Punishing the Ruy Lopez
Chess is a game full of openings. There can be many traps in the beginning of the game that starts the downfall of the player who fell for the trap. The opening that is chosen determines the opponent's chance of winning the game or not. So, if white were to choose the Ruy Lopez, here is how to make them lose in style!
Origins of the Ruy Lopez
The Ruy Lopez is a standard opening for white that is started with the moves as follows:
As you just saw, that is the Ruy Lopez, better known as the Spanish opening. It originated around the 16th century by Ruy Lopez de Segura, a Spanish priest.
Image of Ruy Lopez de Segura
There can be a large number of lines and theory in the Ruy Lopez. The first recorded chess game featuring the Ruy Lopez opening was played in 1803 between Hermann Victor Hesse and an unknown player.
Some Ways White could Win with the Ruy Lopez
In this game, White executes a cool mate that Black should have been more aware of while playing.
In this game, White took the chance to attack Black more and soon ended up with Bxf7#.
These games do show that White can start a great attack in the Ruy Lopez as you saw. Both games ended up with Black getting mated as the end result. To punish these common attacks, it is time you should get the win by starting your own attack!
Black's Attack
To start our attack, we will first have to see if the opponent plays the Ruy Lopez, and if the opponent does, here's what to do!
The Variation I like:
The Steinitz Defense:
First, play a6, kicking the bishop from b5.
If your opponent takes the knight on c6, I suggest playing bxc6 because you will prepare to play d5 with the support of the c6 pawn.
If the bishop retreats to a4, you will play d6, the idea is to develop your bishop on c8 and also to support the e5 pawn. Once your opponent castles, you will play Bg4, pinning the knight on f3.
Here's where things can go wrong for white. If white play h3, intending to kick the bishop out, you have a very nice move. That is h5.
If white doesn't take the bishop and play c3 with the idea to play d4, here's how to counter. We will play Qf6, a multi-purpose move.
Generally, the idea is to castle queenside and have a crushing attack on the kingside. Right now, white in the position would play d3 instead. Now, we can't play g5 because we lose a pawn.
Now white will start to get annoyed from the pin our bishop has on it, so they will put their unpinned knight onto d2 in order to defend it. But we can take advantage of that move because it blocks the c1 bishop. Now we can play g5 because the bishop view from the pawn is locked.
White here could play Re1, but now we will go for a pawn storm on the kingside, so we will play Bd7! From here, we have an advantage, and we will have checkmate sooner or later!
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This concludes this blog! Thank you everyone and have a great day!
Image of Ruy Lopez de Segura