Chess Openings

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

• King's Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.f4
• Ruy Lopez 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5
• Vienna Game 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3
• Giuoco Piano 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5
• Evans Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4
• Petrov's defence 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6
• Philidor's defence 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6

• Alekhine's defence 1.e4 Nf6
• Caro-Kann defence 1.e4 c6
• French defence 1.e4 e6
• Sicilian defence 1.e4 c5
  • Open variations 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 followed by 3.d4
  • Closed variations 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 not followed by d4
• Centre counter 1.e4 d5 (also called Scandinavian defence)
• Pirc defence 1.e4 d6 (may also be played against 1.d4)
• Modern defence 1.e4 g6 (may also be played against 1.d4)

• Queen's Gambit accepted 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4
• Queen's Gambit declined 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6
• Slav defence 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6

• Dutch defence 1.d4 f5
• Benoni defence 1.d4 c5 or 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5
  • Benko Gambit 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5
• King's Indian defence 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7
• Grünfeld defence 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5
• Nimzo-Indian defence 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4
• Queen's Indian defence 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6
• Budapest Gambit 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5

• Réti opening 1.Nf3, often followed by 2.c4 or 2.g3
• English opening 1.c4
• Bird's opening 1.f4

Aggressive playstyles, and are quick to launch attacks, play gambits, or offer sacrifices. Others prefer quiet positional play, normally spending many turns building up a strong position before launching any attack.

Whether it is using the good old pen-and-paper method or entering your moves in a program like Chessbase, it is essential to document everything important that went through your head during the game.

If you thought for 5 minutes to a certain variation, write that down, your evaluation during the game and why you chose other line instead. Some such lines might happen to prove better than your move in the game.

It is best to do this step immediately after the game. Otherwise, you might quickly forget ideas.

Try to identify the key moments of the game The skill to identify the key moments of the game is of first importance. In these positions, you usually decide about your next plan of play, your TO DO list for the next series of moves, what your opponent wants and how you can avoid that with minimum effort. And more...

Key moments of the game are, for example, when the pawn structure changes, your opponent starts an attack, a critical weakness appears, and so on. When you analyze your game, you should evaluate if you identified correctly all the key moments of your game.

Explain the reason of your essential moves (your plan) A couple of examples: • "I played Nb3 here because my opponent had a weak square on c5, where I intended to put my knight next. This will create a force superiority on the queenside." • "I played e4-e5 to close the center with the idea of a following attack on the kingside. The TO DO list of the attack was: 1. play h4 to get control over g5, 2. play Ba2-b1 to create queen + bishop battery, 3. play Re1-e3 to bring the rook in attack on g3" etc.

The majority of beginners, but not only beginners, play "aimlessly" and often choose bad plans. Finding the right plan of play is one of the most difficult aspects of the chess mastery but without a good understanding of the chess strategy it is "like shooting in the dark a bow and arrow and hitting a bull's eye".

In our chess course, Grandmaster Package, we thoroughly teach chess strategy, how to evaluate any position and formulate good chess plans. The course goes for one year but you learn a ton from the very first month.

Apart from trying to objectively evaluate the quality of your play, these steps of game analysis give you a second chance to try finding the right plans and new possibilities afterwards. This allows you to improve your positional understanding and strategical vision.• Analyze the opening in great detail. Compare your game with the theory. Analyze whether you felt comfortable in a certain line and see what you could have done differently. • Check the games of the strong players to see what they did in similar positions (tools such as Chessbase and/or game databases make all searches relatively easy). Try to identify the positional patterns in the position and check the validity of your plans and the accuracy of your evaluation. • Examine new possibilities and strategical ideas. You may even play training games starting from a certain position with a suitable partner. • Ideally, you'd like to do everything mentioned above using your own brain and moving the pieces on the board by yourself. Alas, this step can often be rather time consuming. For instance, a legend says that grandmaster Robert Hübner used to analyze a single game for two weeks. Non-professional chess players are rarely able to devote huge amounts of time to work on chess in general, let alone to the analysis of the single game. What is there to do? Well, as usual, technological advances come to the rescue in form of chess computer engines and databases. Which brings me to the following point.

Identify the reasons behind your mistakes After analyzing your game in great detail, you are hopefully able to detect the mistakes and identify the reasons behind them. This makes the task of eliminating them in the future much easier.At the end, draw the most important conclusions of your game analysis.

