Openings: King Pawn Openings
I have been reading "Winning Chess Openings" by GM Yasser Seirawan and it has been teaching me lots of openings and variations. In this blog, the positions reached and the comments in diagrams are taken from what I have learned in the book. Some of the diagrams do not explore long variations. The idea is to learn common positions that openings can lead to early on. All openings here proceed from the King Pawn Opening (1.e4 e5). The openings explored in this blog are:
(2.d4) The Danish Gambit and the Center Game Openings
(2.f4) the King's Gambit
(2.Nf3) Petroff Defense, Scotch Game, Italian Game, and the Ruy Lopez
Variations of the Italian Game and the Ruy Lopez are more widely explored.
Let's look now at the most popular opening sequence in chess, the
King Pawn Opening: 1.e4 e5
2.d4, The Danish Gambit and the Center Game Openings:
Now that we've explored some options where White attacks right away in a King Pawn Game with 2.d4 or 2.f4, let's look at the main line move of 2.Nf3 and see where it can lead...
(Petroff Defense)
We now look at some popular openings after 2.Nf3 Nc6:
The Scotch Game, the Italian Game, and the Ruy Lopez
The Scotch Game:
The Italian Game:
...continuations from 3...Bc5: (Evan's Gambit, Giuoco Piano)
The Max Lange Attack:
Continuations from 3...Nf6: Two Knights Defense and Traxler Gambit
The Ruy Lopez: