Start here/Read once, use forever
How openings actually work
Openings are not a list of moves to memorise. They are twelve or so ideas, reused in different orders. Learn the ideas and you can reconstruct the moves.
There are only three things happening in every opening ever played: the fight for the centre, the race to develop, and the question of where the king will be safe. Every move in this course is one of those three, or a preparation for one of them.
The rules the whole course is built on
- Fight for the centreA piece in the middle of the board touches more squares than the same piece on the edge. Pawns on d4/e4 (or d5/e5) take squares away from the opponent's pieces before those pieces even move. You can occupy the centre with pawns, or control it from a distance with pieces — both work, and the difference between those two philosophies is the difference between the Queen's Gambit and the King's Indian.
- Develop with purpose, knights before bishopsGet a new piece into the game every move. Knights first, because a knight's best square is usually obvious on move two while a bishop's depends on where the pawns end up. Never move the same piece twice in the opening unless there is a concrete reason — every repeat move is a free move for your opponent.
- Castle early, usually before move tenThe king in the centre is the single most common cause of a lost game below master level. Castling also connects the rooks, which is how they enter the game at all.
- Do not bring the queen out earlyAn early queen looks aggressive and simply loses time. Every developing move your opponent makes chases her, and you end up three moves behind with nothing to show for it.
- Attack a pawn chain at its baseA chain of pawns is only as strong as the pawn holding it up. This one idea explains the French Defence, the King's Indian, the Advance Caro-Kann and half the positions in this course.
- Every advantage is paid forSpace costs flexibility. Extra material costs time. A strong bishop costs a weak colour complex. When you see a move that looks free, look for the bill.
How to use this course
Pick one opening for White with 1.e4 or 1.d4, one answer to 1.e4, and one answer to 1.d4. That is your whole repertoire — three openings, not twelve. Step through each variation with the arrow keys until you can predict the next move before you press it, then read the plans card underneath and try to explain the position out loud in your own words.
Do not memorise past the point where you understand. A player who knows six moves and the reason behind them beats a player who knows twenty and no reasons, because the second player is lost the moment the opponent deviates — and the opponent always deviates.
The vocabulary you need
- Tempo
- One move's worth of time. If your opponent has to move a piece twice because you attacked it, you have won a tempo. Gambits are the purchase of tempi with material.
- Development
- How many of your pieces are off their starting squares and doing something useful. Rooks on their original squares do not count.
- Pawn structure
- The skeleton of the position. Pieces move; pawns mostly do not. That is why the structure determines the plan — it is the part of the position you cannot take back.
- Outpost
- A square in or near the enemy camp that cannot be attacked by an enemy pawn. A knight on an outpost is often worth more than a rook.
- The bishop pair
- Having both bishops when your opponent has one bishop and a knight. Worth roughly half a pawn, and much more in open positions where the bishops have long diagonals.
- Bad bishop
- A bishop trapped behind its own pawns on the same colour squares. The French Defence's light-squared bishop is the most famous example in chess.
- Prophylaxis
- Stopping your opponent's idea before they have played it. Moves like h3 and a3 look like a wasted tempo and are often the strongest move on the board.
- Minority attack
- Advancing two pawns against three to force a weakness. The defining plan of the Exchange Queen's Gambit.
- Isolated queen's pawn (IQP)
- A d-pawn with no friendly pawns beside it. A weakness in the endgame and an attacking engine in the middlegame — whoever has it must attack now.
- ECO code
- The catalogue number for an opening (A00–E99), used by every database and book. Useful for looking up more once you have chosen a repertoire.
Reading the board cues
Every move in this course is annotated the way a good coach or a book like Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move would: not just what was played, but what it does. Under each move you'll see an On the board line — generated by a chess engine, so it's always accurate — telling you what the move attacks, defends, and which squares it controls. Turn the arrows on (the button under the board) to see the same information drawn on the pieces, chess.com style:
- A green arrow is the move just played.
- A red arrow means the moved piece attacks an enemy piece on that square — a capture or a threat.
- A bright red arrow is a check.
- A blue arrow means the move defends one of your own pieces that was under attack.
- A dashed amber ring marks a key central square the piece now controls — the quiet, positional part of a move.
The aim is Fine's and Chernev's: once you can see why a move is played — what it hits, what it guards, what it fights for — you stop memorising and start understanding, and you can find reasonable moves even when your opponent leaves the book.
Reading the notation
Files are lettered a–h from White's left, ranks are numbered 1–8 from White's side. Pieces are K (king), Q (queen), R (rook), B (bishop), N (knight); a pawn move is written with no letter. Nf3 means a knight moves to f3, exd5 means the e-file pawn captures on d5, O-O is castling kingside and O-O-O is castling queenside. A move written 3...Bb4 is Black's third move; 3.Bb4 would be White's.