First published in 2006 by Gloucester Publishers plc (formerly Everyman

Publishers plc), Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1 V OAT

Copyright© 2006 John Emms

The right of John Emms to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a re­
trieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic,
magnetic tape, photocopyin� recording or otherwise, without prior permission of
the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN: 1 85744 4191

Distributed in North America by The Globe Pequot Press, P.O Box 480,
246 Goose Lane, Guilford, CT 06437-0480.

All other sales enquiries should be directed to Everyman Chess, Northburgh House,
10 Northburgh Street, London ECl V OAT
tel: 020 7253 7887; fax: 020 7490 3708
email: [email protected]
website: www.everymanchess.com

Everyman is the registered trade mark of Random House Inc. and is used in this
work under licence from Random House Inc.

EVERYMAN (HESS SERIES (formerly Cadogan Chess)

Typeset and edited by First Rank Publishin� Brighton.

discovering
chess
open1ngs
•

building opening skills from basic principles

EVERYMAN CHESS
Gloucester Publishers pic www.everymanchess.com
Contents

Symbols 4

Introduction 5

1 Central Issues 7

2 Introducing Development 15

3 King Safety 46

4 Delving Deeper 60

5 Pawn Play 118

6 Chess Openings in Practice 17 4

Solutions to Exercises 230

Glossary 244

Index of Openings 247

+ check
!! brilliant move
good move
!? interesting move
?! dubious move
? bad move
?? blunder
1-0 The game ends in a win for White
0-1 The game ends in a win for Black
Vz-1/z The game ends in a draw
Discovering Chess Openings

ing logical moves and, in turn, appropriate replies to these moves. The idea was to
find out how players with little or no knowledge of opening theory but with some
understanding of general opening principles would fare when confronted with an
opening position they knew nothing about.
This concept really appealed to me. The traditional approach had been to carefully
go through the mainline openings, taking measures to explain the reasoning behind
each move, but somehow it seemed so much more beneficial (not to mention more
fun!) to watch the students trying to work out the best moves of their own accord;
basically, trying to recreate opening theory! It was fascinating to revisit well known
positions with players whose views were not influenced by previous knowledge;
this definitely brought a certain freshness to their ideas. On the other hand, some
suggestions that were made did reinforce one or two common misconceptions
amongst improving players, and I've included these in the book to emphasize what
we should be particularly looking out for.
This book has also given me the opportunity to expand on a number of topics which
arose when I was writing Concise Chess, a general guide for absolute beginners.
These themes were too advanced for that book, so I was happy to be able to include
them in a more suitable place.
Finally, a brief paragraph about how the book was written and what it contains. The
first three chapters introduce the three main ideas behind opening play:

1) Control of the centre

There are other important concepts, but as far as I can see these are usually just sub­
sets of these three. Chapters 4 and 5 delve more deeply into these themes, with the
latter chapter concentrating on the role pawns play in the opening. Finally, in Chap­
ter 6 we take all the ideas of the previous chapters and see how they are used to cre­
ate modem opening theory.
Whilst many mainline openings can be found within these pages, not everything
under the sun is covered. As I've already mentioned, it was never the intention to be
encyclopaedic. Perhaps I've indulged a little more in 1 e4 e5 openings, and if so I
make no excuses for this. In my experience, these are the first openings that many
newcomers learn, so they are likely to come across these more frequently than other
openings in the initial stages of their development.
I think I've said enough. I hope you enjoy this book and wish you the best of luck
discovering chess openings!
John Emms,
Kent, July 2006

6
Introduction

The study of chess openings is difficult and never-ending. It's like Pandora's box:
the more you study, the more there is to learn; and the more you learn, the more
you realize how little you know. If that's the opinion of someone who's been trying
for nearly 30 years to get to grips with openings, how does a newcomer to chess
find this ever-spiralling science? Intimidating, or is that too mild a description?
So what is an aspiring player supposed to do? Although not strictly relevant here, I
can't help but be reminded of one of Bobby Fischer's famous quotes. On being
quizzed over chess lessons, Bobby Fischer advised his biographer and founding editor
of Chess Life magazine, Frank Brady, (tongue-in-cheek, I'm sure): 'For the first lesson,
I want you to play over every column of Modem Chess Openings, including the foot­
notes. And for the next lesson, I want you to do it again.' Of course it goes without
saying that opening encyclopaedias are an important part of chess literature, but I do
wonder how I would have found the experience as a junior player of ploughing
through the latest volume of intense opening theory. A bit bewildering, perhaps?
This book is a bit different and is mainly aimed at those who know nothing or very
little about chess openings. It's also for those who do know some moves of opening
theory, who have happily played these moves in their own games, but are perhaps
not quite sure why they play them! One of my main aims was to give the reader
enough confidence to face the unknown; to be able to play good, logical moves in
the opening despite in many cases having a lack of concrete knowledge of the the­
ory. After all, even in grandmaster games there comes a point when one or both
players runs out of theory and has to rely on general opening principles, and some­
times this is sooner than you would think.
The initial inspiration behind Discovering Chess Openings stemmed from coaching
sessions I did with some young students not experienced enough to have any real
knowledge of opening theory. After revising the basic principles of opening play, I
decided as exercises to give them a number of positions from typical openings, often
only three or four moves deep into the game. I then let them spend some time find-

