The Cow: The Easiest Way to Troll
Chess is the only game where "fun" means plotting someone's downfall with an army of plastic figurines.
~Squirtle
Welcome, everyone, to another chess blog by your favourite Pokémon who plays chess, Squirtle! Today, I will talk about the best troll opening, The Cow. I'll talk about its origins, the masters of it, and how to play it in almost every time control (exceptions being Classical Chess, because it's kind of dumb to play a troll opening at a 1h+30s tournament), these being accompanied by model games played by the Gods of The Cow + me 
.
Also, one more thing: don't forget to follow me so you don't miss any of my future blogs!
Without further ado, let's get started.
1. History
2. The Actual Opening
2.3.1 How You Should Position Yourself: White
2.3.2 How You Should Position Yourself: Black
3. Model Games
4. Extra Stuff
4.1 Resources for Further Analysis
History
Again, as in my last blog, if you don't want to read all of this, you can skip it. Just so you know, I spent a lot of time doing research, and I would enjoy it if you read it .
We have to go all the way back to 2023, exactly one day after Covid-19 was no longer considered a threat, more exactly, on May 6th. This date is very important in the online chess community, as it is the date when WFM Anna Cramling posted the video that started it all: "I Invented a BRAND NEW Chess Opening: The Cow Opening!!!". Here is the video if you want to see it.
The opening she created was very simple to play, needing almost no theory.
The name of the opening came from the short film "Ferdinand" by Walt Disney. In the cartoon, Ferdinand is a peaceful bull who prefers smelling flowers rather than participating in bull fights. When Ferdinand got stung by a bee, he went crazy, charging all over the place.
Seeing this, the men who had come to select a bull for the bullfights assumed he was the toughest and most aggressive of them all. So, they took him away to the arena in Madrid, expecting him to be a fearsome fighter. Of course, Ferdinand didn't want to fight, so he just sat down and refused to fight, choosing peace over violence. His reaction to the bee was just a temporary burst of energy, but it led to a huge misunderstanding.
Since Ferdinand is a bull, which is the male counterpart of a cow, she decided to name the opening: "The Cow".
Another explanation of the name is the fact that the players' position is reminiscent of a cow, the knights being the horns.
The opening seems innocent and sweet, but soon your opponent will discover that he let you release your inner beast, playing the best chess you've ever played in your life.
The Cow, like any other opening, has its masters. Of course, one of them is the creator herself, WFM Anna Cramling, but there are some other names on the list.
Hikaru Nakamura
We all know him and we all love him, there is no need for any historic details, but for the ones who live under a rock, Hikaru Nakamura is an American Grandmaster, Streamer, Youtuber, and Five-time U.S Chess Champion. He is also one of the best chess players in the world, as of writing this (May 2025).
- #2 in Standard Chess (first being GM Magnus Carlsen)
- #10 in Rapid Chess
- #3 in Blitz Chess
He also achieved the highest Bullet Rating (3570) and Blitz Rating (3408) on chess.com.
He made videos about The Cow, which helped increase the popularity of the opening a lot. Here are some examples of interesting videos that he made related to the opening.
And now, one of my favourites, where he analyzed a game that Anna Cramling played, and her opponent, who was a GM, PLAYED the opening against its creator, in an OTB Tournament! Pretty crazy, right?
Also, according to chess.com, he is the top player who uses this opening the most, with over 292 games played using it.
So, it's quite clear that he helped popularize the opening a lot.
Eric Rosen
Eric Rosen is an American International Master and content creator, who also made content about the opening, popularizing it a lot. Here are some of his videos about the opening:
Again, a big content creator who helped popularize the opening.
Tyler1
You might ask yourself if you don't know who this is, "HOW IS THIS GUY A MASTER OF THE COW?". Well, if I were in your place, I would have asked myself the same question, but if you play League of Legends or you are very active in gaming communities, you should know him. Tyler Steinkamp, or known online as Tyler1, is an American Streamer and Professional League of Legends player.
How did he get into chess? Well, he was invited to participate in Pogchamps 5, where he got...destroyed. He had a rating of 200 on chess.com, yet he managed to get out of his group, however, his success would end soon because in the Championship Bracket, he played against I Did a Thing( Alex Apollonov), where he lost 2-0.
