reversed caro-kann

my last bit of chess for the day, now i go read a book...i'll come back later.

this opening arised from a mouse-slip. i know people call king's english opening a "reversed sicilian" and i intended to play english opening here but due to a mouse-slip, i played c3 on accident and got a bit of a reversed caro-kann.

i've been trying a more aggressive approach recently and decided to bring queen out super-early. any way, i am listing this under "checc openings" and not "game showcase" because my main question is whether this opening has an official name or not other than a reversed caro-kann.

if u play Qxd4, its a reversed scandinavian, not a reversed Caro Kan...

"if u play Qxd4, its a reversed scandinavian, not a reversed Caro Kan..."

interesting...i thought qxd5 was also a variation of the Caro-Kann as well...

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5!?

Any way, i asked this question about qxd5 once in a question i asked a guy who i consider to be my trainer this summer and he said qxd5 is a line in the caro-kann but he's only a 1400 himself. a solid trainer though (even if opening theory ain't his thing) and under his tutelage, i've increased my own online rating on one site by about 300 points.

i did look this up though after some reading (non-chess related stuff) and saw this was called the Saragossa opening.

any way though, i just looked up the wiki article on the saragossa opening and you are correct.

"[1. c3] is not a terrible move, however, because it is likely to transpose to many solid systems, including a reversed Caro-Kann Defence or Slav Defense (but with an extra tempo for White); the Exchange Variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined, after 1.c3 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.cxd4 d5; to a solid but passive type of Queen's Pawn Game after 1.c3 Nf6 2.d4 or 1.c3 d5 2.d4; or to a reversed Scandinavian Defense after 1.c3 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4!? Nc6 4.Qa4; as well as the Ponziani and Center Game openings, to name just a few."

I might try playing this opening a bit more though. It's almost like the English (which I used to play but kind of abandoned and now I've been having difficulty with recently.

In the Caro-Kann White already has a pawn on e4 so with colors reversed you'd have to do something weird like 1.d3 e5 2.c3 e5 3.d4 to actually get a Caro-Kann reversed. You can get Caro-Kann postions from other openings too but that's just confusing and Black isn't forced to go into any of this stuff. 

"In the Caro-Kann White already has a pawn on e4 so with colors reversed you'd have to do something weird like 1.d3 e5 2.c3 e5 3.d4"

I don't think so. A reversed opening (when played by white like the reversed dragon, etc.) is essentially the same thing but with an extra tempo for white.

The normal dragon would be...

The reversed dragon would be...

So if white plays a reversed Caro-Kann, white is going to end up with additional tempo as well.

"You can do the same thing with the open games ( 1 e3 e5 2 e4 Nf6)"

Why move the e-pawn twice as white and claim this is just as "effective" as a black opening. That's not the point of a reversed opening. The whole point of the reversed Sicilian and other such openings is that white is playing this with tempo.

Yes but it's not often possible to do this and when it is, it typically occurs by transposition from another opening. For example, you can get reversed French postions with an extra tempo by playing the English too but it takes a lot of cooperation from the opponent to get into them. 

In your example while 1...e5 is fine, 1...d5 could lead to some kind of d-pawn opening instead of the Scandinavian or Black could just play ...Nf6 and avoid putting other pawns in the center altogether. Reversed postions can appear after 1.c4 in particular because you can set up your pawn structure in Sicilian structures without needing specific moves from the opponent. 1.f4 is another example that can get you reversed Dutch defense postions with an extra tempo almost regardless of what Black does.

@Post 7

Actually that position is not a reverse Caro Kann.

The position is still yet defined.

Depending on what black plays next might change the position into a Queens Gambit Declined.

Same position can be reached by another move order.

Queens Gambit Declined, Exchange variation.

A Reverse Caro Kann would look something like this:

Yeah I call that the Reverse Caro Kann, Karpov variation.

X_Player_J_X,

Thanks for the clarification as usual. And though I temporarily closed my account prior to your post on the GPA, I was able to go through your blog on that as well and it was greatly helpful and cleared a lot of my confusion up as well :D

Thanks for also showing what a reversed Caro-Kann looks like as well.

I quite like the idea of getting an opponent into the highly respected exchange variation of the queen's gambit by such an odd route!

"Reversed postions can appear after 1.c4 in particular because you can set up your pawn structure in Sicilian structures without needing specific moves from the opponent."

Not exactly...you do need e5 to be played somewhere in there by black. Otherwise, you can go into other lines within the English (Anglo-Dutch, Anglo-Scandinavian, etc.) and that would not be a reversed Sicilian/King's English.

Ironically, if black plays 1. ... c5 and white follows up with 2. e4 in the Bird opening, that actually becomes a Sicilian and not a reversed Dutch. Black would have to play d5 somewhere in there in the Bird opening for it to become a reversed Dutch. If Black plays 1. ... e5 against white's 1. f4, white could actually follow up with 2. e4 and that would be a king's gambit.