5
Chapter One

Central Issues

What is 'the centre'? Okay, I admit this sounds a silly question, but even so I'd be
happier if I were able to confirm one or two definitions here. 'The centre' is very
often considered to be simply the four squares highlighted in the diagram below:
e4, d4, e5 and d5.

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

This definition, however, has always seemed a bit restrictive to me. I think you
lose something if you say these four squares are the centre, everything else isn't; I
don't think it's as black and white as that (excuse the pun!). For this book's pur­
poses I'd like to expand the centre a little to include the squares c4, c5, f4, f5, d3,
e3, d6 and e6 (see the following diagram).

7
Discovering Chess Openings

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

I'd be the first to admit that these extra eight squares aren't quite as important as
e4, d4, eS and dS, but they still carry some significance and so I think it's right to
include them here.
Why is it important to pay attention to the centre? Why not ignore the centre and
play only on the flanks?
Good questions! One or two further answers will crop up later on in the book, but
for now I'd like to give the following arguments:
1) Let's use an analogy between chess and some other sports and games (chess has
been described as many things; just for the record, I would classify it as a mind
sport). In soccer, for example, I often hear commentators using phrases such as,
'Control the midfield and you control the game.' Something similar could easily
be used to describe a game of chess. For one thing, if you control the centre then it
should be easier for you to access all sides of the board.
2) Chess pieces are generally more powerful, more mobile and thus more influen­
tial when placed in the centre of the board. Put simply, they are able to control
more squares from the centre.

Piece Mobility
I think the second point is best illustrated by using the example of the knight.
Let's place it in the centre of an empty board, say on the e4-square.

(see following diagram)

On e4 the knight is controlling eight squares; it's performing to its maximum ca­
pabilities.

8
Discovering Chess Openings

Answer: Perhaps unsurprisingly, in the corners of the board (a1, a8, h1 and h8).
For example, a knight on h1 controls only two squares: f2 and g3. It could be said
that here the knight is performing to only a quarter of its capabilities.
I should point out that the difference in mobility isn't as dramatic when we are
talking about the long-range pieces: the queen, the bishop and the rook. For ex­
ample, on the e4-square the queen controls 27 squares on an empty board; in any
of the four corners this number is 21. This is only a 22% reduction in mobility,
comparing very favourably with the knight's 75%.
Question: Which piece has the same mobility regardless of its placing on an empty
board?
Answer: The rook: it controls 14 squares whether in the centre, on the edge or in
the corner.
Just staying on the subject of piece mobility a little while longer, I recall when I
was much younger being shown the following position, one that made a lasting
impression on me:

8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

a b c d e f g h

Black's knight cannot move without being captured; it's totally dominated by the
bishop on d4. I remember former British Champion Chris Ward using the term
'corralling' here, which I think sums it up quite nicely.
Let's try switching the pieces around.

(see following diagram)

The bishop still prevents the knight from moving safely to four squares, but be­
cause the knight is in the middle of the board it has four other squares available:
e6, f5, f3 and e2. You could even say that the knight dominates the bishop more

10
 Centra/Issues

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

Now let's see what happens when the knight is placed on the edge of the board as
in the next diagram.

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

On this occasion, instead of eight squares the knight controls just four: g1, f2, f4
and g5. You could say that the knight is only playing to half of its full potential.
The knight's reduced power on the edge of the board has led to the well-known
and probably overused adage: 'Knight on the rim is dim!' (Some annotators re­
place 'dim' with 'grim', but you get the picture.) I've learned, sometimes from
painful experience, that it's often very dangerous to generalize in chess-there are
some occasions where a knight performs a heroic job on the edge of the board-
but even so this is a guideline that's worth remembering.
Question: Where on the board does the knight control the fewest squares?