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!

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!

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.

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.

... is very old, despite its name (ca since 1920-ish ?), and doesnt give up on playing for center control at all either.

For example in the Kings Indian, assuming white gets the c4, d4, e4 and possibly even f4 center, you play for the breakthrough d6 and then either e5 or c5.

Your crab opening does, though. You give white ample time to completely dominate the center with both pawns and officers.

White will play d4 or e4 in the Crab?

It is no different vs. other Hypermodern Opening.

I have a lot of different Crab opening games which I have played.

I have been to busy to do the annotations of each game, but I can show the games if it helps people understand.

A lot of people are coming to this thread thinking “Oh, you are just showing a joke line which is -2.0 according to engine. No one should play that line.”

What if a person does play the line with the intension of playing it to the best of their ability?

Do you know how to win as black? Or do you need computer engine to tell you how to win?

Its actually not as easy as people are making it out to be.

I have faced very strong players playing this line to see what they would do.

I will even show you these games were I lost or swindled a draw.

We are talking about 2k rated players.

It’s not that easy

The next game I want to show you is how the Crab Opening System gets destroyed!

The next game is the only game I have ever had so far where my opponent crushed me into total dust.

It was a 1 sided game.

According to a computer engine the following game review was given:

I was playing the Crab Opening System, but I was playing very strong.

My opponent was just playing on another level.

Now here is the crazy part my opponent plays 6…Qd6

Its the most amazing move I have ever seen so far.

My opponent wanted to defend the e5 pawn, but my opponent didn’t want to play Nc6 because it would block the C pawn from moving so he defends with his Queen to keep the C pawn mobile.

My opponent had the most amazing Queen maneuvers in this game.

His Queen went from d6 to c6 to e6 to f6.

It was the most amazing and decisive game I ever saw.

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I was planning to rematch the player again.

I thought I could learn from my above game errors and try another crack at him, but sadly a week after my opponent account was closed with the below message.

Amazing!

I don’t know what happen, but he was very good.

I was hoping to get revenge.

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All you have to do as black to beat Crab Opening is have amazing Queen maneuvering skills.

I don’t think most people will find it.