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I am starting a new topic where we can post recent(-ish) games played by higher rated players using Unorthodox Openings. The first game is the Orangutan Opening: Baltic Defense: Tournament: Norway Chess Blitz 2023 - Chess.com Game: Round 4 - Firouzja, Alireza vs Giri, Anish (1-0)

Blitz chess with the Grob Opening makes for some very fun games. These are my two best wins with it in live chess last night. The first one features an epic king march!

How about this unorthodox opening? 1.a3 g6 2.g4

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1. Sodium Attack. This opening is mainly used, I believe, to allow Black to have the center while White takes the flanks. Here is a game where I played it, but could not continue the set-up due to his takng my knight. I barely managed to scrape out of this one with my life. 2. Kingside Pawn Storm. I have never actually heard of this opening, though I use it occasionally in Bullet games, as it is very aggresive if they can not parry it in time. It also grant, virtually immediately, massive King-side space, which ends up giving me a passed pawn and a won game. But the time got to me. 3. The Grob. I was hoping for an ordinary Grob, but my opening mistake on move 4. left me with a bad set-up. I thought I would rampage my pawn, but instead, I sold it and my LSB for a bad position. THIS IS NOT AN EXAMPLE OF HOW TO PLAY THE GROB! If anything, it is how NOT to play it!

Im going to start creating tournaments themed with a different opening every couple of months. if your interested in joining any of these future tournaments and/or wan to learn more just comment saying your in or interested. If you want to join a specific themed opening, comment the number(S) and ill remember you from this post. G=Gambit, Var=Variation ?=Tournament not decided/Started 1. Grob: London Defense ? 2. Norwalder Gambit? 3.Tortoise Opening ? 4.Lizard Defense? 5. Wolferts Gambit ? 6.Modern Defense Randspringer var ? 7.Hobbs gambit ? 8.Sicilian Action Extension? 9.Mad dog attack ? 10. Ruy Lopez: Vinogradov variation ? 11.WILD Muzio Gambit ? 12.KGA Fischr D. Spanish Var? 13. KGA Viennese Var ? 14. Veresov Attack Shaviliuk G ? 15. Somov G ? 16. QGA Billinger G ? 17.Rat defense Libson G ? 18.Sicilian Big Clamp Form. ? 19.Slav D Anti-Wiawer var? 20. Spanis Game, Classical, Wing G? 21.Spanish Game Kecskemet ? 22.Double Duck Form ? 23.Van Geet St. Patrick's attack ? 24.Van Geet Hergert G ? 25. Herrstrom Gambit? 26.Omega Gambit ? 27. Chigorin Defense Costa's line ? 28. QG Refuse Queens attack ? 29.Amazon Siberian attack ? 30.Spanish game nightingale ? 31. Alekhine the squirrel ? 32. Ruy Lopez Graz Var ? 33. Reti opening Michel gambit ? 34.Bird Siegener ? 35.Crocodile Variation ? 36.Dresden opening The Goblin ? 37.Dutch Manhattan G Anti-Leningrad ? 38.Double Grob ? 39. Quelle G? 40.English Rat Pounds G? 41. KGA Australian G? 42.Double Muzio Young G ?? 43. KGA Middleton G? 44.Lobster G ? 45.Spanish Game Halloween Attack ? 46.Russian Game Moody Gambit ? 47.Mexican Defense Horsefly G? 48.Modern Defense Dunworthy Var ? 49.Modern Defense Semi-Averbakh Polish Var ? 50. Larobok var? 51.Regina Nu G? 52. Zuketort Drunken Calvary ? 53.150 attack inner doll var? 54.Van Geet WarSteiner G? 55.Van Geet Damhaug G? 56. Trompowsky Hergert G #2 ? 57.Italian game: Hungarian defense? 58. Lopez opening? 59. Trompowsky Borg Defense? 60. Budapest G. Lenear Line? 61. Zodiac Defense?

