A Whale of an Opening

The Whale (1. e4,e5 2.c4) doesn't seem like that bad of an opening. However, is is truly good? By the way, this opening kills the non-live Medium computer:

It's not forced but if you try it against the computer, the computer will almost always play Ke7 and afterwards, always plays the line that I showed. That's why I called it a forced mate. Your accelerated mate was pretty clever though :).

Yeah, 2...Ke7 means that the coders got something wrong.

I don't think this is that good of an opening. White immediately accepts a backwards d-pawn and commits to spending an inordinate amount of time preparing d2-d4 to fix this. For me, this doesn't show enough respect for white's initial advantage.

One thing I'll say about this opening - it creates a BIG hole on the second move. I've played a lot of Alekhine's defense where e4 and c4 are both played early, and, in Alekhine, you can often exploit the hole on d4 because your knight on c6, your bishop on f8, your queen, and your c pawn are staring RIGHT at it. The same thing applies here except that White doesn't have much compensation for the weakness - with Alekhine, you get tempos and black's knight ends up on a stupid square. 

Beware of that big gaping blowhole or you're likely to be harpooned. 

Porpoise gambit deserves to get canned:

2. c4? is a terrible move. It fails to develop a piece, blocks White's light-square bishop, and hands d4 to Black.

It actually isnt that bad of a move.  I used to play iy when i was a USCF C player, and time after time, my opponent would play Bc3, giving me the doubled pawns.  But i got the bishop pair, open b-file, and the c3 pawn covered the d4 square.  It proved highly successful.

I_Am_Second wrote:

clunney wrote:

2. c4? is a terrible move. It fails to develop a piece, blocks White's light-square bishop, and hands d4 to Black.

It actually isnt that bad of a move.  I used to play iy when i was a USCF C player, and time after time, my opponent would play Bc3, giving me the doubled pawns.  But i got the bishop pair, open b-file, and the c3 pawn covered the d4 square.  It proved highly successful.

Yes but if Black plays sensible moves like 2. ...Nc6 and 3. ...Bc5, White is clearly worse.

This is terrible logic.  I can name several openings playable against Class C players that are bad.

Your opponents' ...Bb4 with the idea of taking on c3 is illogical because White is not weak on the light squares.  Let's see... White has weak dark squares.  Exchange our dark squared bishop for his knight which is protecting light squares??  You can't depend on your opponent to make dumb choices if you're interested in objectively reasonable chess.

By the way, 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.e4 e5! gets played at master level even though Black is losing a tempo.  The justification is the weak dark square complex.  This Whale on the other hand gives Black the dark squares for free.

It doesnt have to make sense, the point was that it worked :-)

You're probably rght since you're so much better than me in terms of raings but I think White can squirm out of it:

Thanks for pointing out this opening's weakness and expanding my knowledge guys :D.

3.f4 is the only move that looks bad because White won't be able to castle or put any pressure on the f-file. Getting a bishop to c4 would be nice but pretty hard to pull off here. I tried 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.f4 a few times and managed to not lose but the weaknesses on the dark squares were hard to deal with. Maybe you can figure that out.

After 2.c4 however the "weakness" of d4 is not really tangible. 

Black can play ...Bc5 but at some point White will plug that "hole" with Be3, shrug his shoulders and be content with an even position. Since e7 isn't a great square for the bishop it can go to b4. I think Black captures on c3 and generally does one or two things:

a) play for ...d5 and get pawns on e5 and d5 or active pieces for the bishop pair

b) play d6, get the pawns on dark squares and play ...f5

What is White doing? I have no idea... It looks to me like an open game with an extra pawn hanging out there and although it seems a lot easier to find stuff to do with Black I don't think White is in trouble or anything.

how come white can't castle after f4? My previous post responding to GreenCastleBlock shows a line that seems to make sense and allow castleing.

Your idea is for White to play Na4 and exchange off Black's Bc5, but Black doesn't have to allow that.  He can meet 7.Nc3 with ...a6 instead of your ..O-O.  Even if he doesn't do that, and castles allowing 8.Na4, Black doesn't have to play 8...Bb4+.  It looks like Black can chop on f3 and then play ...Bd4.

Titan's idea of playing Be3 without f4 (in order to take back with pawn on e3) is a somewhat better way of playing it, but if Black can respond by safely dropping a knight into d4, he will have an edge.  (Even if this isn't possible for some reason, Black could just chop on e3 and be content that he's traded his bad bishop off for White's good.)  White can play to neutralize Black's edge by attacking d4 with pieces and exchanging until Black is forced to take with a pawn.  But is this really the approach you want to take in the opening when you have the first move?

That's OK so long as it isn't labelled "tuna."

The Tuna Gambit is:

What, Tuna can't have a Vector as they swim?

8... Bd4 is met with Nxd4. a6 can be met with:

It's definately not great but it does look playable.

I have played English opening my whole life and now use the Whale variation almost exclusively now.  My reason is basically because it is a good opening to lock up the center and play slowly on the wings.  I can castle kingside, fiancetto white bishop, and have less fear of pushing F-pawn if center is locked.  And even push G and H pawns for full kingside pawn storm in the right circumstances. 

The obvious criticism of this opening is the instant hole at D4.  But this is overly simplistic. It should be acknowledged that every single opening has inherit weaknesses you must defend.  In the Whale you basically present that weakness immediately and then build around it. 

For one thing the trade-off of the weak D4 square is that white is attempting to clamp down on the D5 square.  Often both sides get a Knight or Bishop to the strong square and then they both are taken and you end up with a big doubled-up pawn knot in the middle, which again I like because I prefer a slow game on the sides of the board and the pawn storm possibilities. 

Also, before dismissing this opening, understand that it often transposes to a very tried and true Botvinnik System type of opening.  The pawn structure of C4-D3-E4 is known as a "Botvinnik Triangle" because he used it often.  Botvinnik was world champ from 1948-1963 seems like I can't go wrong copying him. 

Also, apparently Botvinnik considered himself a relatively weak tactical player and more of a long-term positional planner.  I can relate to that and therefore I like to simplify the game and lock the center as much as possible, especially playing blitz.  I am a 1600 casual player so obviously I have no business delving into the thinking and theory of grandmasters like Botvinnik, but rather my point is that even us low-level chess chumps can try to incorporate ideas from the greats. 

The three other reasons I like the Whale is: 1) If I don't get the pawn to E4 immediately then Black might always push forward immediately to E4 themselves, and then I'm trying to develop my D and E pawns around that.  2) In the past when I played the English it usually ended up in some type of King Indian game and my white bishop felt in the way at E2 or D3.  Now my white bishop is fiancettoed right away.  It might end up a passive defensive piece if center gets locked, but at least it is not clogging my other pieces.  3) In English opening there are several variations where you end up with a separated Queen pawn, and then that is your major liability you are guarding.  In the Whale it seems like if this pawn gets isolated it is easier to trade off.  These three reasons made sound silly to a better player, but for me I know what kinds of games I personally am comfortable in, and the Whale usually gets me into a comfortable games where I at least have a chance to get into the middle game.

Lastly, here's a couple resources : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiRJJpEhkSs&t=1018s

https://www.chess.com/article/view/english-opening-botvinnik-system

Here's a wild game where the Whale wins.  Shootout where white beats black to the punch by getting knight to D5 first.   https://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/2008730/rnbqkbnr/pppp1ppp/8/4p3/2P1P3/8/PP1P1PPP/RNBQKBNR%20b%20KQkq%20c3%200%202