Crab Opening - For Beginners!

Ladies & Gentlemen,

I am happy to report my Crab Opening Study is approaching the end.

I am here to share the power of the Crab Opening with the Chess World!

The Crab opening is extremely unorthodox and very unusual.

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However, I have been doing some work on this opening to make it very beginner friendly.

I think it can be very fun, interesting, annoying for your opponents, and it could shock them!

The Crab Opening isn’t a very popular opening which means if you play it your opponents might be completely confused on what to do!

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I have also made a Study Diagram to show you the moves to play and I gave explanation so you can understand why your playing those moves.

I will also be showing more games which I have played with other players to give beginners an idea of what to do in middle game.

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I recommend the Crab Opening to beginners 1,400 or lower!

If you feel like having fun, Give it a try!

Lets showcase a game with Crab Opening:

I will post the diagram below so you can sort off see the position we are aiming for.

Now lets see how the above position happens in a game!

At move 6, The Crab Player (which is me in this case) has reached the starting Crab position similar to the above diagram

Observe, the above game starting at move 7, The Deadly Pincer like Knight moves begin!

White idea is to Play the Knights to b5 or g5.

The a4 & h4 pawns are the starting moves which characterizes the Crab.

Look at how the a4, b3, h4, & g3 pawns are acting like Outpost helping enable the Knights to jump into the squares and attack the opponent from the side in a Pincer like Attack!

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Observe how my opponent didn’t want my Knights jumping in so he played prophylaxis moves to stop the Knight evasion a6 & h6.

These moves did stop my Knights for temporary, but they also created weaknesses in Black position which I later exploited!

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.

I see that you have been playing a few games with this opening - and you seem to be having some success with it, despite the engine evaluation not liking it Presumably it dislikes anything like this that it hasn't seen before.

Definitely will try it!

No

I have worked the chess booth at the local Renaissance Festival for some years and I have seen "The Crab" played a bunch of times against me, usually by people who play Rh3 or Ra3 next and then my Bishops go to town and the rest spirals downward into comedy.

@Post #6

When I tried researching information about the Crab, I saw a lot of outrageous things.

People had videos/recommendation similar to what your saying.

They played Random Rook Lifts.

They did a lot of lets say “Stupid Stuff”.

The players treated the line as a joke and played it as a joke.

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I also saw videos were players would play a4 & h4.

Than they would try to play the white position normally down 2 tempos.

Some of them would even play a London sort of set up even though they have 2 pawns on a4 & h4. It really didn’t make much sense.

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The way I wanted to approach Crab opening was a lot more serious and honest.

I wanted to justify the a4 & h4 moves.

I wanted them to be part of a strategical element in the position.

I was very happy about coming up with the idea of using the a4 & h4 pawns as temporary outpost to help facilitate Knight evasions.

If the Opponent didn’t want to face these evasions, they would have to make weakness in their own position to defend the squares.

What do you have to lose?

You might actually have fun and win some games!

or I can actually win a chess game with out being a stupid cheese. Chess is not fun because its frustrating.

It is just bad.

Do I expect Grandmasters to play Crab?

No, but we are talking about beginners.

It is a viable line for them.

The problem is that top GMs sometimes play garbage like this and then others start to follow along, like when Nakamura played 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5. We've come a long way from the days when Alekhine apologized to the chess world for playing the Ben-Oni.

Every opening is viable for everyone. That's not a real hurdle.

On the other hand, teaching nonsense to beginners is very bad. Beginners know nothing of chess, so they may easily believe you. If you can't help, at least you should try to do no harm.

The Hippopotamus is better.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106728

I think we have different view points on how to teach beginners.

I think the line I am showing would be from the hyper modern school of learning.

bro this crab opening is NOT A GOOD OPENING

Have you ever played the Crab opening?
Don’t be fooled by its looks.

You're completely giving up having any center, so you'll be extremely crammed.

Its certainly a fun opening for Hikaru to show off his chess skills against weak opponents, but for beginners I would recomment something thats open.

The Classical School of Chess teaches players to attack the center with pawns thru pawn occupation to gain an equal share of Center Space.

The Hypermodern School of Chess teaches players to attack the center with pieces thru long distance piece pressure with a goal of counterattacking the center with a pawn at an inconvenient time for the opponent.

Both styles of chess are considered viable.

The Crab Opening I am developing here is what I would call a System type opening that is following the HyperModern School of Chess.

I have been playing the Crab opening on different chess websites to get a good blend of players and a fairly even distribution of ranking levels to see how players handle facing the Crab at different ranking levels and on different chess websites.

The Crab opening despite its unorthodox appearance isn’t a very easy line to actually take down.

Unless, a player is using a chess engine or has some how managed to memorize all the moves to play as black.

im not sure about this opening in the long run though