Openings: The English

Introduction

The English Opening

c4 - This move fights for the center, like any other reasonable pawn move in the first move, but one move has a lot of meaning

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Variations

The most usual response to this opening is e4:

So what do you do now? Well it may seem like a regular opening - the English, but one of the key things is that it's not the most played opening, that means people have less experience playing it, and of course, that's not the reason this opening is the best, but if you play with strategy you can CRUSH opponents, here is a game I played using the English:

Now, this opponent of course, played poorly, but he also did not develop correctly, this allowed my pieces to take advantage of his. His knight - when it went to d7, it was not well placed, because it was not attacking anything important.

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What you should do when you are black against The English 

In this puzzle below, do what move Black should have done:

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This move is correct because then the knight would not allow my pawn to proceed and make the trade.

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What you should do playing the English (White)

You want to develop your pieces and trade your d pawn and e pawn so that you have a clear center, I mean like you have one pawn in the center (c4) and they have none

Now in this position, you have one pawn, your c pawn attacking the center (d5) yet they have no pawns in the center because you have traded them, so you have more force in the center than your opponenet

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What else should you do?

Well, you can do what you usually do in the game, develop, attack, trade, castle, but this is the setup I like in an English game: you have one pawn in the center, and they have none

This is what the English can sometimes get you, more force in the ceenter.

So, this is why I recommend the English opening, but, I will be posting more blogs about which openings I think are best:

The next up?

Sicilian Defense!