What is a difference between orthodox and unorthodox? I don't know. I just know that I feel like I should say it here, because this opening feels like it needs some more awareness. Mexican defence, known also as Mexican tango or 2 knights tango, is a very rare and theoretically unknown defence for black. It is simple and easy to use and unlike most offbeat openings, it is perfectly sound! This opening starts with 1. d4 Nf6 going with 2... Nc6. What is it's use? While this opening is not that sharp, it is not toothless. Simply because it is incredibly versatile. You can transpose to many openings, most commonly to KID. How to play this opening? White has an immense amount of choices here. He can for example go for 2. c4. In my experience after 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 Nc6 came 3. d5 most often. Against this I usually play 3... Ne5 with fighting against the overpassed pawns like in Alekhine. Unlike Alekhine the positions aren't that sharp though. Whatever White plays, I hate it when he plays 3. Nf3 or 2. Nf3. Against this I usually transpose to stuff like Chigorin defence to Queen's gambit, because I am deprived of the possibility of 3... e5. When I am allowed 3... e5 though... Sharp fights always starts smelling in the air! I know no theory about this opening, so I will say no more. In the second topic I will just present how can it look like when your opponent not only allows e5, but even e4,which any reasonable d4 player should know as an inexcusable mistake!

Courtesy to "The Power of Chess", we have the following new games available for our group members to join! Team Vote Chess - Saragossa Opening (1.c3) Team Match - Grob Opening (1.g4) For the Team Match, we would like to see 30-40 people join the match. In any case, we are planning on locking the roster sometime next week. Come test your Unorthodox skills on the chess board and show The Power of Chess who's really boss when it comes to these esoteric openings! Zucan

I will be gradually making adjustments to the group as I dust off the cobwebs and bring some life back to the group. Here are some of the things on my short list: Change the background and group avatar picture. Remove all the Notes and put something meaninful about what this group is about. Start looking for additional Admins. I will post a separate forum posting in the next week specifically about this topic. Recruit new membership! In order to make this group more interesting, I would love to see forum topics started on things like the following: Chess News relating to an Unorthodox Opening. Post an interesting Unorthodox Opening game you played. Puzzles relating to the group. I am guessing this type of puzzle might focus more around a trap that gets triggered in an Unorthodox Opening. Of course, how can we not talk about opening game theory as well! Game collections - discussion about how you manage your game collections, where Unorthodox Opening type games can be found for download, etc. Suggestions, comments and constructive critiques are welcome... post them to this thread! Zucan

http://www.chess.com/tournament/be-very-ware-y join here. For those who don't know, the opening starts with A4. The mirror image is the Desprez opening (E4) which is not in the chess.com tournament database (or else I would have made that one also as a corresponding tournament)

I'm a big fan of 1. f4, the Bird opening. It's quite effective in one-minute bullet games!

Why dont we play blitz games with unorthodox openings and see how it turns out? I played this just now and the opening is anderssen hippo attack. http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=731863764

We love to walk 1.f3! We are revolutionaries in chess theory! We have a new way of thinking! Forward with a special group!

This is the reverse of modern defence which looks quite promising. It can be started with Benko's 1.g3 or Mieses 1.d3 openings.

Earlier tonight, I continued my unorthodox streak by taking the strangeness even further with the Hammerschlag (1. f3) and it's black counterpart, the Barnes (1...f6), which is also known as the Fried Fox. I played two mini-matches with a couple of folks in live chess, winning both with +6/-2 in the first and +10/-5 in the second. My first couple of games began with me trying to play the openings in the same style as the Hippo (my favorite of them all). The first one ended with a win for me through a lucky breakthrough at the end in a lost position, but the second one ended in total disaster for me when I not only willingly opened multiple roads to my king, but then didn't defend them properly. Thus, as shown below, I got wiped off of the board at the end. If you saw my king march in the Grob game in my post a couple of days ago, then I think you'll be happy to see that His Highness came through again, helping to hold everything together after a very rocky start. Trouble on the h file yet again here where I think I defended well enough until the end when I let that outside passed pawn advance a bit too far. Last one. Near the end, I had a little hiccup due to my low time, but I managed to get it together in the end. The start of it featured an all-out assault by Black that I barely managed to fend off.

Finally making it into a diagram :)

A slip of the mouse made me play 1. d3 instead of 1. d4 and I thought, why not bring out the king. Looks like an interesting win!

WHO HERE LIKES THE BONG-CLOUD!?!?!?!

Hello all! As the news bulletin has stated, this month's opening is the Elephant Gambit, 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5. I encourage you all to join the team match and vote chess games (once these seeks are accepted, you'll get a message about it). Has anyone here had experience with the Elephant Gambit? I must say I'm quite new to it, but I want to learn more!

It looks awesome: