The Pyramid Opening


The opening is useless and quite frankly, should never happen because Black has better moves. The whole idea is hot garbage!
1.c3 e5
- OK, but 1...d5 is stronger.
2.d4 Nc6?!
- 2...e4 or 2...exd4 are both major improvements for Black
3.e4 d6
- Useless and passive. 3...d5 maintains equality, though Black is better via a different 2nd move for Black.
4.f3
The e1-h4 diagonal is very weak and both Knights are deprived of their best square.
White's position stinks!

The c3 and f3 pawns are robbing White's knights of their strongest development squares. Plus, the f3 pawn has the added drawback of weakening White's kingside.
If you're trying to figure out a clever way to develop, don't think so much about shoving around pawns. Instead, think about rapidly developing your pieces.

Formation that are symmetrical (K-side <=> Q-side) are usually poor ideas anyway, because the King and Queen are not equivalent pieces and they will ruin any attempt at a tidy symmetry.

Formation that are symmetrical (K-side <=> Q-side) are usually poor ideas anyway, because the King and Queen are not equivalent pieces and they will ruin any attempt at a tidy symmetry.
Definitely true. Even in lines where both sides double fianchetto, usually the c-pawn will advance and the f-pawn will not.

It's a funny opening. I don't want you to get discouraged, because this is somewhat playable.
Black will play d5, and after dxe4 we have d5 and Qa4+ for the follow-up.
But since you're creating structural weaknesses, you're going to have to be playing precise 20-move lines to be able to hold this. I think it's mainly because f3 creates a queenside-castling system, and you've also opened up the other diagonal to the king. So black can create a monster bishop.

Considered that these are flat pieces, wouldn't it be called The Triangle Opening instead?
Agreed. It should be called the triangle opening. I've seen the pyramid opening on some chess meme channels. It looks cool but it's bad in practice.

Saragossa is a bad opening. Best you can hope for is playing Caro a tempo up. Now why would anyone do that unless its for laughs?
I guess that pyramid makes sense. You have a lot of development but the opponent has thier queen out. That could be a problem.