When most people get embarrassed in chess, they usually quit or start cheating(which you shouldn't do), but Tyler isn't like most people. He decided to play chess a lot, around 10 HOURS PER DAY, and reached a 1900 rating. That means that he is better than 99.8% of chess players in the world, which is impressive considering last year he was rated 200. His graph is insane, you should take a look at it:
Also, what opening did he use? The Cow, because of its simple theory, has almost non-existent and solid game style. So, as I said in the beginning, if you want to play a simple chess opening, you should play this one.
2. The Actual Opening
Here is where you can find almost everything essential about the opening! The Cow is a meme chess opening system, which means that it can be played by both black and white, created by WFM Anna Cramling. It is characterized by a piece setup that remains most of the time the same regardless of the opponent's moves. The setup involves placing the central pawns on d3 and e3, respectively, d6 and e6, and developing the knights to b3 and g3, respectively, for black, b6 and g6.
How do you play this opening, you may ask? It's very simple; whatever your opponent does, you play this series of moves for white.
From here, there isn't much theory, but I will show you how to continue from here with white and black.
Even though this opening doesn't have almost any theory, it does have some ideas, these being:
- Confusing your opponent - if your opponent isn't familiar with this setup, you have a better chance at winning.
- Avoid heavy opening theory - some openings like The Sicilian have A LOT of variants, while this one has almost none
. - Developing minor pieces - helps in creating quicker attacks.
- Create a passive yet solid position - which can later transition into an aggressive stance.
So, is this a good opening for Bullet, Blitz, and Rapid? Yes, it is. Is it good in Classical games? I honestly wouldn't recommend it since your opponent has a lot of time to think and has a better chance of winning.
How You Should Position Yourself: White
Now, you need to know how to create a threat using this opening. Firstly, let's start with white.
It might look like there's a lot of theory, but this is just me explaining basic moves related to The Cow, which is basically all we can call theory.
How You Should Position Yourself: Black
What if I want to play the opening for black? Well, it's easy .
Note for the reader, there are many more possibilities here, but I showed you only some of them, since it's tough to find theory for an opening that has almost no theory( so yes, you got tricked, these lines aren't theory, this is just how I would recommend you to play against some popular responses.) The same thing applies to playing the Cow with white, too.
Model Games
We've reached the most interesting part of the blog! There will be 3 model games, 2 for white and 1 for black. These will be:
- Tyler1's Game (with white)
- My Game (with white)
- Kumaresh's Game( with black)
These games will show you the usual play with the opening for both sides, from high-rated to lower-rated players.
Tyler is one of the most interesting chess players, he's got an aggressive play style, where he doesn't focus on theory; rather, he plans his future moves for the game, being a scary opponent to face.
I will present you with one of his best games, his win against his highest rated opponent, @FlyingHoda007, at that time being 2139.
Was there chaos in this game? Of course it was, Tyler played it! The game was quite equal until the endgame, where we went for a rollercoaster ride with this game .
Now it's time for my game! I played it recently, more exactly 2 days ago, as I'm writing this blog, in an OTB Tournament where I only played the Cow. The Results? Great, I got 4.5/5 and managed to get 3rd place at U14 and 1st place at Boys U14!
The game I played was in the 3rd round of the tournament, against a girl whose name I will not say her name, for obvious reasons.
A great opponent who knew how to respond to the Cow! Great game!
Now, you may ask, who is this Kumaresh guy? Kumaresh Ayyachamy is a prosperous Indian Candidate Master who was born in 2004. He plays the Cow especially in online tournaments, such as the Titled Tuesday. He played this game against Russian FIDE Master Viktor Neustroev.
Considering this was a blitz game, the quality was really good! Good game by both players!
Extra Stuff
We've now reached the final part of the blog, where I will tell you about other sources to explore for more information about the opening, award my thank you's to special people, and provide the outro of the blog.
Resources for Further Analysis
This opening is quite new, so it doesn't have many sources for further studying, but I'll give what I could find:
1. KaspaChess - Play Anna's Cramling Cow Opening Against Everything
2. Attacking Chess - The Cow Opening and How to Play
3. Stack Exchange Chess - Theory behind the Cow Opening
@Charmander - helping me with remaking my model game, thanks bud
@VOB96 - same reason as my last blog(for helping me with how to structure my blog)
Blogchamps - for being such a great community and helping me with analysis, thumbnail, and many more.
Anna Cramling - for making this majestic opening, which is overpowered in blitz.
You, the reader, for reading my work
Everything must come to an end, this being the end of my post, yet don't worry! I will still make more blogs to entertain and educate you about different openings and other stuff. I hope you enjoyed me yapping about a meme opening, and I will see you soon on my next blog.
~@squirtle
