beaten path will allow you to win against stronger players and theory-lovers, as you can play on your own territory. 

Here is a diagram which shows the tempo at which each piece should be developed (1 being first and 3 being last)

Below are some game examples with this opening and some of the common traps for black that you have to look out for. Goodluck, and thank you for reading!