Games

1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Bd7 4. Bxd7+ Qxd7 5. O-O Nf6 6. Nc3 e5 7. d3 h6 8. Bd2 Be7 9. Nd5 Nxd5 10. exd5 O-O 11. c4 b5 12. Qb3 bxc4 13. Qxc4 Qb7 14. Qb3 Qxb3 15. axb3 Nd7 16. b4 Rfb8 17. Rfe1 cxb4 18. Nd4 exd4 19. Rxe7 Nc5 20. Rexa7 Rxa7 21. Rxa7 b3 22. Bf4 Rb6 23. Ra8+ Kh7 24. Rd8 Nxd3 25. Bxd6 Nxb2 26. Bc5 d3 27. Bd4 d2 28. g3 d1=Q+ 29. Kg2 Qxd4 30. f4 Nd3 31. Rd7 Qe4+ 32. Kg1 b2 33. h4 b1=Q+ 34. Kh2 Qbh1# 0-1

1.d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Bf4 Bf5 4. e3 e6 5. a3 Bd6 6. Nf3 O-O 7. Bd3 Nc6 8. Bxf5 exf5 9. Bg5 Be7 10. O-O Ne4 11. Bxe7 Nxe7 12. Ne5 Nxc3 13. bxc3 Rc8 14. Qb1 b6 15. Qb5 c6 16. Qa4 Rc7 17. Rab1 Ng6 18. f4 Qe8 19. Rf3 Qe6 20. Nd3 h6 21. Qb4 Rfc8 22. Re1 c5 23. Qb5 Qc6 24. Qxc6 Rxc6 25. dxc5 bxc5 26. Rg3 Ra6 27. Ra1 Ra4 28. Nb2 Re4 29. Rd1 Rb8 30. Nd3 Rc4 31. Ne5 Nxe5 32. fxe5 Rxc3 33. Rf3 Rb2 34. Rxd5 Rcxc2 35. h3 Rxg2+ 36. Kf1 Rh2 37. Kg1 Rbg2+ 38. Kf1 Ra2 39. Rxc5 Rh1# 0-1

1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Qxd4 Nf6 5. Bf4 Nc6 6. Qa4 e5 7. Nxe5 Qb6 8. Nxc6 dxc6 9. Be5 Ng4 10. Bd4 Bb4+ 11. c3 Qxd4 12. Qc2 Ba5 13. h3 Ne3 14. fxe3 Qxe3+ 15. Be2 Be6 16. Nd2 Bb6 17. Kd1 O-O-O 18. Bg4 Rxd2+ 19. Qxd2 Rd8 20. Bxe6+ fxe6 21. Qxd8+ Bxd8 22. Kc2 Qxe4+ 23. Kb3 Qd5+ 24. Kc2 Qxg2+ 25. Kb3 Qd5+ 26. Kc2 Qe4+ 27. Kb3 b5 28. a4 bxa4+ 29. Rxa4 Qd5+ 30. Kc2 Qxh1 31. Rc4 Qg2+ 0-1

1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Nd7 4. Ng5 Nf6 5. Qf3 h6 6. e5 dxe5 7. Ne4 Nxe4 8. Qxe4 Qc7 9. O-O a6 10. Ba4 e6 11. Nc3 Bd6 12. d3 O-O 13. Bb3 Nf6 14. Qh4 Be7 15. Re1 Nd5 16. Nxd5 exd5 17. Qg3 c4 18. dxc4 dxc4 19. Ba4 b5 20. Qxe5 Qxe5 21. Rxe5 Bf6 22. Rc5 bxa4 23. Rxc4 a3 24. c3 Rd8 25. Kf1 Be6 26. Rc5 Rd1+ 27. Ke2 axb2 28. Bxb2 Rxa1 29. Bxa1 Rb8 30. Kd3 Rb1 31. Rc6 Rxa1 32. Rxa6 Rxa2 33. Rxa2 Bxa2 34. h3 h5 35. g4 hxg4 36. hxg4 Be6 37. f3 g5 38. c4 Kf8 39. c5 Ke7 40. Ke4 Kd7 41. f4 gxf4 42. Kxf4 Kc6 43. Kf3 Kxc5 44. Kf4 Kd4 45. g5 Be5+ 46. Kf3 Bf5 47.Kg2 Ke3 48. Kf1 Bd3+ 49. Kg1 Kf3 50. Kh1 Bf1 51. Kg1 Bg2 52. g6 Kg3 53. gxf7 Bd4# 0-1